A look at other operating systems suggests that categorization is not
necessary: out of all of the current-generation UIs, the only one that
offers prominent categorization of installed applications is KDE.
* Mac OS has never categorized applications. Current versions of OS
X provide a dock, an alphabetical list and a search box.
* In Windows, each installed application creates it's own group in
the start menu, so it's effectively just a list of applications in
the order that they were installed. Windows 7 additionally
provides a list of recent apps, a dock, and a search box. No
meaningful categories in sight except perhaps "System Tools".
* GNOME shell and Unity support searching by category, but don't
provide a categorized list.
* Android provides a home screen, an alphabetical list, and a search
box.
* iOS provides a home screen, a search box, and Siri.
The users of those systems generally seem to be able to find their
installed applications without categories.
Part of what complicates things in Unity, though, is the proliferation
of non-application system features in the applications list. For
example, the first row in my list of installed applications consists
of Additional Drivers, Adobe Air Application Installer, Advanced
Settings, AisleRiot Solitaire, Appearance, Archive Manager, Backup,
Banshee, Bluetooth, Brightness and Lock. Only two of those (AisleRiot
and Banshee) are "Applications" from the end-user perspective.
(side note: WTH is "Brightness and Lock" a combined item?)
Perhaps if we filtered out things like system tools (use control
center) and file viewers (just open the file) in the default list,
category browsing would be less of an issue for non-searchers.
