Evaluating the Significance of the Desktop Area in Everyday Computer Use

Computers have become part of our homes and day-to-day lives. This paper presents selected results of an interview-based user study focused on information management on the personal computer. We focus on the Desktop, confirming results of previous studies as well as revealing new issues and ensuing design suggestions. While even basic competence users inventively appropriated the desktop, some features, in particular user-defined shortcuts, appeared counter-intuitive, and were underused. Users are still dissatisfied with their information organization and the challenge is to provide tools that support rather than replace the users 'flexible and creative use of the current desktop.