Desktop Metaphor
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Desktop Metaphor
The desktop metaphor has many shortcomings and is
generally inappropriate for an active reading machine. Describe
these shortcomings and give scenarios that make your point.
Metaphors are used in computer interfaces in order to aid user
to understand a new target domain by allowing them to comprehend
it in terms of a source domain they understand [
Baecker et al. 1995
].
In order to generate useful metaphors, Erickson points to note
what metaphors are already implicit in the problem description [
Erickson 1990
]. While for a
system intended for the general work realized in an office a
desktop metaphor seems a good option, it does not seem implicit
in the problem description of an active reading machine. Most of
the affordances [
Preece
et al. 1994
] of a desktop would not be used and the human may
be misled by the metaphor. Besides, the desktop metaphor is
useful because of its affordances to organize and realize office
tasks. Lets consider some of the often recognized affordances and
characteristics of a desk.
Desktop metaphor:
- It's based on a static piece of furniture intended for
organizing and storing.
- A desk it's not the direct container of information such
as a paper.
- A desk is not a thing that we normally consider
"portable".
- Sharing of information may imply giving a physical thing.
In the real world people do not give desks to other
people.
- A desk does not support directly the task of reading. In
other words, people usually do not red desks.
In summary, a desk typically implies a static piece of
furniture used for organizing documents. This is in the best
case, an indirect support for an active reading machine, an still
a composite metaphor would be required, since it would be very
difficult to find real world objects that fit the desktop
metaphor and represent intuitively the automated practices
provided by active reading machine. For the problem domain of
automating the practices associated with reading a metaphor that
allows the user transfer knowledge from a similar domain about
the actions and practices related with reading to the domain of
an automated machine for those actions. One of the real world
objects on which where text and graphics are most commonly
printed is the paper. Next section presents the advantages of
using a paper-based metaphor for an active reading machine.
Go to next section:
Paper-Based Metaphor
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