My posts on Macintouch.com

My favorite site about the Macintosh is Macintouch.com. I visit it almost every day and I also enjoy sharing my thoughts and opinions on it by submitting emails which most of the time are published in various "Reader Reports". Lately, I've brought up issues and submitted comments on Mac OS X. Here was my latest submission as it was published here (2nd from the bottom):

I'm no usability expert but as an ordinary user, I find that with Column view, navigating to a file or folder is slower and more difficult — even after having been forced to use it in Open/Save dialog boxes for 8 months now.

I've tried to analyze why and here's what I've come up with:

1. Once you start scrolling horizontally to move up or down the folder hierarchy, you easily lose track of which column and folder is currently selected
2. Too many focus areas for navigation: (1) 'From' or 'Where' pop-down menu, (2) left column, (3) right column, and in Open dialog box (4) 'Go to' field
3. Layout is too busy and cluttered — user sees lists of files and folders of at least 2 hierarchical levels at all times


4. Even with the new ability to type to jump to items beginning with whatever was typed, the result is often not as desired because determining where you're at is difficult and confusing and/or the focus is on, say, the 'Go to' field instead of the dual columns

All of these work to impede the user's ability to efficiently navigate to a desired file or location.

In contrast, with List view there's only 1 focus area so you instantly know where your keyboard and mouse actions take place — you don't have to first figure out where exactly you are, then take action. Also, when navigating up the hierarchy in List view, you only see the path back up to the root which aids navigation by clearly showing you your organizational structure (and not all the files and folders at each level). List view is the way that all computer users, even Windows users, for over a decade have been accustomed to — seemingly for good reason.

I propose that Apple add the option to use the traditional List view instead of Column in Open/Save dialog boxes.

Am I the only one that feels this way about Column view?

Posted by derek at March 21, 2003 11:52 PM