VENNFS: a Venn-diagram file manager

We present a prototypal file manager, VENNFS, that is designed to overcome some of the limitations of the current desktop interfaces, that are strongly based on hierarchical file systems. VENNFS allows users to place documents and categories on a plane so that files may belong to multiple categories at once, where proximity on the plane can represent similarity and time filtering is allowed.

1 Introduction

In this paper we present a novel interface that is designed to help the user overcome some of the limitations inherited by the classical hierarchical file system. In fact, common desktop metaphors are based on top of hierarchical file systems that have become, far from being a help, a heavy heritage for any system that manages user's interactions with a computer.