Card Stack
Card stack is a prototype to view the file system in a quick and efficient way. We have different criteria on which we can view the whole file system . In our prototype each card in the stack represent a file . In our prototype we have used three different criteria to built the stack .
- Alphabetically the whole file system is sorted alphabetically and each stack has got a alphabet assign to it . In order to identify the file in the stack move the mouse to that card with in the stack ,it shows the file properties for the card (file) in the text box above.
- file type In this the whole system is sorted by the file extension.
- by date In this each year represent the stack ..
Report
In this assignment we were given three metaphors from which we were to chose one and implement file browser. The metaphors are as follows: Book Shelf, Star Chart, 3-D trees. These three methods all allowed the user to browse large amounts of information in a creative interesting fashion without being overwhelmed by the massive amount of data being displayed. The user was able to reorganize the data being displayed based on a few attributes of files. from this display general groupings of similar types of information can be picked out. The browsing can be further narrowed down by zooming in on a particular area of the display. Keeping the above functionality in mind we chose three criteria to help us decide which method we wanted to implement. One: is it technical feasible Two: is the method visually appealing and Three: is the method functional. The book self method was visually unappealing so this method was rejected because we thought the user interface must be interesting and enjoyable to look at. The star chart seemed interesting but the data is represented by small color dotes on the monitor which is not necessarily visually appealing, and the functionally can be confusing when narrowing down the search because dots representing files can be missed easily although great for an over all view. So the 3-D tree was chosen because it is more visually appealing than the other two methods and the data is organized for browsing sub sets of data efficiently.
From early on it was apparent that with visual basic objects, the
3-D look can be achieved to a certain degree of satisfaction but the movement
of 3-D file name labels could not be achieved. The ordering of the labels one behind
one another would be lost if rotation movement was introduced. We really wanted to
maintain the 3-D look and introduce some form of ordering on the files which would make it
easy to spot groupings of similar files. Keeping the name labels idea of putting one label
behind the other the idea of stacking cards one behind the other was born.
This approach produced a 3-D look and a method of ordering files of similar attribute type
in stacks. This method also produced an unexpected property of simplicity. The stacks of
cards produced a simple unconfusing look, the files were ordered in there place unlike the
star map were dots seem out of place. grouping of similar type files could be grouped in
stacks. The prototype was build with a test
data set of 220 files and functional stack groupings by type of
file, by date of file, by name of file.
Below are some of the concerns we have with this prototype.
- In visual basic were only able to implement 220 files due to the fact that in visual basic 4.0 only 250 control arrays can be created. This meant that seeing how this metaphor wouldstand up with 1000 files or 5000 files or 20000 files is still unknown
- color coding of files cards could have been implemented two show two dimensions of file attributes at a time.
- The background look of the form could have been worked on to enhance the 3-D look
- our prototype only showed groupings up to about 20 stacks, what if there were 100 groupings per display. the question is can 100 stacks be displayed at the same time on the screen ?
- what happens if there are 2000 files in a stack can the display show all theses files in one stack
- speed of sorting and redisplaying large amounts of data
Our view of the approach to developing a prototype to implement a file browser is that it is a creative processes that requires many prototypes. At the end of each prototype lessons canbe learned problem areas identified. A plane for the next prototype can be started. We leaned that this process is constrained by: technical knowledge of the programmers, the language used, the type of hard ware associated with the target machine and time. But most important we learned how
visually unappealing existing standard file browser are. The opportunities for improvement of existing
file browsing interfaces is very clear.
limitations
Prototype of the card stack has some limitation in the point of view that we cannot zoom in the stack and it will be the better if we use different colors in the stack to distinguish the files. The reordering of the files with in the stack such sorting by date or type should be better idea . we had some limitation with the no of files.
If you have any comments and suggestion please mail to Vicky shiv or Brian Sears