RE: Treeviews and project trees..

Treeviews are problematic for a number of reasons, several of which
are listed in the message below. But perhaps the most problematic are
that treeviews are often misused-- creating a false hierarchy where
no natural hierarchy exists-- and that they force users to memorize 
and navigate to arbitrary locations where objects are stored. They also
scale poorly for large collections of objects, and tend to force a single
organizing principle where none may exist.
 
Attribute-based retrieval (which Alan Cooper and I describe in Chapter
16 of _About Face 2.0_) addresses these problems by allowing
users to specify objects by pertinent attributes (size, type, date used,
keywords, etc) that are captured by the system or assigned by users,
and returns a sorted or filtered list of results.
 
Cooper designers have used this technique in combination with "natural
language 
output", a design pattern for constructing English-like sentences to specify
attributes
rather than boolean queries in a number of client projects that have gone
to market.  An example of this pattern is illustrated in AF2, and another is
described on page 14 of this case study:
 
<http://www.aiga.org/resources/content/7/6/2/documents/FORUM_calde_case_0321
0>
http://www.aiga.org/resources/content/7/6/2/documents/FORUM_calde_case_03210
2.pdf

--- 

Robert Reimann 
Manager, User Interface Design 
Bose Design Center 

Bose Corporation 
The Mountain 
Framingham, MA 01701 

 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: H Taylor [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Friday, August 13, 2004 4:36 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [AIGAExperienceDesign] Treeviews and project trees..



Hi Susan.

Good question, and one that comes up frequently in interface design, 
I'd imagine.

I, fo one, hate tree views. I find that I get very disoriented as they 
grow ever taller/longer (and I'm reasonably technically inclined). I 
think that the problem is partially that, as you expand one item, other 
options which are visually below the item you select but are 
conceptually peers, get pushed down out of view

I haven't yet come across a general "best practice"/design pattern 
replacement, but for file browsing, etc., I find the NeXT/OS X column 
view much more comfortable, because the peers of your last selection or 
two have at least a chance of remaining visible. This also depends 
somewhat on how much screen space you're willing to give over. But I 
find that I use the similar navigation option in the Eclipse IDE (Java 
Browsing perspective), which operates in a relatively small space 
(vertically).

- Hal


On Aug 13, 2004, at 10:48 PM, Susan-Jillian Smith wrote:

> Hi there.. does anyone know of some good resources on the design of 
> treeviews ? This is a topic that I am dealing with in a design for an 
> application that the users are finding too difficult to use - as they 
> are not technically inclined. They find the tree structure far too 
> confusing. What alternatives to a treeview do you have experience with 
> and found customers were comfortable using? What has been your 
> experience with the icons used in treeviews..are they a help or a 
> hindrance?
>
> any suggestions would be appreciated.
> thanks
> susan



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