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ACM SIGCHI WWW Human Factors (Open Discussion)

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"ACM SIGCHI WWW Human Factors (Open Discussion)" <[log in to unmask]>
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Mitchell Evan <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 7 Mar 2005 11:57:01 -0500
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"Gart, Mitchell" <[log in to unmask]>
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"Gart, Mitchell" <[log in to unmask]>
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It seems to me that it depends on the application you are building.
If opening a file and saving a file are relevant operations that the
user really will be doing, then putting them into a menu under
File > Open and File > Save makes sense because users will be 
familiar with those operations, and that organization, from other
experiences they have already had with computers.  If these operations
are not relevant then having them in an on-screen menu will not make
sense.

Even if it's not literally a file, for example if the user has done
some work and can save their work in a named place, and then later
retrieve their work from a place with the name they gave earlier,
this is like the concept of saving and opening a file, in my opinion.

More generally, I don't think users have 2 compartments in their
minds, one called "desktop application" and the other called "web
application", and they expect things to be one way on the desktop
and another way on the web.  I think they learn how to do things on
"the computer" and then when they are using a new application (web
or desktop) their expectations are something like the sum of their
previous experiences on the computer, whether those experiences were
on the desktop or inside a web browser.

- Mitch Gart

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