Membranophonist’s Ramblings

I’d like an easier, more obvious way to unmount disks and drives from the desktop. A post by Don Norman inspired me to look at the problem.

The Utilities folder icon is from Derek Gordon’s “Organize X” set. The hard drive icon is from Carlos Reyes’ “Carlito Drives” set. Beware InterfaceLIFT’s very annoying pop-up. I tried in vain to find the sites of the artists.

Implementation Notes

1. The frame and button would appear 1 second or so after the cursor hovers over the icon. This would prevent visual distraction when rapidly moving the cursor across the desktop icons.
2. The frame and button would very rapidly fade 1 second or so after the cursor moves outside the frame.
3. The frame and button would disappear as soon as the user began dragging the icon.

Considerations

Pros

1. More obvious than dragging the icon to the Dock’s Eject button. From observations of family members, that ejection method can be rather confusing.
2. Requires less mouse dexterity. The drag-and-drop process isn’t easy for everyone.
3. Doesn’t require the elimination of existing methods, no matter how ill-conceived.

Cons

1. The close proximity of the Eject button to the icon would significantly increase the chances of accidental ejection.
2. Would not work with multiple disks/drives.