13 Jun 2003 | rjs said...

I can only clearly read the names of the 3 front-most documents, and even that is difficult because the text is warped. It's also hard to get a clear idea of how many documents exist at a particular level (other than "a few" or "a whole lot").

Is this supposed to be useful?

13 Jun 2003 | Joshua Kaufman said...

From 3DOSX: Three Dimensional File System Browser:

The largest benefit to using 3DOSX as a general file system interface is in its localization features; the organization of files is very clear, and accessibility of those files is easy with a quasi-WIMP (Window, Icon, Menu, Pointer) interface. One is able to concentrate their tasks on the current working directory while still interacting with the rest of the interface.

Very clear? Hardly. From that screen shot, it's hard to see any clear hierarchy. How am I supposed to concentrate on my tasks when my desktop looks like the bottom of a pool? It makes me dizzy just thinking about it. ;)

I'm sure I've seen better implementations of the general idea, but I can't remember where.

13 Jun 2003 | p8 said...

I don't have a Mac so I can't test it. Is it really 3D or do the files on the circle just scroll in the 3D? What makes this better?

3D interfaces devices (like a 3D mouse) are usually a nightmare with or with out 3D vision. Except maybe for engineering 3D products or playing 3D games.

Is it easier to find a document on your computer or in the real 3D world?

Useit.com readers' Comments on 3D User Interfaces

13 Jun 2003 | Tim said...

Looks like it is just using a "floating disk in an Olympic swimming pool" metaphor to display the idea of directories. Personally, I could see this being detrimental...a step down from the simplicity of seeing everything laid out in folders. Why should I have to "spin the disk" in order to see all my files...i think it would be neat/interesting if the depth actually coincided with some sort of idea of relational files (or subordinate files), but currently, it looks like it is just "ok, instead of your application shortcuts being in a folder, they are on this 3d platter."

Reminds me, sort of, of this 3DNA Windows Desktop thing...where you can select or load "worlds" for your file organization...

13 Jun 2003 | p8 said...

Redesign in progress?
The comments area now fills the whole frame.

13 Jun 2003 | LukeW said...

Does this project need an interface designer? YES.

...description of ZoomWorld. Assuming access to "an infinite plane of information having infinite resolution," ZoomWorld raises you above of the tedious maze of file-systems, networked drives, and internetworked Websites, affording you a bird's eye-view of everything at your disposal. Zoom in on that sticky-note. Zoom out for a composite view of the project at hand.

That sounds useful to me.

13 Jun 2003 | p8 said...

Reminds me, sort of, of this 3DNA Windows Desktop thing...where you can select or load "worlds" for your file organization...

Or the Online Stores that were designed in 3D like real shopping malls.

Metaphores suck

13 Jun 2003 | eliot said...

Hmmmm.... this seems amazingly counter-intuitive to me. Emulating a 3d world on a 2d screen with 2d implements (mouse) is klunky and doesn't allow someone to move very quickly through files. "zooming in" on various files really isn't that fantastic. Having an indexed hard drive with fast searches (it's always amazed me that I can search through billions on faraway servers in mere seconds compared to minutes and hours on my own machine) would be far more useful.

13 Jun 2003 | p8 said...

... tedious maze of file-systems, networked drives, and internetworked Websites, affording you a bird's eye-view of everything at your disposal. Zoom in on that sticky-note. Zoom out for a composite view of the project at hand.

I guess it depends on the type of information, graphical or non-graphical and how things are ordered/grouped. If you are looking for that yellow sticky note it can be pretty easily spotted. But 1000 documents that look the same..
My desk is a mess right now. I can walk away or zoom in on stuff but it's still hard to find documents in big piles compared to explorer.

But what is the added value of 3D in this? Or will 2D or maybe 2.5D be enough.

Maybe something like MDS-i (interactive Multi-dimensional scaling) can help you find your way in the tedious maze of file-systems, networked drives, and internetworked Websites. Where basically things that are similar are placed closer too each other than things that are less similar. By zooming in on a item you get more examples of similar items.
But you don't need 3D for this.

13 Jun 2003 | kev said...

"I've never used this and can't see much from the screenshot - but it totally sucks"

13 Jun 2003 | Steve said...

3D heirarchies like this have always struck me as a solution in search of a problem. I don't know about others, but I don't find any difficulties with the two dimensional, tree-like file structure that's used by Windows, Mac and other interfaces today. I've never thought to myself "if only I could see this in more dimensions."

