[Usability] Re: Mozilla Firefox 2.0 Chrome Changes

["Kristoffer Lundén" <kristoffer lunden gmail com>]

On 3/2/06, Reinout van Schouwen <reinouts gnome org> wrote:
> > <http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.apps.firefox/browse_frm/thread/85a8c60c5b9a3f93/c4d7088e08d3dfcc?tvc=1&hl=en#c4d7088e08d3dfcc>
>

Some interesting proposals there. Hiding the statusbar seems like a
huge mistake though, how then to verify suspect links? It always
struck me as one of the immediately bad things about IE. I understand
that many people don't anyways, but it does seem wrong to take away
the chance to maybe catch it.

Making the throbber meaningful also seems like a good idea, as do the
hover indication for target="_blank" (though FF already solve it
perfectly with opening in tabs now, for those who care about it).

The proposed integrations of more controls inside the URL bar
intiutively seems like a good idea to me, but I can't speak for an
inexperienced user. I would like it personally but would like to see
some usability testing on it for the benefit of others.

Fixed width tabs is still an enormous mistake and the only thing that
makes Epiphany impossible for me to use (unless they mean "same width
of all tabs, still resizing" which would be fine). I hit the limit
within minutes and after that I quickly go through frustration, anger
and closing. Actually, even "You can't open more tabs" would be
better, especially since it's an abuse of a notebook widget from the
start.

This bug report has more detail concerning both usability, new user
surprise and so on: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=330676

I also have to wonder why it is more important to be able to close
tabs than to work with tabs, after seeing some comments at the linked
group above. FF solves that just fine with middle-click, those who
actually need it quickly learns this in my experience.

Ideally, of course would be to each his own because this one will
probably never find a compromise.

-- Kristoffer


--
Kristoffer Lundén
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✉ kristoffer lunden gamemaker nu
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