Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1 • Hacker News Board

Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#151

Post by kaba0 » Tue, May 25, 2021, 8:52 AM UTC

jchw wrote: post #141

kaba0 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know, GNOME 3 on laptops with proper gestures is a joy to use. Also, afaik Phosh is fully rewritten and hardly has anything in common with gnome, even the common apps are inferior to use on mobile.

Basically I disagree. On phone the titlebars actually make sense. Even on a laptop with a touchscreen, which is probably the most ideal desktop-like platform, I still find GNOME 3 annoying.

I’m not necessarily a fan of client side decorations, but with some buttons going into the titlebar, I don’t find it annoying at all. But of course UI/UX is subjective to a point.

Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#152

Post by cassianoleal » Tue, May 25, 2021, 8:54 AM UTC

crossroadsguy wrote: post #59

I think the new Firefox design philosophy is marketing and buzzword. Because that's what that useless video and that blog post, which was devoid of easily accessible information, suggests. Besides, Pocket in Firefox is personal now! I am going to ignore this browser until they totally remove it (like completely; not bundled in any shape or form) and only allow it as a normal third party extension. Besides, it fares a…

> Besides, it fares awful on Macs and besides many OS level integrations that even Chrome and Brave do.

Been using Firefox on macOS for at least a couple years now. It has been making massive advances, fixing bugs and getting much better integration.

Smart zoom and "elastic scrolling" (or however that's called) are implemented now and work great to add usability and make it feel more at home. Battery life seems great, performance in general is at least on par with Chrome (except for Google apps, but even for those I still find it good enough).

Care to say which things still bother you with current Firefox beta (the one mentioned in the article)?

Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#153

Post by pmontra » Tue, May 25, 2021, 8:55 AM UTC

I hope the June version fixes the new tab behavior in the mobile app.

Old Firefox (older than about one year ago): I tap the URL (a large target), the keyboard appears and I also get the screen with Top Sites, Bookmarks, History and Highlight (the most recent pages I visited.) This is what I use to go to the sites I visit most (eg: HN.) If I tap the tab button (a small target) I get the list of the currently open tabs.

New Firefox: I tap the URL, only the keyboard appears. To go to Hacker News or any other sites in my bookmarks or recently visited list I have to either start writing its URL or tap the tab button (top right), then the new tab button (bottom right) and eventually get to the screen where I used to be in the old Firefox with only one tap. I fail to understand how this was an improvement over the old UI.

At least today's video shows two of the people in the design department. If any of you is reading this: thanks for this UI disaster /s

Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#154

Post by pmontra » Tue, May 25, 2021, 9:01 AM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #127

handrous wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FF user (off and on) since Phoenix chiming in. I'm going to level with you: I've looked at that Pocket button and all the Pocket ads FF throws at me on new tabs and on their obnoxious new-version announcement tabs, for years , but I do not actually know what Pocket does. I think it's some kind of cloud bookmarking or something. Maybe also something like the Reader view? I'm not sure. Whatever it is, I don't miss it o…

So summarizing: its intent isn't clear? FWIW: Pocket is similar in general design to a number of "read it later" services (the Android app is still identified as "com.ideashower.readitlater.pro"), such as the now-defunct Readability, still-extant Instapaper, Maciej Czeglowski's Pinboard, and the FS/OSS Wallabag. There's a ... (very?) loose kinship with tools like Zotero, Calibre, and Elsevier-owned Mandelay, also kno…

It's not Pocket's business to know what I want to read. Never used any of those services and never will unless I could self host it. However I understand that it could be convenient for a lot of people. Anyway, I suspect that the user base of Firefox is getting more hostile to this kind of services as the number of users shrinks and they get more concerned about privacy. To Mozilla: you either push for privacy or you push for Pocket.

I kind of self host by parking interesting pages in new tabs and read them later. I've got more than 100 tabs open in my Firefox on Android. They're also a replacement for bookmarks.

Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#155

Post by pmontra » Tue, May 25, 2021, 9:05 AM UTC

badhabit wrote: post #23

i hope there is a toggle button in front menu to disable javascript just a click away. not buried levels deep in settings.

You could install uBlock Origin, then click on its icon in the top bar, then click on the JavaScript icon to disable JavaScript on the current website.

If you want to disable it globally and forever, spending some time in the settings once doesn't seem too annoying.

Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#156

Post by 0x_rs » Tue, May 25, 2021, 9:09 AM UTC

It takes quite the effort to consistently worsen user experience ignoring any user feedback and defending dubious telemetry as if it were a godsend. I am aware this does not contribute to discussion, but after more than half a decade I'm just too tired to keep up with whatever foolish design choices are taken, I don't want to be an hostage of software I use anymore. Floating tabs that occupy precious vertical space in nowadays wide monitors, and can only be shrunk with usercss because compact style is out of the way? Empty spaces and padding all over the place? Everything feels dumbed down to the lowest common denominator for no purpose but look trendy—and useless. Truth is that this browser simply is not fitting for the "power usage" it was famed for, now actively going against its users and keeping all actual user feedback away from bugzilla, where they are promptly deleted or labeled as off-topic. Swallow the ungoogled-chromium pill for now, I suppose, with another set of anti-user chromium design choices and lack of first-class features such as the most basic ever "MMB to open a new tab", ignoring the glaring engine monopoly issue. What this browser is today deserves its <4% usershare, this I say as an user since 2.0.

Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#157

Post by j-pb » Tue, May 25, 2021, 9:26 AM UTC

tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote: post #135

j-pb wrote: post #32

This is what they killed the rust and mdn teams for? Oooff...

They dismantled the team who maintained the mdn docs? That’s shortsighted. mdn is a magnet for web devs and helps Firefox to stay in developers’ minds.

Yes. They have since then regrouped into the Open Web Docs Group, and are funded through donations. (https://opencollective.com/open-web-docs)

However, notice how all top tier sponsors are Edge, Chrome, or even Facebook, with mozilla nowhere in sight.

Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#158

Post by michaelanckaert » Tue, May 25, 2021, 9:29 AM UTC

bovine3dom wrote: post #50

JamesDeepDown wrote: post #15

The UI heatmap shows that nobody clicks Pocket, but the video highlights that pocket is "refreshed" and is part of the new design. Dear Firefox, that's not how things work.

No, that's exactly how UX research works: - Users are using X feature a lot. 1) the researcher likes the feature: let's invest time into improving it. Or 2) the researcher dislikes the feature: we need to remove it because it's adding too much friction - Users are not using feature X a lot. 1) the researcher likes the feature: users aren't discovering this feature, we need to make it more prominent. 2) the researcher…

So basically you're saying the researcher decides the product direction and not the users? feign shocked face

In this case I believe a heat map is a bad way to decide product direction. The amount of clicks don't tell anything about the ease of use, only which UI element receives user attention. If the Pocket feature receives no clicks, it can mean that either users don't find it or they don't want to use it.

Of course, product wise I understand FF might want to push Pocket and increase usage. But the decision about whether or not the UI is suitable shouldn't be gotten from a heat map.

Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#159

Post by bovine3dom » Tue, May 25, 2021, 9:37 AM UTC

michaelanckaert wrote: post #158

bovine3dom wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's exactly how UX research works: - Users are using X feature a lot. 1) the researcher likes the feature: let's invest time into improving it. Or 2) the researcher dislikes the feature: we need to remove it because it's adding too much friction - Users are not using feature X a lot. 1) the researcher likes the feature: users aren't discovering this feature, we need to make it more prominent. 2) the researcher…

So basically you're saying the researcher decides the product direction and not the users? feign shocked face In this case I believe a heat map is a bad way to decide product direction. The amount of clicks don't tell anything about the ease of use, only which UI element receives user attention. If the Pocket feature receives no clicks, it can mean that either users don't find it or they don't want to use it. Of cour…

I think a heatmap is a reasonable thing to measure. I just wish UX research was a little more scientific (by for example, coming up with multiple hypotheses and then conducting more experiments to eliminate them).

Re: Behind the design of the fresh new Firefox coming June 1

#160

Post by nindalf » Tue, May 25, 2021, 10:04 AM UTC

jiofih wrote: post #136

nindalf wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is hate, but worse than that, it’s tedious to read. I saw their video and thought “yep, top comment is going to be about Pocket integration” and it was. It’s the same in every thread about Firefox - someone complaining about pocket, someone complaining about tree style tabs, someone saying they shouldn’t have changed the plug-in model. It would be nice to have some new comments for a change.

If you could predict it, maybe you should consider taking that criticism seriously then instead of brushing it off as “boring”.

There's one person in this thread complaining about how tree style tabs was taken away from them in November 2017. It was yes, but it's also available now (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...). How can I possibly take this person seriously? They're complaining about how something doesn't exist when it does.

As for Pocket, I fail to see how someone's experience is ruined by the mere existence of a feature. Obviously they could ignore it. But they're complaining and have been complaining for 4 years like the sky was falling. Again, how can I take such people seriously?

Lastly, I'm not a Firefox developer. I don't need to take any criticism of Firefox seriously just because some person said it. No doubt the devs need to say "the customer is always right" or some such. Whereas I'm free to call it like I see it.