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I like very much organising information in hierarchical outlines through PIM software (also names tree outliners/ treepads/ etc). I wouldn't feel comfortable if I do not have information organised this way. I have always wondered how come MS Word does not have this functionality or at least a third-party add-on. Yet, my personal observation is that the majority of people feel completely ok without any such tool.

It seems to me that people would rather use tags or they'd just pile up information without any special description and prefer a search function instead of browsing throughout their own structures. Whenever I have showed someone the glorious capabilities and beauty of a hierarchical PIM, I have never met an expected "WOW effect" but sheer disinterest. :)

Is there any research on specific inclinations people have towards organising information?

Related question: https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/40334/why-is-tree-representation-of-data-becoming-unpopular

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    $\begingroup$ I think this is off-topic for this site and would be better suited for softwarerecs.stackexchange.com $\endgroup$
    – Seanny123
    Mar 4, 2018 at 14:41
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    $\begingroup$ @ Seanny123 - I cannot understand how this question has anything to do with software recommendations? $\endgroup$
    – drabsv
    Mar 6, 2018 at 18:05
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    $\begingroup$ There is quite a bit of research on this in Human-Computer Interaction (hci) literature. Questions on this are not common here, but we decided that they should be on-topic. Some terminology to google for to get you started: "filers vs pilers". The seminal paper on this by Malone has been cited 1005 times and should get you started with finding sources: Malone, T. W. (1983). How do people organize their desks?: Implications for the design of office information systems. ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS), 1(1), 99-112. $\endgroup$
    – Steven Jeuris ♦
    May 1, 2018 at 9:03
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    $\begingroup$ That said, even though HCI is on topic here, we still expect questions to be based in a minimal amount of research, otherwise they are at risk of being closed as not framed in psychology or neuroscience. You could google a bit for the terminology I gave you (there are many popular science articles written on this) and ask a more detailed question by including what you learned (with a reference) in an edit of this question. $\endgroup$
    – Steven Jeuris ♦
    May 1, 2018 at 9:07
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    $\begingroup$ @drabsv Ping me in case you decide to edit the question and I will see whether I can reopen. (Remove the space after the @, otherwise I do not get a notification.) $\endgroup$
    – Steven Jeuris ♦
    May 2, 2018 at 8:17

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