Re: [Usability] Tab consistency

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Thu, 29 Mar 2007, Calum Benson wrote:

> Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:03:50 +0100
> From: Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>
> To: Erik Jan Philippo <erik philippo tweakdsl nl>
> Cc: usability gnome org
> Subject: Re: [Usability] Tab consistency
>
> On Tue, 2007-03-27 at 22:57 +0200, Erik Jan Philippo wrote:
>
> > Ubuntu is also planning tab consistency:
> > https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/tab-consistency
>
> Hmm, interesting that their goal is to "replicate the Firefox 1.5
> interface as widely as possible", when Firefox 2's tabs are somewhat
> different (presumably as a result of user feedback).

Given the giant mess Firefox made of their Preferences dialog, changing it
though several iterations during their 1.x cycle and flushing down the
toilet years of techincal support Netscape built up, and ending up with an
interface with absolutely no flexibility to invitably add more options
later, I do not for a second trust that they are doing thourough usability
testing.  Harsh but I'm highly skeptical about their move to put close
buttons on every tab.

The GNOME HIG states "Forgive the user".  Puttting close buttons on every
tab is not very forgiving of users who accidentally close a tab and then
realise they want to reopen it.  Mozilla Firefox already includes an
option to close tabs by middle clicking, and also right clicking and
choosing close or using the keybinding Ctrl+W.
I'v always said making a destructive action even easier is a bad idea.

> I agree that more consistency would probably be nice... although as with
> many aspects of UI, you have to know where to draw the line, as
> different applications may have slightly different requirements.

As I said when this came up only a few weeks ago I do hope Gedit upcoming
versions of Gedit will change things so that Tabs go back to being an
option feature unnoticed by users who do not choose to have them.

As for consistency a dedicated hacker with the tenacity to submit patches
to GTK could make a huge difference.

Assuming Firefox has done the right thing and blinding following is a bad
idea.  All too often people complain about just copying Microsoft, just
copying Firefox really isn't any better.

I admire Ubuntu for trying but they have tried out several ideas that
haven't worked out well and have since been reverted.

-- 
Alan