Feedback to new Files startup screen - and a case for showing all file types

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On 13.11.2012 11:54, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Monday, November 12, 2012 14:51:18 Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
>> Still I think a UI consisting of mostly empty space until you select
>> something is rather confusing, so I think what we should show is something
>> that tells the user "Choose a criterion by which to search and I'll show
>> you the results". Even just putting a message "Select a filter criterion on
>> the right or enter a search term above" in the main area which disappears
>> as soon as something is tapped/entered would be better than nothing. Or
>
> Marco and I considered this, actually, and after playing around with how to do
> it in reality ... decided against it for being too messy / ugly.

We have several UI and interaction designers here at the institute, I'll ask 
around if maybe one of them has an idea of doing this elegantly.

> Still doing research (will let you know once I have sth; handy to have a
> pschologist in the house who works in a dpt with lots of behaviorial psych
> research going on ;), though I suspect that if we get the "start from any
> criterion" part working, we may have (at least the start of) a decent
> solution.

Agreed. The "start from any criterion" part is definitely the more important one 
(also since it not only affects initial search/filtering, but the general 
ability to list files of all types matching some other criteria). The "blank 
sheet" issue will likely irritate users at first, but it's not an actual 
functional drawback. And the screen will likely look less empty with the full UI 
shown.

I'm looking forward to the research you'll dig up. Though I'm a psychologist as 
well, my current research is quite far from basic psychological topics. I'm sure 
we'll come out with something good in the end, as always :)