View Single Post
  #25  
Old 02-05-2006, 03:54 AM
srdiamond srdiamond is online now
Registered User
 
Join Date: 11-23-2004
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 126
I think I see what UR is missing that would be very easy to implement and make it vastly easier to use for most people. On the other hand, the feature I envision could be one I've simply missed.

Let me give just a little bit of analysis. If people have a database of thousands of infoitems, and they say they are finding the hierarchy cumbersome, are they talking about navigating to any of thousands of points in data space? I don't think so. If anyone really had the need to access points at random, so that each one had an equal likelihood of being accessed at any time, they are going to have navigational pains no matter what they use, short of artificial intelligence. Most of the time, at any one time, most people are navigating to one of a fairly small number of items.

Which items are those? They fall into two different groups. There's a number of "favorites," items the user will continue to consult, at least in the intermediate term.

The other group are those infoitems the user has recently consulted. A recently consulted item will generally have an elevated probability of being consulted again. Taking account of this, browsers have 'history,' not just favorites. History is different from 'go back.' History is preserved over restarts. And it's what it seems to me UR needs and doesn't have, and it would solve a large percentage of presently reported "navigational" problems.

Basically, UR does NOT have a usability problem. It is the most usable product in the field. With this simple addition, it seems to me usability for this kind of product will pretty much asymptote. At this point, imho, UR development should focus in incrementing its power, not its usability, which is or will be as good as it gets.

Last edited by srdiamond; 02-05-2006 at 04:00 AM.
Reply With Quote