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Burying the URL

allenpike.com

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Re: Burying the URL

#221

Post by Kiro »

frozenport wrote: post #91
greggman wrote: post #88

This may be the reason I stop using Chrome even though I was a member of the team for 5 years. I NEED TO EDIT URLs. I need to copy and paste URLs. It was already annoying enough with it's removing of the protocol because sometimes I make a typo, try to edit it and it messes up and removes the protocol forcing me to edit it a 3rd time only after it goes as searches for something. Even as just a user I copy and paste U…

Also gramma is gonna be sad when I give her a URL and she won't know where it goes. It is not clear if they are dumbing the web down for users or just to get people onto Google search.

Many people don't know where to put the URL anyway. They type it on Google. You would be surprised how many search queries start with "http".

Re: Burying the URL

#222

Post by insky »

blablabla123 wrote: post #160
userbinator wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but am I supposed to edit them as an end user or draw conclusions from their look? Here is a data point that may be of interest: On YouTube, since links are filtered from comments, many users link to other videos by posting the "tails" of URLs - some with "watch?v=xxxxxxxx", some "?v=xxxxxxxx", and some just post the random-looking video ID part with nothing other than "see video xxxxxxxx". In other words, there's ev…

Yeah and the "otherwise computer-illiterate" may also think: oh wow, this is a cool feature I should rely on. Eventhough you can just paste the Youtube URL into the comment field and get a nicely formatted link. For me this is another evidence that the main argument is broken. Youtube is super successful but in fact it is really restrictive when it comes to hyperlinking and mashing things together. Update: just for c…

I do think there should be more of a focus on URNS rather than URLs, and his could help.

URLS are pretty rigid. If tommorow http was swapped out for a different protocol what would happen?

You'd be better off referring to the article posted as Allenpike's article on removing urls (or some such).

Fuzzyness feels more natural. I can bookmark a rigid URL, but what if later it moves? I might be better off bookmarking a signature of the article (a very basic form might be Author and Title).

The search engine's have a signature of articles, and if you are lucky that signature will be matched somehow against your loose search query. The success of search engines depends upon how well they order and match against your input.

Re: Burying the URL

#223

Post by akerl_ »

antr wrote: post #176
nanidin wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious, what kind of metrics do you use to measure the effectiveness of a change like this?

I'm going to be a cinic: if the Chrome team sees that users use Omnibox/Google more to got to the desired URL, that would be a positive thing (for them). Why type the URL when you can go via uncle Google?

Except given the recent trend, too many decisions like that would likely result in LibreAlloy or something similar. They have a lot more breathing room to behave that way with gmail and Youtube and similar, where the value they are providing is in serving the content, as opposed to Chrome where the code is more or less available and their value is in developing the open source environment.

Clarification: I'm not sold on the "Upstream goes sour? Time to Libre$thing" trend as a good thing in the long term, but I doubt the potential for it to occur has escaped Google's notice.

Re: Burying the URL

#224

Post by RegW »

StavrosK wrote: post #163
joosters wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to hint that Chrome reports its settings back to Google, so they could discover how many people disabled the feature. Is this true? Does Chrome phone-home with details of user settings?

Yes, it asks you when you first run it.

Hmm, so I guess their stats are likely to be skewed. Being based on the choices of those that don't know or care how the web works.

Re: Burying the URL

#225

Post by ithkuil »

antr wrote: post #176
nanidin wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious, what kind of metrics do you use to measure the effectiveness of a change like this?

I'm going to be a cinic: if the Chrome team sees that users use Omnibox/Google more to got to the desired URL, that would be a positive thing (for them). Why type the URL when you can go via uncle Google?

what happens if you directly paste an URL? does it still perform a search or the browser will go to the URL (and then hide it)?

Re: Burying the URL

#226

Post by antris »

wwweston wrote: post #166
drgath wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I NEED TO EDIT URLs. I'm using Canary with this option enabled, and all you have to do is click the domain box, then you can freely view, edit, and copy the URL. All this update does is hide the path portion of the URL. That's it, so IMO, this story is way overblown. Google isn't removing the URL bar, they're just acknowledging the fact that 99% of users don't need to see 99% of the URLs they visit on a daily basis…

> they're just acknowledging the fact that 99% of users don't need to see 99% of the URLs they visit on a daily basis. While we're talking about things we don't need, let's include this change . The fact is, for most of the last two decades we've already had a UI where users who don't care to attend to the URL don't have to, and users who care to notice can. What does this add? Nothing. But it does take away some leg…

> URLs aren't high tech any more than the address to your house is

When you stop by the local coffee shop, do you take note of what its address is?

