Theme by nostrich, altered by Tyches.
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Since the advent of graphical environments, the desktop metaphor has become the core of the modern computer experience. It is the very first thing a user will experience of his computer. It is also the least spoken about, and quite underrated.
The desktop metaphor presents a number of interesting side-effects inferred from its very design, or rather non-design. Being a bunch of icons of any kind that can be placed in any way on any background it is essentially a sandbox, precisely like a physical desk. As such, a desktop eventually ends up being very personal.
Everything starts with the background. I swear the first thing - or close enough - anyone has been taught on a modern computer is how to change the desktop background. For newcomers to the digital world, this feat alone provides both a sense of achievement and make that bland, beige or grey thing a familiar place to come back to. “I can master this thing, I can make it mine”. Instant - although partial - relief.
Somehow though, the sense of privacy is being skewed when people use computers. As a consequence, I have been shocked numerous times at how intensely I have been assaulted by a sudden jump into someone’s privacy, projected on a wall in all its 3x2 meters glory.
At a glance, a desktop can give a lot of insight about that person. Are the icons lined up? are they snapped to a grid? are they sorted by kind, name, date? are default or unusual settings in use? are they grouped manually? are they covering the background? From the position, grouping, ordering, or absence of icons down to the kind and name of what they represent is a showcase not of someone computer’s mastery but of his thought process. And for decades since the desktop era, I couldn’t help but notice that the vast majority of users digital desktops are a mess.
Now, computers being made to help you achieve tasks, and the desktop being so emphasized, you have to ask yourself: how is your desktop integrated into your workflow? This is an important question, because this is all about reducing friction. Just as the digital desktop took inspiration in the physical world, take a look at your real desk.
My physical desk is minimalist, up to the point that I do not need a dedicated desk at all. It serves as a temporary workspace, a short-lived sandbox. It fulfills my spatial requirement for the task at hand. My digital desktop is no exception and shares the same workflow. If I ever begin to steer away from that workflow and use my desktop as an inbox, or a permanent storage space, a huge mess ensues in a very short time span.
So, whatever your workflow is, keep your desktop true to it: it’s very little overhead to reap huge benefits in the end.
