Okay so let's just stop with the "I'm right you're wrong!" stuff. I think what we need to do here is some research. Are those who classify themselves as "computer illiterate" more or less capable of understanding the concept of directories than those who are more technically inclined?

Until we have some real research into this, we're just making things up, and that's A Bad Thing.

Again you are missing the point.

The question you are asking is the wrong question to ask. The question is whether they understand the concept of directories in this context.

I.e. is it there intellectual transcendence from one paradigm to another without learning how the metaphor is expreseed in this new context.

It's much much much different than you think out there :)

So you're against research, then? I don't understand what you're trying to say with this comment.

Your comment on #5 is interesting: local storage folders/directories don't correspond to the WWW experience.

Locally, I've got to dig through directories to find stuff. I've got some search tools, but they're generally primitive and/or hit-or-miss. I almost exclusively use the command line, not graphical file browsers (which I find exceptionally tedious).

On the WWW, I generally find stuff through a search engine which, with the benefit of some very clever back-end heuristics, does a really good job of turning up the right stuff. Or I might use my local bookmarks collection, though that again uses a folder metaphor and is a bit tedious to use.

But ... I use the Vimperator Firefox plugin, which makes my browser a lot more like a command line. So when I want to open a web page, I'll almost always switch to command mode and start typing a part of the URL or description of the site ... and Vimperator starts searching through my history and bookmarks for a set of likely matches, which I then tab to and hit <enter>. (Granted, some "superbar" navigation works similarly, though I find Vimperator's operation superior).

My experience is that directories work where you're going to put a certain level of thought into how you want to organize content. But heaps and search tools work better where you've got a lot of diverse content and want to be able to dig into it periodically.

The advantage of the web is that you are browsing the documents themselves rather than som structure hiding them. Since these documents link to each other you do not have to remember folds structures but simply click.

That sort of depends.

As Ajax becomes more prevalent, some sites and their features/documents are only accessible by some click sequence, rather than via direct navigation.

Well-behaved sites tend to be structured better, and offer navigational clues (breadcrumbing), and the like.

Many sites really don't have much intrinsic structure and are little more than a large bag (or set of bags) of pages or other objects (Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia), though these may have linkages (perferably hypertextual) between objects (notably: Wikipedia and kin).

One of the things I'm liking about using an e-book reader (Moon+Reader on Android, Calibre on Debian/Linux) is that rather than scatter docs through the filesystem, they're organized through the reader interface itself. Not an entirely novel concept -- the man and info commands have used a similar concept for years, and are amenable to organization through tools such as Debian's dwww (online localhost Web interface to locally stored documentation, including manpages, info pages, package documentation, and installed documentation resources). Including search and indexing.

Pretty slick, that.

My point was more that on the web everything is a destination/reference/document at the same time.

The content is the interface, the interface is the content.

Where the "document" dynamically changes depending on actions th euser takes within it, which aren't revealed/exposed through the URL, then this falls apart.

It's something TBL has commented on.

I am not sure it falls apart any more than the fact that I can't see all documents at the same time.

>Folders are non-intuitive if they aren't learned

This is the second time you've used the word intuitive. I'm not sure if you don't understand what it means or if you just misspoke twice.

Something is intuitive if it doesn't need to be taught/learned.

I am well aware what it means. And you need to learn what folders are on a computer and what it means to put something into them.

In other words it's not intuitive. People don't understand it in one context just because they understand it in another.

Or let me put it another way.

Nothing is intuitive, you have to learn it which renders the word in this context useless.

Eating is intuitive. I believe drinking water and defecating could also be considered intuitive.

The meaning of the word intuitive may not come to some folks via intuition, however. Merriam-Webster defines intuitive as: readily learned or understood; and intuition as: immediate apprehension or cognition.

I'm not taking a stand either way on if they're intuitive, I've been using a PC for far too long to even try to think about it.

But what you just said is the opposite of: "Folders are non-intuitive if they aren't learned"

It would have made sense if you'd said: "Folders are non-intuitive because they must be learned".

And yet you seem to understand what I am trying to say.

Fine with me.

Only because you wrote a bunch of other stuff that gave it context. Stubborn much? That statement, on it's own, says the opposite of what you meant. I don't know why you're arguing with me about it.

I am arguing with you about it because it's worth arguing about.

There is such a thing called intuition. It just doesn't transcend the way the OP claimed it would.

Intuition is something you build via experience. It allow you to navigate even things you haven't been exposed to before. As long as you understand the basic premise of the context.

The general consensus and then point of the OP was to say that understanding the metaphor is enough to make you navigate two different paradigms just because you understand one of them and use metaphors to connect them . I.e. you can use intuition from one of them in the other. This is simply wrong and is not given at all.

Which leads me to say that intuition is learned. I.e. it's not some linear concept where everything fit together, but rather it exists de facto disconnected underneath the metaphors and concepts.

A metaphor or concept is intuitive if it can be clearly understood once seen. "Without deduction or reasoning" as my dictionary puts it.

While I appreciate your comment, ThomPete's comment, perhaps better phrased as "Folders are intuitive once experienced" would generally be accepted to mean that the concept and behavior of files and folders, through a visual GUI metaphor, is generally grasped and understood (I'm not saying this is or isn't true, but it's a testable and reasonable proposition).

The visual metaphor isn't always manageable. It's not always appropriate. But for most people, the general idea of objects and containers is wired at a pretty low neural level. Enough so that I'm comfortable calling it "intuitive".

Socks and dressers are also intuitive. Doesn't mean my laundry doesn't find itself all over my room.