Moran & Zhai Version 21, 2006.1.9
1
Beyond the Desktop Metaphor in Seven Dimensions

Thomas P. Moran and Shumin Zhai
IBM Almaden Research Center

To be published as a chapter in the book
Designing Integrated Digital Work Environments: Beyond the Desktop Metaphor
Victor Kaptelinin and Mary Czerwinski (Editors)


The ubiquitous use of the desktop metaphor as the primary means of interacting with
information is perhaps the earliest, and arguably the most profound, landmark of user
interface design. Ironically, such a success is both a great past achievement and a difficult
future challenge to overcome. Computing technologies and user experiences available to
people in our current web-driven world are evolving rapidly. In fact, the strict concept of the
desktop metaphor is already a “straw man” notion, but it can help us characterize where we
were and where we are going. We are already in mid-flight from the desktop metaphor to
somewhere else. Although we cannot be sure where we are going, we can discern different
dimensions in which things are changing.
The research presented in the chapters of this book represents some notable efforts in
moving beyond desktop-metaphor-based computing. In this concluding chapter we reflect and
comment on seven dimensions of change along which we see future integrated digital work
environments being different, as experienced by users, from today’s computing environment.
Our analyses and speculations are based on the chapters in this book and our own research, as
well as the HCI literature and information technology trends in general. In the spirit of
concluding this book, we do this in very broad strokes that try to capture major themes.
Here, in a nutshell, are the dimensions of change that we will examine:
1. The basic change is that personal information is being liberated from the
constraints of the desktop/office metaphor. It is being dispersed in the networked
world in what we might call a “personal information cloud”.
2. Several other kinds of changes follow from this. The desktop metaphor
standardized, and thus limited, the ways information was presented. New ways
of organizing personal information are spawning a great variety of new
representations and visualizations.

Moran & Zhai Version 21, 2006.1.9
2
3. The desktop metaphor was designed for a standardized computational form
factor, the workstation and laptop. The proliferation of new forms of computing
devices both requires and exploits the information cloud to allow information to
“follow the user”.
4. The desktop metaphor is built around keyboarding and pointing. The multiplicity
of devices of different sizes and functions forces designers to develop new
modes and modalities of physical interaction techniques.
5. Not only is information liberated from the desktop, but so also are software
applications. Functional computations delivered as services from servers make
these functions available independent of specific devices.
6. The desktop metaphor creates a personal office isolated from others except
through limited channels. More and more personal information clouds are
intersecting in richer ways to make collaborating with others participating in
large-scale social communities easier.
7. The desktop/office metaphor creates an arena focused on a variety of generic
office tools geared to low-level interaction tasks. Future computational work
environments should be centered around the meaningful activities that people are
engaged in, which requires an explicit representation of the concept of activity in
the information cloud.
Note that these seven dimensions are not exhaustive; there are dimensions of change,
such as moving from rigid to more adaptive representations; but these seven seem most
related to the body of work exhibited in this book. In what follows we reflect and
comment on each of these dimensions, relate them to each other and to the chapters in
this book, and conclude with a brief review on where we stand on these dimensions.
Dimension 1: From the office container to the “personal information
cloud”
The desktop metaphor was originally invented to support office work. The metaphor is really
a personal office metaphor. The metaphorical desktop itself is a display screen with various
office-relevant objects – documents (overlapping windows), folders (icons), and tools (e.g.
printer icons) – in a freeform arrangement. There is also a metaphorical file system organized
as a hierarchy of folders and files, sort of like file cabinets. Further, there is a metaphorical
mail-based inbox, providing ways for messages and attached documents to enter and leave the
office.