Kitty Lam University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC, Canada. Anthony Sham University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC, Canada

Transcription

1 DeskQuest A Multiple-View System for Creating, Tagging, Searching and Grouping Personal Data Amandy Lai University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC, Canada amandylai@hotmail.com Kitty Lam University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC, Canada kittylam@gmail.com Anthony Sham University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC, Canada antsky@gmail.com ABSTRACT This document describes the design of DeskQuest a prototype implementation that replaces the conventional file folder hierarchical structure with a dynamic personal data browser/organizer, which provides flexible and customizable ways for users to quickly retrieve and efficiently organize their personal data. DeskQuest is designed to provide an easy and natural way for users to store and retrieve their personal data. It allows user to add attributes to files, generate different views for search results, and create files soft links on user-defined desktops. The system has been tested by both regular and advanced computer users. The qualitative and quantitative data are presented on this paper. Initial findings have shown that DeskQuest significantly reduces data retrieval time. Users also find the system easy to use and efficient in organizing data. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.5.2 Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): User Interfaces. General Terms Algorithm, Experimentation, Human Factors. Keywords User Interfaces, Information Retrieval, Personal Information Management, Workspaces, Desktop metaphor. 1. INTRODUCTION As computer usage become more widespread, a growing number of people are using computers to store their personal and work related data. Currently, the data are stored in folders in the file system. When a user wants to store a piece of data, she has to make the decision of which folder to put the file in. When the user wants to retrieve the data, she has to remember where she has put it. As the number of data is growing, it becomes harder for users to remember where all the files are. Another problem with the existing folder structure is that many portable electronic devices (e.g. digital cameras) tend to transfer files onto the PCs with auto-generated filenames within a default folder name. After sometime, if the user has switched between several digital cameras, images will be stored all over the place and the filenames will become meaningless to the users. A better way to organize the data stored on the computer is needed. Traditional folder-like structure does not scale good enough to handle the amount of data we have. The new method should be easy to use, so that everyone who has used a computer before can easily store/retrieve data from the program. It should also provide visual aids to assist user on making the selection. Similar types of data should be grouped together in different categories for easy access. A piece of data can be used in different ways, thus it should be allowed to belong in multiple categories. Under different circumstances, the program should handle the same piece of data differently to better suit the need of the user. 2. RELATED WORK A fair amount of researchers have explored the different approaches of a desktop metaphor application. One of the earlier researches should be traced back to Memex [1], a tool which was envisioned by Vannevar Bush in Memex resembled greatly to today s desktop metaphor on personal computers, but already suggested the idea of using hyperlinks for personal data and stressed on simplicity and transparency of interfaces. A few of the researches are based on a time-oriented approach. For instance, Lifestream s [2] interface design is a time-based one-dimensional representation of files. TimeScape [3] manipulates the idea of time-traveling on the desktop. This is also a time-based organization, but users can spatially arrange their information together (related objects can be placed together to form a group). Another focus in file organization is semantic grouping. For example, MediaFinder [12] organizes data based on semantic regions. Users can use the fling-and-flock concept to categorize a photo into one or many semantic regions. Its first proto was built on PhotoFinder to manage photo data, and the general concept is mainly applicable to media files. Similarly, Flamenco [4] is designed for landscape and architecture photographs operation, but it allows facets of data to be used to filter information when needed. The most related research to our design is Haystack [5], which by default different views can be rendered but also allow user to create contexts, the weight-weighted assembly of views and operations. The SIS [6] and MyLifeBits [7] are very similar in a way that they provide extended search capabilities on not only keyword but also on property browsing. MyLifeBits, however, is another time-based file organizer, but with heavy focuses on annotation and multimedia visual presentation. There are several commercial applications such as Copernic [8], the Google Desktop [9], and Apple s Spotlight [10], which have recognized the need to augment native file systems by providing full text searching. These systems may provide attractive UI interfaces for users to query and display the searching results, but they cannot fully replace a data organization system which allows

