Icons++: An Interface that Enables Quick File Operations Using Icons

In graphical user interfaces, when users want to operate on a file, they usually double-click the file icon to launch the associated application and open the file. Several file operations are available in the context menu by right-clicking, such as printing and deleting. However, if the user wants to perform some simple operations, such as copying the file contents, opening the file by an application and then selecting a menu, can be cumbersome. Furthermore, operations in the context menu are limited. Thus, in this paper we present Icons++, a user interface which allows users to perform the file operations they want in a quick way by using icons. Through the use of Icons++, users can take a quick look at the file contents, and at the same time they can perform often-used file operations with only one click, without opening the file by a relevant application. In this paper we present our design of Icons++ and the user studies we performed in order to evaluate it. Studies' results show that using Icons++ is 53% faster than using an application to execute the same task, and our interface is preferred by participants. Keywords— icon interface; preview; file operation; file manager.