The users have an idea what URLs are, they just don't care.

Re: Burying the URL

#227

Post by pietro »

paulirish wrote: post #121

This is a new UI experiment that's deployed to a small fraction of users. We're looking at a few key metrics to see if this change is a net positive for Chrome users. (I imagine it may help defend against phishing). My personal opinion is that it's a very bad change and runs anti-thetical to Chrome's goals. I hope the data backs that up as well. But regardless, this change is far from shipping as the new default beha…

I've enabled it to try it out.

First impression:

It doesn't make any sense to hide the protocol when you reveal the URL, and I found myself looking for a "Copy URL" button. Since copying the URL is what I most often try to do when selecting a URL, it would make sense.

It makes browsing feel much calmer, and I'm pretty sure I'll keep it enabled for a while.

Re: Burying the URL

#228

Post by pbhjpbhj »

antr wrote: post #176
nanidin wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious, what kind of metrics do you use to measure the effectiveness of a change like this?

I'm going to be a cinic: if the Chrome team sees that users use Omnibox/Google more to got to the desired URL, that would be a positive thing (for them). Why type the URL when you can go via uncle Google?

I can actually imagine a lot of users liking that - many people I've seen using a browser will just type stuff in to Google's homepage search box and then follow links. The classic example, yes I've seen it, is people typing Hotmail/Live/Outlook in to Google and then following the link rather than typing in the address [my 8yo did this recently for another site].

For many-many users the web entry point is the search engine they use as their homepage, that is "the internet" for them. This was the paradigm that AOL developed and there are vast swathes of users that cut their teeth on AOL.

Re: Burying the URL

#229

Post by pbhjpbhj »

loceng wrote: post #206
paulirish wrote: post #121

This is a new UI experiment that's deployed to a small fraction of users. We're looking at a few key metrics to see if this change is a net positive for Chrome users. (I imagine it may help defend against phishing). My personal opinion is that it's a very bad change and runs anti-thetical to Chrome's goals. I hope the data backs that up as well. But regardless, this change is far from shipping as the new default beha…

My guess is the real perhaps unannounced goal (?) is that Chrome wants more people using the Search bar to search Google. From a UI perspective for user it looks like the "Search Google or Type URL" text are would be searching the Amazon.com site - however it sounds like it searches Google? My guess is that this will drive a lot more traffic to Google and then much more opportunity for a website to the lose that user…

People do this already - they type "facebook[.com]" in to a searchbox (or addressbar with search enabled). They arrive at a SERP and click on the first link in that listing. Occasionally the first link isn't the right one, occasionally they'll notice and click the correct one!

Ordinary users.

It's right to address this behaviour in the interface design. Rather than somehow telling users they're wrong Google can work with that behaviour. Yes it has benefits for Google in tracking and profiling user behaviour too.

Re: Burying the URL

#230

Post by gcr »

drgath wrote: post #119
greggman wrote: post #88

This may be the reason I stop using Chrome even though I was a member of the team for 5 years. I NEED TO EDIT URLs. I need to copy and paste URLs. It was already annoying enough with it's removing of the protocol because sometimes I make a typo, try to edit it and it messes up and removes the protocol forcing me to edit it a 3rd time only after it goes as searches for something. Even as just a user I copy and paste U…

> I NEED TO EDIT URLs. I'm using Canary with this option enabled, and all you have to do is click the domain box, then you can freely view, edit, and copy the URL. All this update does is hide the path portion of the URL. That's it, so IMO, this story is way overblown. Google isn't removing the URL bar, they're just acknowledging the fact that 99% of users don't need to see 99% of the URLs they visit on a daily basis…

Does ^L still jump to the URL bar, activate the URL button, and select it? Since that's how I copy URLs anyway, I'm fine with that. ^K should just jump to the URL bar since it's now a search bar and ^L should jump to the URL/search bar and select the URL, as before.

With that one small change, I'd still be happy.

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