Google’s War on Hierarchy, and the Death of Hierarchical Folders
“Hierarchical Folders have dominated info organization since they first appeared over 40 years ago. But in industry after industry, a strange thing is happening: hierarchy is under severe attack, and even dying out.”
Interesting analysis. This is a “must read” for information architects.
My take on this is pretty simple. The level of granularity has increased. In the past, people cared mostly about artifacts (e.g., Word documents) and categories (e.g, folders). However, now they care more about the content in artifacts and content about artifacts (i.e., metadata). Why? Categories are breaking down, tagging is easier, searching is easier, and tools are available to access content and metadata in new ways.
June 7th, 2005 at 7:42 pm
The problem I have with searching is the inherent inefficiency it breeds in data storage. People will get lazy(er) withthere harddrives adn webpages. Sure, you can search through a pile of files but the more you have to search through, the slower it may become. In the relative future, as data storage capabilities increase, a complete loss of hierarchical data storage structure could result in immense frustration if the searches cannot parse through it quickly.
-wjr
Fore potentially interested parties:
I have created a livejournal feed for this blog at www.livejournal.com/~webworddotcom
June 9th, 2005 at 5:34 pm
Tiger Tweaks Could Kill Folders