Presto

Abstract

Traditional document systems use hierarchical filing structures as the basis for organizing, storing and retrieving documents. However, this structure is very limited in comparison with the rich and varied forms of document interaction and category management in everyday document use. Presto is a prototype document management system providing rich interaction with documents through meaningful, user-level document attributes, such as “Word file,” “published paper,” “shared with Jim,” “about Presto,” or “currently in progress” Document attributes capture the multiple different roles that a single document might play, and they allow users to rapidly reorganize their document space for the task at hand. They also provide a basis for novel document systems design and new approaches to document management and interaction. In this article, we outline the motivations behind this approach, describe the principal components of our implementation, discuss architectural consequences, and show how these support new forms of interactions with large personal document spaces.

Better to organize personal information by folders or by tags?: The devil is in the details

“…The information item isn't put anywhere and can be, in a digital sense, "placeless" (Dourish, 1999). Instead, the representation (labels) comes to the information item.…”

Exploring New Metaphors for a Networked World through the File Biography

“…This can be seen in the seminal Placeless Documents project [4], as well as in activity-based computing systems such as Tagtivity [19] and Giornata [27]. Further efforts have been developed to support organisation of content across devices and services, such as in Perspective [21], a distributed storage system for the home.…”

The Function and Future of the Folder

“…Subsequent work has investigated folder use within desktop computer work environments around files and file systems (e.g. Barreau and Nardi, 1995;Bergman et al, 2010;Dourish et al, 1999;Jones et al, 2005;Teevan et al, 2004), email messages (e.g. Bellotti et al, 2003;Ducheneaut and Bellotti, 2001;Whittaker and Sidner, 1996;Whittaker et al, 2011) and web bookmarks (Abrams et al, 1998;Boardman and Sasse, 2004).…”

“…Kaptelinin proposed a stronger form of automated classification based on explicitly-defined project contexts (Kaptelinin, 2003), though PIM studies highlight distrust of automated classification approaches by users (Bellotti et al, 2003;Whittaker and Sidner, 1996). Alternatives to folders also exist in the form of attribute-based classification tools, such as Presto (Dourish et al, 1999) or Haystack (Huynh et al, 2002). Akin to the tagging available in Phlat, these approaches allow an item to belong to multiple user-defined categories and allow queries to be formed that use these categories.…”