When I use a real operating system instead of an entertainment kiosk I use dmenu to open programs. But most people find using the mouse more intuitive than the keyboard.
I think it's actually quite good that you get back to the desktop by clicking the 'minimise everything' button. It reduces cognitive load to switch tasks by making everything currently open "go away" and then starting a new task, rather than just loading up every new task on top of the old one. It's like opening a new window for a new task vs just opening 500 tabs in one window. Better yet are systems with multiple desktops where you start a new activity ("Okay checking my emails is done, time to do some budgeting") by going to a new desktop and then clicking Excel or GnuCash or whatever.
The desktop is for most people just a generic collection of random stuff. That seems chaotic and bad and messy, but I think it's actually really powerful. It's like the filesystem. Probably for every type of document there is a better way to browse it. Photos are best browsed in a photo browser. Videos in a video browser. Documents in a document browser. But a traditional file browser is the best generic browser of things. Similarly, an overlay application launcher is probably better for quickly starting a program, and a 'recent files' launcher might be better for that, and a 'favourite folders' thing might be better for that, etc. etc. But in practice people tend towards a kind of 'managed chaos' that intentionally-designed systems don't handle very well. It's the backup, the default, the catchall. Every system needs something like that. That's what your desktop ends up being.
Go to an office. Is everything filed perfectly? No, most stuff is and then there's always, inevitably, a 'miscellaneous' section. Everyone has that little jar with random screws and twist-ties and rubber bands and those little tags things that go around bread bags when they're twisted and a couple of coins. Everyone has that drawer which has USB cables and old phones and permanent markers and foreign coins from that time you went overseas. You need a 'random miscellaneous shit' category.
I think it's actually quite good that you get back to the desktop by clicking the 'minimise everything' button. It reduces cognitive load to switch tasks by making everything currently open "go away" and then starting a new task, rather than just loading up every new task on top of the old one. It's like opening a new window for a new task vs just opening 500 tabs in one window. Better yet are systems with multiple desktops where you start a new activity ("Okay checking my emails is done, time to do some budgeting") by going to a new desktop and then clicking Excel or GnuCash or whatever.
The desktop is for most people just a generic collection of random stuff. That seems chaotic and bad and messy, but I think it's actually really powerful. It's like the filesystem. Probably for every type of document there is a better way to browse it. Photos are best browsed in a photo browser. Videos in a video browser. Documents in a document browser. But a traditional file browser is the best generic browser of things. Similarly, an overlay application launcher is probably better for quickly starting a program, and a 'recent files' launcher might be better for that, and a 'favourite folders' thing might be better for that, etc. etc. But in practice people tend towards a kind of 'managed chaos' that intentionally-designed systems don't handle very well. It's the backup, the default, the catchall. Every system needs something like that. That's what your desktop ends up being.
Go to an office. Is everything filed perfectly? No, most stuff is and then there's always, inevitably, a 'miscellaneous' section. Everyone has that little jar with random screws and twist-ties and rubber bands and those little tags things that go around bread bags when they're twisted and a couple of coins. Everyone has that drawer which has USB cables and old phones and permanent markers and foreign coins from that time you went overseas. You need a 'random miscellaneous shit' category.