2 users to browse through their personal data to see what information is available and what is the difference among groups of data. This doesn t happen with a full text search system, which can only retrieve data files matching a query you construct explicitly [11]. 3. DESKQUEST The design of DeskQuest is three-fold; easy data retrieval, customizable organization, and hassle-free file creation. Retrieval of data will be based on customizable query result display. Queries can be done by keywords, applications (executable property), etc. Users can create files without worrying about which folder to store them in. The DeskQuest file system is flat. Every item is stored in the same location. Information regarding the item is indexed and stored in a centralized database. Considering that users usually look for file items by their purposes rather than their file names or file types, current folder structure file naming system no longer meet the users needs. DeskQuest acts as a sea of personal data space. When users create a file, they create the file and the file is placed in the sea of information. When users retrieve the data, queries based on keywords (filename and tags associated with the file) can be used. Only the relevant information will surface from the sea and displayed in DeskQuest. 3.1 Novelty Unlike the existing commercial full-text searching tool such as Apple s Spotlight [10], DeskQuest allows users to determine how they would like to organize their data files in a manner that would make sense to them. For example, a user can create a desktop view for EECE 518, and put all relevant data such as doc files, pdf files, etc with the desktop. One limit in organizing with the existing file structure is that the user can only group files by specifying one location for one file. In DeskQuest, a file can be associated with multiple desktops if the particular file is useful in many contexts. All of the previous works were done revolving around the existing file storage system. Most researches were focused on retrieval and display methods. Little effort was made to address the creation and storage of the files. Among the related research mentioned above, Haystack s implementation is the closest to our design. However, Haystack does not address how users can create files without specifying a directory which they may need to remember for later retrieval. Furthermore, Haystack does not consider the executable property of files items (users cannot search for all the files which can be opened by a specific application). Commercial desktop applications that try to move away from hierarchical structure (e.g. Google desktop) allow users to search by files types (e.g. video files, music files), but they do not support searching by application. For example, if a user would like play something with RealPlayer, DeskQuest will return all files supported by RealPlayer (e.g. *.rm, *.ra, *.ram) but not all video files. 3.2 Prototype Features For prototyping purpose, DeskQuest still has to work with the existing folder structure. Therefore, the work directory of DeskQuest is set to c:\dq. Everything in that directory will be searched by DeskQuest. Users now only have to remember one path, the DeskQuest work directory, and all files should be able to be retrieved by querying inside DeskQuest. DeskQuest application has 2 types of windows: 1. Desktop Window (saved workspace as desktops) Users can drag and drop files from queried results or other workspaces Users can group related files on desktops and retrieve that any time with the desktop names. Opening saved desktop displays all the files associated with it. 2. Search Result Window Users can define search criterion and get searched results displayed in this window Search results can be saved as a workspace file (by drag and drop to a desktop window or by right clicking on selected file) The following figure 1, shows the layout of the application. The left side is the search input panel which takes user request (open up a saved desktop or start a search). The results of the user input are displayed in corresponding windows on the right. A new window will pop up after the user inputs a request. User can double-click on a file in the list to open the file. Figure 1. Desktop and Search Results Windows Data Retrieval The search input panel is illustrated in figure 2. Currently, the prototype only does manual refresh of database. After a file is added to the file system outside of DeskQuest, the user needs to click on the Scan button to update all the filenames and locations to DeskQuest database.

3 The raw tab in the search result window displays all the files in the DeskQuest system. Each of the other tabs represents one attribute entered into the system for easy access. The files are listed in alphabetical order Opening Saved Desktop Users can also organize their files by desktops. A desktop in DeskQuest is like a workspace. Users can group related files by assigning them into the same desktop. DeskQuest allows users to assign a file to multiple desktops. A file is associated with a desktop by means of a soft link. Deleting a file from a desktop does not delete the actual files. It only deletes the link between the file and the desktop. To open a saved desktop, the user can select the desktop from the Desktop: drop down box and click Open. A new window displaying the desktop will be opened. Figure 4 illustrates a desktop window of a desktop called Jon. Figure 2. Main Search Input Panel Searching The user can search each file by keyword or application. Currently, the prototype does search by keyword or search by application. Users can enter the keyword into the textbox labeled Keyword: and click on the Search button to start searching by keyword. Keywords include filename and any attributes (tags) that you have associated with the file. To search by application, the