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Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

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Re: Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

#171

Post by sseagull »

cletus wrote: post #145

This is a good example of making the mistake of conflating implementation details and user interface design. Firefox always had two boxes: URL bar and search. One of the big changes Chrome made when it was born was to have the Omnibar, being of course one bar that does both. If you think about this as an engineer, Firefox's design decision makes sense. You don't want to accidentally leak things to a search engine. UR…

> Users don't have the mental model to differentiate search terms and a URL

Why don't they? This is a somewhat serious question.

Part of it, in my opinion, is we are moving too fast, and giving up on users to quickly. With enough education, people will understand. But enough education = at least a generation or two, introducing it in schools at a young age, etc. But we just threw our hands up and said "oh well, they don't get it, lets make it simple".

URL = phone number. Search box = Phone book. They are two very different things, and having them both in the same box I feel confuses some people even more.

Re: Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

#172

Post by rmah »

londons_explore wrote: post #29
phkahler wrote: post #12

This is because Google and Microsoft have confused the users by allowing them to type whatever into wherever and they just figure it out. Some would call that good UI - probably myself included - but it teaches bad behavior and makes people dumber by obscuring what things really are.

In the 1980's, taking away the 'choke' lever which assisted starting a car was seen by some as removing a critical control. Yet automatic chokes became standard, and today's drivers usually don't even know or care what a choke even is. Todays people have other things to spend their time learning. People of tomorrow may not need to know or care what the difference is between a search box and a URL bar. All they know i…

IIRC, chokes are only necessary with carburetors to control the fuel/air mixture. I think today's cars are all fuel injection and thus don't need to have a choke. Cheaper gas powered garden equipment still has chokes, I think.

Re: Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

#174

Post by 5- »

cletus wrote: post #145

This is a good example of making the mistake of conflating implementation details and user interface design. Firefox always had two boxes: URL bar and search. One of the big changes Chrome made when it was born was to have the Omnibar, being of course one bar that does both. If you think about this as an engineer, Firefox's design decision makes sense. You don't want to accidentally leak things to a search engine. UR…

> Tech-savvy people will just type "facebook.com"

browsers used to do these these things (trying to add 'www.' or '.com' etc. if the domain doesn't resolve) automatically in the location bar (which wasn't the search bar, so there was no ambiguity):

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/search-web-address-bar#...

Re: Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

#175

Post by admax88qqq »

saba2008 wrote: post #117
admax88qqq wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it teaches bad behavior I wouldn't call it bad behaviour. Why are the users behaving bad and not the interfaces? Computers are meant to serve users.

Because it confuses and pushes users toward wrong mental model of surrounding world.

Why is their mental model wrong? Perhaps the model of having separate url vs search boxes is wrong.

Re: Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

#176

Post by frosted-flakes »

causi wrote: post #39
Semaphor wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it do better than Firefox Mobile? It has all settings, URL bar, and tabs at the bottom as well.

Probably doesn't have Firefox's infuriating tab manager that throws an idiotic "well golly you closed a tab!" popup over the next tab you intend to open.

They've fixed that on Nightly, for what it's worth. There is now padding at the bottom of the tab list. Also, undo-ing a closed tab puts it back where it was, not at the top of the list.

Re: Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

#177

Post by wrs »

motoboi wrote: post #155
rosseloh wrote: post #35

On phone support calls I usually can't even get people who know what a URL, URL bar, or even a search bar, is in the first place. "The box at the top where you type in websites you want to go to." "What are you talking about? I'm computer illiterate, I can't learn any of this fancy tech stuff. I just click my facebook icon and it comes up!" These people get all sorts of confused when something happens in their browse…

I painstakingly developed a personal script for how to teach people how to split a screen between two chrome tabs. This is amazingly and surprisingly difficult thing to explain over the phone to “normal” (born before computers were prevalent) people. Basically I got it divided in two groups: those who have used internet for the first time after 18 years old (hardest group. Have to explain in terms of geometrical figu…

I think I’m still doing pretty well with knowing about and even understanding new technology. The thing is, I have a harder time finding it worthwhile. Like social media that seems to have a 5 year cycle just because the younger kids don’t want to be seen using what the older kids use. Do we really need a new IM system and different way of posting short videos to friends every 5 years? So much “technology” change is now just fashion.

Re: Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

#178

Post by darkerside »

sseagull wrote: post #171
cletus wrote: post #145

This is a good example of making the mistake of conflating implementation details and user interface design. Firefox always had two boxes: URL bar and search. One of the big changes Chrome made when it was born was to have the Omnibar, being of course one bar that does both. If you think about this as an engineer, Firefox's design decision makes sense. You don't want to accidentally leak things to a search engine. UR…

> Users don't have the mental model to differentiate search terms and a URL Why don't they? This is a somewhat serious question. Part of it, in my opinion, is we are moving too fast, and giving up on users to quickly. With enough education, people will understand. But enough education = at least a generation or two, introducing it in schools at a young age, etc. But we just threw our hands up and said "oh well, they…

But it's not phone number vs phone book. It's phone number vs automated operator that will connect you where you are trying to go.

I am technical and I often just search instead of URL just because it requires less precision.

Google is just DNS with a few extra steps.

Re: Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

#179

Post by dylan604 »

coldpie wrote: post #41
dylan604 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has always perplexed me. The fact that so many people use a search engine for new windows/tabs combined with browsers shrinking the URL bar to near non-existence makes this an obvious thing people will do though. Reminds me of the old AOL keywords. It's all about getting those precious analytics. If the users go to a website directly from typing a URL, 3rd parties loose those metrics.

Google is actively trying to kill the URL[1]. I'm not sure whether it's good or bad, but it is a goal of theirs to fundamentally change or eliminate the URL entry bar, yes. [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/google-chrome-ends-i...

Search and keywords are part of Google's DNA. Of course they want to utilize the thing that they do anywhere they can. Eliminating the URL means that everything is a keyword search to visit places. We've already seen how that doesn't work well with AOL. Maybe you're not old enough to remember it, so it sounds like a promising idea. The thing G has over AOL is that G has a complete profile on you that AOL never had. So yes, this sounds like a good idea to Google.

Not allowing a user to go directly to where they want to go is just bad. It's like ordering a Lyft to take you somewhere, but the driver takes you to 4 different places that pays Lyft money to artificially increase traffic to their place before ultimately taking you to where you wanted to go. It's just a waste of everyone's time.

Re: Every search bar looks like a URL bar to users

#180

Post by TeMPOraL »

coldpie wrote: post #166
TeMPOraL wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at the same time I find anecdotes like this comment elsewhere in this thread[1] compelling I don't. As I replied to that post directly, the URL bar is not like the choke lever on a car, but more like the steering wheel or navigation input. It's the UI element that is used to communicate user's goals to the machine - not some incidental control of a subsystem that gets automated away.

Google is suggesting replacing the URL entirely. URLs have real problems, which are genuinely really hard to solve. They're also designed for a subset of web content, and a lot of modern web content does not fit into the URL scheme very well. I don't know if Google's replacement will be better, but I am at least willing to hear them out once they have a proposal.

I'd be happy to hear them out too. Much less happy with them just slowly, piece by piece, making their vision happen without "public consultation", just by the virtue of being the dominant browser vendor.
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