Recently I wrote about email overload and information removal from digital information space (for creating environment with less distractions). I came across this interesting photo of an office information overflow, which seams very real. Malone [1] wrote about advantages of piling or spatial management over hierarchies. The main strengths of piling are
- less cognitive effort than categorizing
- spatial awareness of information location and faster retrieval
- reminding functionality of spatially managed information
- keeping less information than with filing into hierarchies
But all these advantages disappear when there is too much information available. As in this office.
[1] Thomas W. Malone, How do people organize their desks? Implications for the design of office information systems (1983)
