Just a quick UX gripe about Dropbox here:
When using Dropbox for your own computers the metaphor holds. It does in fact behave like a USB replacement in this scenario. It’s when you use Dropbox on computers that you don’t own that the metaphor starts to fall apart and gives users a false sense of security, leaving someone’s potentially sensitive data in plain sight and exposed.
My main gripe with the USB stick Dropbox metaphor is that when I detach a USB stick from a computer my files come with me. I may have copied some files over to the computer but everything else is with me when I remove the USB drive from the computer. Dropbox however is a little different. When you want to ‘remove’ the Dropbox instance from a computer you ‘unlink’ the computer from the Dropbox preferences menu. The nomenclature sounds correct if you think about it. You are literally ‘unlink’ing your local Dropbox instance from the cloud. Here’s the problem: I’d be willing to bet that a substantial amount of Dropbox users, after unlinking their Dropbox instance, would forget that their data is still there, lurking silently in the local unlinked Dropbox instance. Data that they would immediately delete if they knew it was still there or didn’t forget about it. It’s because in the user’s mind they have unplugged the Dropbox USB stick but in reality the virtual USB stick is still very much plugged in. It’s just no longer connected to its mothership. Of course, one has the option of downloading a file stored in your Public Dropbox folder through a web link. This solution is a little clumsy for obvious reasons though – nothing like copying and pasting random web links around to get at your files..
So that’s my main gripe with the Dropbox UX and USB stick metaphor. It gives users a false sense of security when they are copying files to computers they *don’t* own. I think it’s irresponsible of Dropbox not to have an option, as far as I can tell, to completely ‘unplug’ Dropbox from a computer when that person no longer has a need for it. If they included this option then it could potentially save a lot of people a lot of heartache.
This blog post is not considering the USB metaphor in context of Dropbox.
You wouldn’t install Dropbox on someone else’s computer just to get a couple of files. You would go online log into your Dropbox and get them from there.
Good point.
It’s just that Dropbox becomes a little like Mozy then. The whole charm of Dropbox for me is interacting natively with the file system instead of having to log into a website and click around..