| My guess is that Microsoft's research has uncovered a couple of usability problems for new users with drag and drop. First, there are two possible new-user intuitions about what drag and drop ought to do, and it won't always do what they expect. First, it could copy the file, and second, it could move the file. The default on Windows (and OS X, IIRC) is to copy when the source and target are two different drives, and move if it's the same drive. This is likely to produce the correct result, but it wiil not always do so. If you want one and get the other, you will be unhappy with the result. If you have learned cut/copy/paste in an application, then you will know the difference between cut and copy, and this will help you achieve the correct result right away. I presume this is the reason for them traditionally promoting cut/copy/paste over drag and drop. Second, drag and drop is not discoverable. Items on the a toolbar or ribbon are trivially discoverable, but new and unskilled users may not even realize that drag and drop is an option. This is the advantage of a ribbon populated with commands. Not only are the commands preferred by infrequent explorer users (cut/copy/paste) easily accessible to them, but new users have the even more easily understood option of choosing "move to" or "copy to". Q: How do I copy this file to my flash drive? A: I select "copy to". |