4 ms·

File systems and file browsers are just never going to be easy for users to understand. That's why Apple is slowly but surely hiding them entirely from "beginn

File systems and file browsers are just never going to be easy for users to understand. That's why Apple is slowly but surely hiding them entirely from "beginners"/"people who don't care to learn how to use their tools". Microsoft's solution is more akin to the way animal researchers teach apes to recognize arbitrary symbols. It's a subtle and pernicious form of vendor "lock in", because when you try to move those users away from their comfort zone in Outlook or Windows Explorer, they feel lost. Personally, I think Microsoft and "people who can't be bothered to learn their tools" deserve each other.

mmatants 15y ago
This. Files and folders are not an optimal paradigm for this stuff. Partly because even real files/folders are not a "civilian" thing, especially now. Plus, there's typically just one level of folder nesting in the real world. The actual user story is always: find what I'm looking for. Google got it right with GMail and informal searching - screw manual organization. Power users should be able to set up structures, but typical computer folks don't need that.