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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

#181

Post by everdrive »

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.

I don't think good software always aims for the lowest common denominator. It's not an unequivocal good that users' lack of education is catered to. Infantilizing users makes them more dependent on services, and less able to navigate the internet.

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

#182

Post by jamesfisher »

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…

Even as a technical user, I Google "natwest" instead of typing in "natwest.com". Much safer than typing "natwest.co" and getting caught by phishing sites.

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

#183

Post by hk1337 »

MauranKilom wrote: post #163
klyrs wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox did away with the search bar a long time ago. For a while, it was possible to bring it back through about:config, but I don't think it's possible to make the url bar a clean url bar anymore (this is an invitation for corrections). It's annoying because I navigate to pages via URLs, and all I don't want to send those to a search engine for "suggestions" (though, a locally-indexed history is nice). All too ofte…

> Firefox did away with the search bar a long time ago. For a while, it was possible to bring it back through about:config The search bar still exists in Firefox if you want it to btw. I use it daily.

Interesting.

I didn't know you could add the search bar but when you do, the address bar still says "Search with or enter address".

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

#184

Post by [deleted] »

marstall wrote: post #70

once was trying to help someone get setup on email and realized that the concept of scrolling was new to them. my mental jaw hit the floor at the difficulty she was having in grasping that concept and making it happen predictably. kids get it immediately, but she was in her 20's, so harder to learn. She was so frustrated and I totally got it.

[deleted]

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

#185

Post by denton-scratch »

dylan604 wrote: post #30
thrower123 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every change to URL bars lately seems to make them less useful. Let's hide the protocol, users don't need to know whether they are connected through http, https or ftp, right? Let's make the URL bar jump about fifty pixels when you select it, so that your mouse cursor is no longer in the right place when you go to select a URL fragment.

my favorite least favorite is hiding everything but the domain. clearly, nothing useful can come from displaying anything after the TLD.

The path and the query parameters are obviously useful and informative. The problem is that those URL components have more-and-more been turned into opaque hashes, that provide zero information.

And it's annoying that web-devs don't respect the principle that URLs shouldn't ever change.

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

#186

Post by wartijn_ »

klyrs wrote: post #170
MauranKilom wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firefox did away with the search bar a long time ago. For a while, it was possible to bring it back through about:config The search bar still exists in Firefox if you want it to btw. I use it daily.

My mistake, I meant to say url bar. Last time I tried this, the url bar had all the functionality of the search bar, which misses the point. Am I remembering wrong?

The settings screen has the option "show search in address bar results". You can turn that off.

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

#187

Post by coldpie »

dylan604 wrote: post #179
coldpie wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. S…

> Eliminating the URL means that everything is a keyword search to visit places.

I don't think you can jump to that conclusion.

For example I can come up with an idea that removes URLs without going through google. Imagine a new protocol where the user types in something like "john's pizza cafe; order a pizza". My local pizza joint is registered in a DNS-like system and handles the query directly with some commodity search-like system, never going through google; or the pizza joint offloads the query to some 3rd party which crawls their site and handles the resolution.

(This is just some dumb idea I came up with off the top of my head; please don't nit-pick it to pieces. Wait for Google's proposal to come out and nit-pick that.)

Every internet query going through google would be bad, sure. But google isn't proposing that... yet :)

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

#188

Post by professoretc »

jeffasinger wrote: post #78
nend wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Family members for me, but they don't understand the difference between the windows search box in the task bar (next to the "start" button), and google. The difference between Chrome and google.com is lost on them as well. It's a good exercise in patience for me while we go through the steps of describing the differences between searching for things on your computer vs searching for things on the internet, what googl…

Interestingly, I think we're seeing less people grow up with general purpose computers, and instead just have an iPad or an android tablet, or a chromebook. I wonder what things will look in 20 years.

Something like Asimov's "Profession" story, I imagine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profession_(novella)

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

#189

Post by fbelzile »

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…

I think a good analogy is an automatic vs manual car. Most people prefer to have one pedal for the accelerator. But you still have many car enthusiasts (web enthusiasts) that know how cars (the web) work and want to control the mechanics behind the scenes. I wish it was still an option provided to users.

Google has a financial incentive for the Omnibar though. After searching for "facebook" users would click the first link, which might also happen to be an ad for Facebook. Effectively, turning a profit from the laziness of people not typing .com.

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

#190

Post by jeffjeff2 »

delecti wrote: post #142
lnx01 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea how to shoe a horse.

But if someone told you that a horse needed to be shod before riding, you'd at least know what the sentence meant.

I'm pretty sure a lot of people wouldn't understand the word "shod". It's not really a word in common usage.

I just hope nobody would mishear it as "shot". That could be unpleasant.

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