Fewer Clicks and Less Frustration: Reducing the Cost of Reaching the Right Folder Xinlong Bao Jonathan L. Herlocker Thomas G. Dietterich School of EECS School of EECS School of EECS Oregon State University Oregon State University Oregon State University Corvallis, OR 97331 Corvallis, OR 97331 Corvallis, OR 97331 +1 541 737-1646 +1 541 737-8894 +1 541 737-5559
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT locating the desired file is becoming an increasingly time- Helping computer users rapidly locate files in their folder consuming operation. Some previous investigations have shown hierarchies has become an important research topic in today’s that computer users spend substantial time and effort in just intelligent user interface design. This paper reports on finding files [1, 10, 11]. Thus, designing intelligent user interfaces FolderPredictor, a software system that can reduce the cost of that can help users quickly locate the desired files has emerged as locating files in hierarchical folders. FolderPredictor applies a an important research topic. cost-sensitive prediction algorithm to the user’s previous file Previous research on helping users find files has focused on access information to predict the next folder that will be accessed. building Personal Information Management (PIM) systems in Experimental results show that, on average, FolderPredictor which documents are organized by their properties [5, 7]. These reduces the cost of locating a file by 50%. Another advantage of properties include both system properties, like name, path and FolderPredictor is that it does not require users to adapt to a new content of the document, and user-defined properties that reflect interface, but rather meshes with the existing interface for the user’s view of the document.