user can select the supported application from the Application: drop down box and click on Search. All the files supported by the selected application will be displayed on the resulting window. If no keyword is entered and an application is selected, the search request will return all the files in DeskQuest. Figure 3 illustrates an example of the search result window. Figure 4. A Desktop Window of Desktop Jon File Organization Users can add attributes to a file or assign the files to a desktop to make future retrieval easier Adding Attributes Adding attribute is a way of grouping the files as well as a mean to make future search easier. There is a many-to-many relationship between attributes and files. Many files can have the same attribute associated with them and one file can have multiple attributes. On a desktop or a result window, user can right-click on a file and select Properties to add an attribute. Figure 3. DeskQuest s Search Result Window

4 3.2.3 File Creation and Deletion One of the problems with existing file system is that the folder organization structure is defined during file creation time. This makes file creation more time consuming. DeskQuest provides the user a hassle-free way of file creation. Users can just go onto any window to create a file. To create a text file, users can rightclick on any window and select New->Text file. Currently, DeskQuest supports the creation of text, bitmap and word document files. Figure 5. Right-Click to Properties After the user clicks on Properties, a dialog will pop up to prompt the user of the addition of attribute. Figure 8. Create New File After a New request is inputted by the user, a dialog will pop up to prompt the users for a file name. Figure 6. Edit File Attribute Dialog On the Edit File Attributes Dialog, users can enter a new attribute to associate with the selected file and click OK. Users can also select from the existing attributes in DeskQuest from the editable drop-down box to associate with the particular file Desktop Users can group files by assigning them to a desktop. In a desktop or results window, a user can right-click and select Add to Desktop. Figure 9. File Name Input for File Creation The user can confirm the creation of file by clicking OK. DeskQuest will then ask the user if he/she wants to add an attribute right now. Figure 7. Assign to Desktop Dialog On the Assign to Desktop Dialog, users can associate the file with a desktop by entering a new desktop name and click on OK. Users can also select from the existing desktops or search results windows and add the particular file on the desktop. In addition, users can put files in desktops by drag-and-drop. Users can drag a file from any source desktop or search results window and drop that to a destination desktop window. An additional soft link will be created between that file and the destination desktop. To delete a file association from a desktop, just right-click on the file in the desktop window and select Delete. The soft link between the desktop and the file will be deleted. However, the actual file will remain on the physical file system. Figure 10. Prompt for Adding Attribute If user answers yes to adding an attribute, an Edit File Attribute dialog will pop up and the new file will be opened. If user answers no, file will be opened without the Edit File Attribute dialog.

5 5. DESKQUEST EVALUATION The evaluation of DeskQuest consists of a quantitative part and a qualitative part. Both quantitative and qualitative data are collected from 10 test participants. These test participants cover both advanced and average computer users. Some users have previous experience with file tagging. They are asked to perform 7 different tasks, which include creating 15 different files and retrieving 35 different files. Each of the test participants was given a 15 minutes walk-through of the DeskQuest system before the actual test. After all the tasks were performed, the test participants were asked to fill in an evaluation questionnaire and provide general comments. Notes were also jogged down while tasks were being performed in order to capture spontaneous comments from the users and any other observations. Figure 11. Created File Opened To physically delete a file, just retrieve the file by application or keyword search and right-click to select Delete. A confirmation dialog will appear. A delete request from search results window will delete the file from file system as well as all the soft links between that file and DeskQuest desktops. 4. DESKQUEST IMPLEMENTATION The DeskQuest prototype is written in Java. The system composes of three main components, a UI front end, an engine and a database. Most of the system logics are done in the UI front end, where the user can formulate query, browse through the results and compose different desktop views. The engine part interfaces with the database to query results. Interaction between the file system and the UI component are done by direct Java library interfaces. All attributes of the users data and soft links information are stored in the database. The database component can be replaced by any database software which is separate from the UI and engine implementation. 