abstract
========

Current end-user operating systems are based on a set of design principles and computing paradigms that make them
simple to use in some circumstances but are very inflexible for user customization and adaptation. In this thesis, these
limitations and design principles will be discussed and contrasted by an analysis of historic systems that solved these
issues by following different design goals. Based on this analysis, as well as further literature, an evaluation
framework for end-user computing systems is established.  
The design and implementation of a new end-user computing system, which focuses on a file system with rich file types
and a type coercion system as its central paradigm, is discussed. Following this, the capabilities of the system are
demonstrated using multiple example use-cases. An evaluation of these examples as well as the system itself according
to the framework established earlier shows that the proposed system is indeed very flexible and useful for a wide
variety of uses involving multimedia content from various sources, although the system has many flaws that would hinder
widespread adoption.
