Quick note to everyone attending the GNOME Boston events: After working things out with both the Foundation and school, I finally booked my tickets and I’m also going to be able to attend the summit following the hackfest.

There’s been some discussion lately on the Ubuntu Art mailing list about a new icon set. The icons themselves are spiffy, but what caught my attention is that some of the mockups went beyond the traditional icon metaphor. Take this mockup that Thorwil presented in a recent blog post:

The mockup puts aside the traditional view that folders are interesting things and of themselves and instead focuses on the contents of the folder.

How much farther can we take this? Folders that tell the user what’s inside of them? File managers with Google Maps-style zooming interfaces that let you zoom in and out on your content? Why not? Once you’re willing to abandon the “a folder icon should look like a folder” attitude then the possibilities are endless.

Now, I’m not claiming that all that will make the user’s life easier. However, there is room for improving interfaces by playing with traditional metaphors and improving them without scaring the user away.