4.1 Prototype Details DeskQuest is implemented using Java and interfacing with a database. DeskQuest is developed and tested on Windows XP system with Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version 5 installed. The database component can be done using any commercial-offthe-shelf database system. In our prototype, MySQL version is used. 5.1 Quantitative Evaluation For the quantitative evaluation, time is used to measure the effectiveness of creating and finding a document. The test participants are regular or advanced computer users who are familiar with handling files using the existing folder structure such as the Windows Explorer. This section of testing is divided into two stages: data creation and retrieval with known location, and data retrieval with unknown location Data creation and retrieval with known locations The first part of this test is to evaluate the efficiency of the file creation feature of DeskQuest. Users were first asked to create 15 files consisting of Word documents, bitmaps and text files using Windows Explorer. Users were given the option to create files in the existing folders or by creating new ones, but they were encouraged to use meaningful folder names for later retrieval of the same files. The completion time was recorded. The users were then asked to use DeskQuest to create 15 files similar to those created using Windows Explorer. This time they were encouraged to use the file tagging and assign to desktop features from DeskQuest to help them for later retrieval of the same files. The average completion time for file creation is shown in figure 12, denoted as task Create new files. It can be seen that the time taken for creating files by using DeskQuest is 37% longer than that for using Windows Explorer. This observation is due to the fact that the users were still trying to get used to the user interface of DeskQuest and that creating tags and desktops requires extra actions and thinking. One user commented that he was too accustomed to using the existing folder structure and was confused by concept of file tagging and assigning soft links to desktops. The second part of this test is to simulate the scenario when users memory of the files locations is still fresh. Users were then asked to retrieve the 15 files they have placed in folders using Windows Explorer and the other 15 files they have created in DeskQuest. The retrieval times were measured and compared in figure 12, denoted as task Retrieve new files. It is shown that the average retrieval time by using DeskQuest is shortened by 42% when compared to that by using Windows Explorer. Most users chose to use the Open Desktop feature to place all their newly created files for fast retrieval. Figure 12. DeskQuest s Interfaces to Other Systems

6 5.1.2 Data retrieval with unknown locations This test case is to simulate the scenario when a user has some memory of a file he/she is looking for, but cannot remember where exactly the file is located. Each user was given 5 scenarios (see table 1) to retrieve a total of 20 existing files. These 20 files have been saved in the hierarchical folder structure and also in DeskQuest. To simulate a real-life situation, the folders have been given meaningful names to provide cues for the users during file browsing. Tags and appropriate desktops have also been created likewise in DeskQuest for the 20 test data. Then users were asked to search the same data using Windows Explorer and DeskQuest. The retrieval times for existing file system and DeskQuest in each scenario are shown in figure 12. Table 1. Five user scenarios for data retrieval with unknown locations Scenario Figure 12. Task completion time comparison Description 1 You are going to a Mozart concert on Friday. You want to be fully prepared for the concert by reviewing some info related to the composer. Retrieve one picture, one music file and one document related to Mozart. 2 You are preparing for your final report for EECE 518 and you want to retrieve some lecture notes and previous assignments you have been working on. Retrieve 3 papers (in.pdf format) and 3 assignments (in Word) that are related to the course. 3 You have been using Real Player as your media player for the longest time. Having heard about a nice feature in the latest version of Windows Media Player, you want to try out playing some of your media files using the new application. Find 10 media files that can be supported by the Windows Media Player. 4 You are looking for your friend Kate s birthday picture in year But you have switched between several cameras since then. Your pictures are all named differently with some meaningless digits and alphabets now. How would you go about finding that precious picture? 5 You feel like baking a cake today but you are undecided on which kind. You have the habit of downloading recipes from the web but they are stored all over the place in your folder structure. Please find 3 recipes for cake baking. The test results in figure 12 have shown that DeskQuest has generally reduced the data retrieval time by an average of 57.72%. Scenario 4 has achieved the most time reduction by 70.25%, which illustrated that systems like DeskQuest become very useful for retrieving a file from large qualities of data with cryptic filenames and convoluted folder structure. It was observed that when using the Windows Explorer for browsing, users tended to get distracted by the folder structure and easily missed the target file item even when they were already in the correct folder. Some users tried using the text search feature in Windows Explorer to speed up the retrieval, but were slowed down because of the many mouse clicks required and the unfamiliar user interface. However, since it is hard to simulate actual usage during such a short test. The quantitative results is used a reference only to supplement the qualitative evaluation, which is described in the following section. 5.2 Qualitative Evaluation The qualitative part consists of an overall impression rating with a scale of 1-5 to indicate user s satisfactory level of the prototype. Table 2. The questionnaire items and average of users rating (1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree) Questions Rating 1. DeskQuest-like service should be an essential functionality in my PC It is easy to find the files I want with DeskQuest The DeskQuest system s Desktop view is useful The DeskQuest system s soft link feature is effective The DeskQuest system s Search by Keyword feature is useful The DeskQuest system s Search by Application feature is useful The DeskQuest system s Create New File feature is useful The DeskQuest system s Drag and Drop feature is useful I would put less effort into maintaining a detailed set of folders for my files if I could depend on DeskQuest to find my files The DeskQuest system is relatively easy to use I feel much less pressure when I don t need to remember file names by using DeskQuest to store files The DeskQuest system helps effectively retrieve 3.56

