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Firefox 4 Design Direction  (View post)

ru [PersonRank 1]

Wednesday, September 23, 2009
10 years ago5,176 views

One thing I don't really get used to in this layout (and Chrome's) is the fact that the page title is not fully shown.

quamper [PersonRank 1]

10 years ago #

Are page titles really that important?

If you hover over the tab in Chrome you can see the full title for what it's worth.

ru [PersonRank 1]

10 years ago #

Sure, guamper, you can see the full title that way. But you need an extra effort.

But, for example, when I'm browsing through a few pages on the same site, and quickly change from one tab to another, it helps me to instantly know which page I'm watching, specially if scroll is not at top of the page.

Anyway, as I said before, perhaps it's just my problem and is not a major issue.

Tomb [PersonRank 0]

10 years ago #

i wouldn't really insinuate that any browser is copying any other browser these days as there are so many elements that each has 'borrowed' from the others....

it's become quite incestuous actually!

FF [PersonRank 0]

10 years ago #

I always need a status bar.
Just to see what address a link points to, or to have some plugins visible ;)

Like colorpicker, pixelmeasure, gmail, adblock etc.

Rob O. [PersonRank 1]

10 years ago #

I hadn't considered it before, but it does sorta make sense to have the tabs above the Navigation toolbar.

I wonder where the Bookmarks bar (if enabled) will land, though. It would seem to make hierarchal sense for it to be above the tabs, but that might junk up the very clean look they've laid out here.

Bill S [PersonRank 0]

10 years ago #

Hate it.

hater ;) [PersonRank 0]

10 years ago #

hey, Googleanians, get used to it. Firefox up to now was more or less fullblown rippoff of "Opera": they copied every single invention Opera made within a few days. Now it's Chromes turn. You call that "Open Source"

ManicQin [PersonRank 1]

10 years ago #

But what about "personas"?
Not enough room there any more...

Ino Detelic [PersonRank 1]

10 years ago #

I thought the tabs on top are there to make use of the display edge, to click on it faster. chrome knows that.

Having a gap makes it useless. Check fitt's law, infinitely tall buttons. ...

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

10 years ago #

> Having a gap makes it useless.

Chrome also has a gap above the tabs when the browser window isn't maximised, same as the browser window in the screenshot.

Jamie Eisenhart [PersonRank 0]

10 years ago #

Usability >> logical consistency. The table are the number 1 thing you click in the browser frame, so putting them further away from the page is a bad idea.

ino [PersonRank 1]

10 years ago #

[put at-character here]tony Yeah you're right, maximized should have no gap.

[put at-character here]Jamie, If the tab is on top, and uses the upper pixels, it is further but easier/faster to click. (when the window is maximised, that is)

Toast [PersonRank 1]

10 years ago #

I like the App bar idea, demonstrated by the Gmail Icon along the top. I wouldn't mind seeing a similar gmail notifier build into Chrome. At the office I use Firefox, and love the gmail notifier addon for it, but at home, where I use Chrome exclusively, I miss the ability of email checking/notification. Generally, I only know when my phone beeps to alert me of the email.

Toast [PersonRank 1]

10 years ago #

Sorry for the double post, but LOL.... ...

So apparently Firefox is adopting their new design from Office 2007's Ribbon, and NOT Chrome. Wow, are our faces red

Jigar Shah [PersonRank 1]

10 years ago #

Why we should be annoyed by this ? Whatever good feature a browser has should be and can be used by other browsers too. Chrome borrowed a lot of things from IE7 and FF. Lets be genuine. M$ does have few innovation on UX. (Of course, they have also borrowed many times). Ultimately what matters is what user likes. Good thing about FF is it takes feedback from community. It keeps asking for feedback and why a feature should be in or not. And most importantly. It does this before making a feature unlike others.

imma [PersonRank 3]

10 years ago #

i also like the mile-high tabs effect – even if you don't have the tabs at the top, something important to interact with at the top of the screen would be nice ( ...)

The right of the screen tends to get the scrollbar & (in windows anyway) the bottom gets app switching ... What does the left get? Many apps seem to leave a gap there :-/

Stephan Locher [PersonRank 9]

10 years ago #

I don't like this "no menu" approach started by MS Office.

It's sad that Firefox follows the path of other browsers and don't keep the good things like they where in earlyer versions of firefox.

What are the reasons to stay with FF if they have the same design as Opera and Chrome?

Sohil [PersonRank 10]

10 years ago #

<<I don't like this "no menu" approach started by MS Office.>>

Personally I love the new Office. The previous menus were incredibly inconsistent. But I don't see the point of using Ribbon a browser. I mean, MS Office was packed with features (most of them hidden) so "revealing" them made tons of sense. This really isn't the case with most modern browsers.

That said, the new designs are nothing more than complete rip-offs of Chrome (to be fair IE8 probably influenced Chrome's design a lot too)

drtimofey [PersonRank 10]

10 years ago #

Groovy! It looks like internet is moving forward!
My wife hates all of the clutter on FF. This she will love:)

Xak Dziura [PersonRank 1]

10 years ago #

What we all have to remember, however, is that browsers are just like items in a store: they have to appeal to the masses in order to be bought (or in this case, downloaded). While every change that a company makes on it's flagship product will get criticism, the fact is that people genuinely LIKE how Chrome looks, and people will download Chrome based solely on the fact that it looks smexy (at least to me), and how it packs all of the features that a browser offers into a minimalistic package.

Sure, they can justify their design changes however they want to. The tabs idea on the top of the page, instead of below everything does seem to make sense, I'll give them that. But this whole idea was pioneered, to an extent, by MS Office, then perfected in the form of a browser by Google. People latched onto that, and a new trend in Internet Browserdom was created. Naturally, Mozilla wants to appeal to that new trend, so it designs Firefox 4 to look like Chrome. Simple marketing. (Though, I'm not gonna lie, I'm happy they chose to do this, because the Chrome looks is VERY cool, and clears up a usually very crowded browser space, giving you access to web content without having to look around the application itself!)

However, 1 thing that I think Mozilla is doing better than Chrome is the addition of the application bar, to the left of the tabs. Having all of your frequently used apps in one easy-to-use place is genius. I wish Google implemented something like this so I don't have to constantly check my GMail account for new mail, or Facebook for new messages.


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