{3.3a} people prefer to navigate file systems manually

• According to Tiago Forte:
  • “Numerous studies (Bergman et al. 2008; Fitchett and Cockburn 2015; Teevan et al. 2004) have found that people strongly prefer to navigate their file systems manually, scanning for the file they’re looking for, as opposed to searching.”
  • He goes on to explain that searching for information requires declarative memory where you have to remember what exactly it is that you’re looking for. Manual navigation — like clicking through a series of folders to find a given file — relies on procedural memory, which requires less energy from our brains.
  • I haven’t checked the primary sources, but this does match my own experience.
• There are a lot of tools coming out that don’t use a hierarchy in their organization, like MyMind. It’s really neat that you don’t have to spend time organizing the data you’re collecting, but it also feels impossible (to me) to query effectively.
• Hierarchies are unambiguous. I can trust, for example, that all of my notes are in my “Notes” folder; there aren’t any other places those files might be, and I know I haven’t forgotten to put anything there because my “inbox” is empty. If I relied entirely on tags or other networked structures, however, I wouldn’t be able to easily tell which files I forgot to tag or tagged incorrectly. (Which is not to say that there isn’t a way to do this, just that I don’t know what it is.)
• Maybe a generational thing? Maybe paranoia about future-proofing? Maybe just a preference in how / when I process files… Either way — I agree; I prefer to navigate my file systems manually or by direct search. {3.3b} folders do not make my brain itch
• And, as Tiago says in the same article: “…hierarchies aren’t going away, even as our search tools become ever more sophisticated.”