7 misplaced files/data. 13. The DeskQuest system can replace the existing file structure User comments The users were given the opportunity to provide some general comments for DeskQuest after performing the tasks. The positive comments received from most users were that the DeskQuest system was quite easy to use. Users also said that the tagging feature was very efficient for data organization and the search by application features were very useful. Some users commented that DeskQuest was appealing because they did not need to remember the physical locations of files. Users also commented that they would like to see more applications supported by the existing prototype and it would be nice if attributes tagged to files could be modified and deleted. These issues will be addressed in the future work section of this paper. 6. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK The DeskQuest system is a prototype implementation that aims to replace the conventional file folder hierarchical structure with a dynamic personal data browser/organizer. By using DeskQuest to organize their personal data, users no longer need to remember the physical path and filenames of their data. Rather, the system allows users to add tags, generate multiple views of search results, and create soft links to their files on user-defined desktops. DeskQuest provides flexible and customizable ways for user to quickly retrieve and efficiently organize their personal data. The evaluation done by users has demonstrated that many-tomany grouping and tagging are useful. There are three major areas for future improvements: user interface, metadata manipulation and additional searching capabilities. Currently, the user interface consists of only basic file list view. More display modes can be added such as thumbnails view, semantic grouping, and timeline view (display by chronological order). Also, a way of creating a blank desktop for drag-and-drop is needed to ease soft link creation. Many users have suggested adding some metadata manipulation features such as displaying, deleting and modifying of attributes tagged to a particular file. One observation of user behavior is that users who always misplace files tend to incorrectly tag files as well. The system can provide intelligence to assist users to tag files more effectively. For searching capabilities, searching by timestamps (creation time and last modified time) can be added. Users can then input a range of time for searching. Finally, more supported applications for searching can be added to DeskQuest s list. It can also be expanded to add the supported applications dynamically as user installs new software applications. users of DeskQuest for all the constructive feedbacks which make this study meaningful. 8. REFERENCES [1] Vannevar Bush, "As We May Think", Atlantic Monthly, July [2] E. Freeman and D. Gelernter, "Lifestreams: A Storage Model for Personal Data," SIGMOD Bulletin, vol. 25, pp , [3] Jun Rekimoto, Time-machine computing: a time-centric approach for the information environment, Proceedings of the 12th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, p.45-54, November 07-10, 1999, Asheville, North Carolina, United States. [4] Marti Hearst, Ame Elliott, Jennifer English, Rashmi Sinha, Kirsten Swearingen, Ka-Ping Yee, Finding the flow in web site search, Communications of the ACM, v.45 n.9, September [5] David R. Karger, Dennis Quan, Haystack: a user interface for creating, browsing, and organizing arbitrary semistructured information, Extended abstracts of the 2004 conference on Human factors and computing systems, April 24-29, 2004, Vienna, Austria. [6] Susan Dumais, Edward Cutrell, JJ Cadiz, Gavin Jancke, Raman Sarin, Daniel C. Robbins, Stuff I've seen: a system for personal information retrieval and re-use, Proceedings of the 26th annual international ACM SIGIR conference on Research and development in information retrieval, July 28- August 01, 2003, Toronto, Canada. [7] Jim Gemmell, Gordon Bell, Roger Lueder, Steven Drucker, Curtis Wong, MyLifeBits: fulfilling the Memex vision, Proceedings of the tenth ACM international conference on Multimedia, December 01-06, 2002, Juan-les-Pins, France. [8] [9] [10] [11] Sarah Henderson, Genre, task, topic and time: facets of personal digital document management, Proceedings of the 6th ACM SIGCHI New Zealand chapter's international conference on Computer-human interaction: making CHI natural, p.75-82, July 07-08, 2005, Auckland, New Zealand. [12] Hyunmo Kang, Ben Shneiderman, MediaFinder: an interface for dynamic personal media management with semantic regions, CHI '03 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, April 05-10, 2003, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA. 7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to thank Dr. Sid Fels for his advises on the creation of this project. We would also like to thank all the test