And I'd think of it that way even if interfaces for these things could work, which they can't. And probably won't. It's very difficult, if not impossible, to interact with a 3D paradigm in a 2D medium. And 3D video games don't disprove that. It's a misnomer to call those 3D. They're 360-degree, but it's still the player at a fixed point interacting with a flat surface in front of him. The surface just is spinnable and is scaled to create a 3D visual effect.

I could maybe see some utility for this sort of thing for something like mapping complex relational databases. But beyond specialized instances like that, I don't see the value.

13 Jun 2003 | Cade Roux said...

"for average user, and cutting-edge computer enthusiasts. It's obviously not well-suited to business or technical professions"

I would call a business computer user an average user - most people do the same tasks business users do - word processing, web browsing and stuff like that, maybe home users spend more time watching video, playing music and stuff. They don't actually spend a lot of their time browsing for files - so why does it need to be improved?

If this was an improved way of organizing and finding your files for each application, fine. That's what average users need - they don't need a complete desktop replacement. In fact there are already a lot of application tools (keywords in Word documents), My Music, My Documents, etc, but users DON'T USE THEM and application designers don't use them either. Why? Because it's not forced on them and they don't feel like thinking about it until it's too late and they already have chaos. I don't see where this metaphor is going to help people get and stay organized in the first place, which is actually the crux of the problem.

13 Jun 2003 | Steven Garrity said...

I'm jumping on the bandwagon here, but this quote from Nielsen sums it up well:

"It would be trivial to design a better interface than DOOM if the goal was to kill the bad guys as quickly as possible: give me a 2D map of the area with icons for enemy troops and let me drop bombs on them by clicking the icons. Presto: game over in a few seconds and the good guys win every time."

13 Jun 2003 | pb said...

Text is worth a thousand pictures.

13 Jun 2003 | scottmt said...

I've always planned on making a Windows killer 3D-OS where you can move into and around the entire desktop. geek fantasy.

Seems no one has heard of FSN, a file browser for IRIX.

http://www.sgi.com/fun/freeware/3d_navigator.html

as seen in jurassic park !! remember that scene ... ?

This one actually shows the relative sizes of the files, and the screenshots elude me but several view styles including birds eye and close up for single folder view.

16 Jun 2003 | dave said...

3D heirarchies like this have always struck me as a solution in search of a problem. I don't know about others, but I don't find any difficulties with the two dimensional, tree-like file structure that's used by Windows, Mac and other interfaces today. I've never thought to myself "if only I could see this in more dimensions."

Exactly. Not to mention that adding an additional dimension makes traveling to a specific "object" *more* time consuming. You no longer have up/down/left/right but in/out as well to think about. How does it make accessing things better/quicker? I find things like the "springy folders" that were profiled on this site a while ago confusing. Really, you need to condense the information down into fewer dimensions, not expand the concepts of "space" around the objects.

The tree browsing metaphor works great, has a track record of working on computers, and really doesn't need to be toyed with. Someone needs to figure out how to condense more information about an object into the visual representation of the object so more can be gleened from a quick glance. I have no idea how this would be done.. I can tell you that "3D" file browsing systems are not the way to do it tho...

16 Jun 2003 | LukeW said...

Ok, looks like we have a nice summary of why NOT to use 3 dimensions. But what about some reasons TO use 3D?

"When we're exploring on the Web, in some ways it even feels like we're moving around in a physical space... But the Web is missing many of the cues we've relied on all our lives to negotiate space: no sense of scale, no sense of direction, no sense of location."
-Steve Krug

"Many complaints about present systems are about trying to navigate. Partial solutions such as "favorite locations" in Web browsers have been created. But what we are truly better at is remebering landmarks and positional cues, traits that evolution has bred into us and traits that we can take advantage of in interface design."
-Jef Raskin

From Design Requirements for HyperMedia (1995):
"Provide an overview that communicates both qualitative and quantitative information" -Zoom in and out to get the level of information we need?

"Provide a sense of context" -see Krug's quote above.

"Show several different represenations of the information space."- why not one that is 3D?

"Provide a method to directly interact with the representations in order to move through the space." -Virtual tour anyone?

One last note... if a ZoomWorld type interface were applied to the 3DOSX linked to above, it wouldn't simply offer you a "fancy" way of viewing your folders and their contents. There would be no folders, per say.. but spaces.

28 Nov 2004 | click said...

3817 Very well said chappy.