1-2-10: Beyond desktop

(Oh! Naiveté! A laypersons notes on revolutionizing UIX)
1. Tagging / metadata. – Non-hierarchal storage system. Mandatory (semi-automatic) tagging system. Tags used to enable following spatial recall / gestalt grouping / temporal arrangement. (Spotlight / Google Desktop Search / OpenMeta)

2. Portal – Extension of metaphor of cloud computing. device becomes access to cloud-based data. thin-client via internet. No saving / opening / closing files. All changes are automatically, atomically applied to the storage system(s). Can revert to any point using a versioning system (time-based?). (Time Machine – subversion)

3. Spatial memory – Ability to recall location relative to current position. Use extremely granular geotagging. Continuously update shortcuts to media and applications used frequently / recently in the current location. How to affect this without actually shifting objects around on the user’s computer? (Google – Lattitude service)

4. Temporal Recall – Remember when something was last used, rather than it’s location or name. Objects arranged in groupings of time periods.

5. Gestalt grouping – Assembling similar objects together. Objects may have several, overlapping group memberships. Incorporating the with above concepts.

All of these serve to augment the user’s capacity for recall and act as an extension of their memory. Inverting the data push into pull would extend senses and awareness of environment beyond natural abilities.

Guiding concepts:
Maeda’s Basic Laws of Simplicity:
Reduce / Organize / Minimize (or obscure) Time

From Bill Moggridge: when redesigning an existing system, state-of-the-art is a good place to start with and extend from.