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Burying the URL

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Re: Burying the URL

#291

Post by sp332 »

jpatokal wrote: post #45
userbinator wrote: post #12

I somewhat expected this, given the trend of where things seem to be heading with software these days. In the name of "usability" configuration is removed, UIs are "simplified", and gradually the choice and freedom of the user is degraded. Opportunities to make mistakes and learn from them, or to explore and discover, a chance for users to grow . Dumbing-down software only encourages more of the same. The "senior try…

For kicks, try replacing "software" with "automobiles" in your paragraph. The innards of a modern car are incomprehensible to all but "the few elite", and its interface goes a long way to hide all that complexity. I only have the vaguest idea how it works, and am perfectly happy to outsource its maintenance to professional mechanics, because all I care about is that it works . This should apply to computers. My famil…

Making cars (and computers) more difficult to work on makes changes more expensive even if you rely on an expert. It cost $400 to replace the battery in my Mini Cooper because it's a huge pain. I would have done it myself and saved $300 except - it's a huge pain. See the problem? Having an easier car to work on also benefits people who depend on experts.

Re: Burying the URL

#292

Post by lmm »

kijin wrote: post #106
comex wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could argue it's instead like a built-in GPS that doesn't display your exact latitude and longitude - precise information about your location that is interesting, but usually not useful, since you have to take roads/links to actually get from point A to point B.

Most URLs are human-readable enough that I think street addresses make a better analogy. Latitude/longitude would be more like IP addresses and HTTP headers. They require some technical knowledge to use and understand, but they're still quite human-readable unlike raw GPS signals or ethernet frames. (As an aside, most GPS units also display the altitude. I live in a mountainous region, so I often make use of this fig…

> Most URLs are human-readable enough that I think street addresses make a better analogy.

I'd like that to be true, but I think we lost that battle a long time ago. Google results aren't a readable URL; nor are products on Amazon or Ebay or anywhere else I can think of. Newspaper-type URLs are often "fake human-readable"; the URL is something like http://somepaper.com/12345-Local-Man-Found , but in fact http://somepaper.com/12345-Local-Man-Still-Missing will give you exactly the same story. Even HN stories aren't human-readable, just an opaque id number.

Re: Burying the URL

#293

Post by Grue3 »

theanirudh wrote: post #56

Most normal users don't understand what URLs are, so I don't think this is a bad thing. This actually makes the UI more consistent; the address bar is always a way to search or go to a URL. An anecdote: my friends girlfriend was reading an article on mobile safari and wanted my friend to read it. Instead of sharing the URL, she actually took screenshots and messaged it to him! We both found this fascinating! I keep s…

To be fair, a screenshot of a tweet likely takes less space and loads much faster than an actual link to tweet.

Re: Burying the URL

#294

Post by lmm »

aragot wrote: post #96
userbinator wrote: post #12

I somewhat expected this, given the trend of where things seem to be heading with software these days. In the name of "usability" configuration is removed, UIs are "simplified", and gradually the choice and freedom of the user is degraded. Opportunities to make mistakes and learn from them, or to explore and discover, a chance for users to grow . Dumbing-down software only encourages more of the same. The "senior try…

Ubuntu practiced configuration removal and I dropped them. One of the 3 reasons why I dropped Ubuntu for Mac OSX was that Ubuntu... didn't allow me to configure my mouse speed. They "merged" the speed and acceleration control of the mouse (which is quite unclever) and also prevented it fom going <1, while I'm usually comfortable at 0.25. It made my tracking devices unusable, thus it made Ubuntu unusable.

Apple is not a company with a configuration-retention philosophy (see e.g. recent Save As... changes). If that's really what matters to you you'd probably be better off with BSD, a more power-user-oriented linux (arch, gentoo, slackware), or even windows.

Re: Burying the URL

#295

Post by blueskin_ »

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…

This feature is horrible.

Re: Burying the URL

#296

Post by nollidge »

antris wrote: post #226
wwweston wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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

Postal address? No, but I do know (for example) I'm on Main street, in that tiny alley one block west of 4th Ave, in the building just left of that weird giant sculpture of a bird.

I'm constantly aware of and can describe my relative location, even if I'm not always capable of expressing it using an absolute designation like postal address.

On the web, though, there is no such relativity. One website is not near or far from or above or below another. I cannot conceive of my location, much less express it, in any way but absolute address.

So: since I do not travel to reach places on the web, how do I know where I am? The address bar.

Re: Burying the URL

#297

Post by blueskin_ »

nanidin wrote: post #134
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…

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

>Implying Chrome use metrics rather than just ruining what they want and telling users to deal with it

Re: Burying the URL

#298

Post by sp332 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #243
7952 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 99% of what you do is in a browser then the browser has really taken the place of the operating system. And browsers are destined to follow a similar path to the OS. Remember when windows removed the full file path from explorer?

I remember when they split the full file path into clickable pieces for each directory, making the fully-visible path even more prominent and interactable than before. When did they remove the path?

In Windows 7, if I go to a folder in my home directory, it doesn't show c:\users\sp332\Downloads\foo instead it shows sp332 -> Downloads -> foo. The c:\users part is removed.

Re: Burying the URL

#299

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #281
Dylan16807 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when they split the full file path into clickable pieces for each directory, making the fully-visible path even more prominent and interactable than before. When did they remove the path?

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Burying the URL

#300

Post by Dylan16807 »

sp332 wrote: post #298
Dylan16807 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when they split the full file path into clickable pieces for each directory, making the fully-visible path even more prominent and interactable than before. When did they remove the path?

In Windows 7, if I go to a folder in my home directory, it doesn't show c:\users\sp332\Downloads\foo instead it shows sp332 -> Downloads -> foo. The c:\users part is removed.

Your user directory is a browsing root, along with "Computer" and "Favorites" and "Network". From whatever root you pick, it will always show the entire path if there is enough space. If you browse to the same folder from C it will show "> Computer > C > Users > sp322 > Downloads > foo"

So that's just some multiple mount point weirdness, not removing the path.

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