New tweak to Chromebook virtual desks will encourage custom naming

As we learned last week, the journey of virtual desks on Chrome OS is not quite finished yet. Though the version we currently have in Chrome OS 87 is completely functional and very useful, it seems the Chrome OS team is still at work making small tweaks to continue advancing the feature. We know better scrolling animations are on the way along with the addition of at least 4 more desks, but it seems that isn’t enough.

Work is underway to change the way new desk creation is introduced to the user. As it currently stands, when you add a new desk to the mix, there is a default name given to the desk and you can rename it if you see fit. There’s no attention brought to the desk name and no real indicator for new users that this is even an option. That is getting ready to change.

cros: Focus on desk_name_view on new desk creation (desk name nudges).

This is a part of go/cros-bento which aims to improve virtual desks.

Currently when a user creates a new desk, the desk mini view is created and given a default name. Clearing and focusing on the desk’s renaming textfield will encourage users to actually rename their desks, increasing the intentionality of their desks.

This CL alters the desk creation flow by clearing and focusing on the newly created desk’s renaming textfield.

via the Chromium Repositories

According to this already-merged change, a few things will change when creating a new desk. First, it appears there will be a nudge (some sort of visual pop-up that draws attention) to get your eyes up to the desk renaming area. Second, the name field will be cleared and instead of automaticallly naming your desk a generic name, you will first be prompted to name the desk.

With desk naming now being persistent, this is a good move by Google. The entire effort is geared towards getting users to be a bit more intentional about naming their desks and by extension, increasing the use of this feature. I for one don’t need any further encouragement to use virtual desks, but I don’t always name them, either. It makes sense that if users take a second to name their desks, they will be more likely to think about actually using them as intended. At the end of the day, that’s what Google is after and the benefit to users will likely be worth the effort.