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Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#171

Post by magicalist »

Someone1234 wrote: post #146
ckluis wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Search operators are super powerful and awesome to use in google - providing a way to use those from the browser itself can help provide a distraction free environment, but also opens up new possibilities: bm:“tag" - show list of all bookmarks with that tag Just a thought.

Windows tried to do that with their search (in Vista, 7, and 8). It has been a disaster. Hidden functionality is a UI and UX anti-pattern. How do people know to type "bm:" for Bookmarks? Google? Is a Google search now part of the UI's workflow? Or will people simply stop using Bookmarks because it is so obscure (you're seeing this with mobile browsers, Bookmarks are hidden so go unutilised). Ditto with Windows. In Wi…

I kind of agree, though hidden powerful features aren't inherently an anti-pattern (see, e.g. keyboard shortcuts). You just need to provide affordances for everyone to be able to use an interface at some useful level.

I'm a fan of the style of gmail's advanced search (for example), which has all the various fields to fill in if you drop it down, but then when you execute the search, it converts them into the search operators, thus teaching you how to use them (if you care enough to pay attention...if not, the field boxes are still there for you to use).

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#173

Post by psykovsky »

Pacabel wrote: post #84
weavie wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened to just asking the user where they want to save it? To download a file I now have to download it, then open Finder, navigate to Downloads and copy the file, navigate to the folder I want to place the download, paste the file. Then navigate back to the folder and delete the file from Downloads .. because Macs don't give you a Cut option.

You make a very good point. That sensible and effective approach has become yet another victim of the failed quest to "improve the user experience" by throwing away or changing stuff that was working perfectly fine before. The new approach is almost always far worse than whatever minor flaws might have existed with the earlier approach. And allowing the old, working approach to be toggled back on through some prefere…

When I start using a fresh installation of firefox I don't need to do anything to get my normal use experience back because I already restored my profile folder before opening Firefox for the first time.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#174

Post by smarterchild »

Someone1234 wrote: post #146
ckluis wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Search operators are super powerful and awesome to use in google - providing a way to use those from the browser itself can help provide a distraction free environment, but also opens up new possibilities: bm:“tag" - show list of all bookmarks with that tag Just a thought.

Windows tried to do that with their search (in Vista, 7, and 8). It has been a disaster. Hidden functionality is a UI and UX anti-pattern. How do people know to type "bm:" for Bookmarks? Google? Is a Google search now part of the UI's workflow? Or will people simply stop using Bookmarks because it is so obscure (you're seeing this with mobile browsers, Bookmarks are hidden so go unutilised). Ditto with Windows. In Wi…

> Hidden functionality is a UI and UX anti-pattern

I suppose the entire terminal, by that argument, is an anti-pattern. I feel a little better about not ever getting past mediocre in shell. :)

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#175

Post by marcosdumay »

frik wrote: post #162
Someone1234 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows tried to do that with their search (in Vista, 7, and 8). It has been a disaster. Hidden functionality is a UI and UX anti-pattern. How do people know to type "bm:" for Bookmarks? Google? Is a Google search now part of the UI's workflow? Or will people simply stop using Bookmarks because it is so obscure (you're seeing this with mobile browsers, Bookmarks are hidden so go unutilised). Ditto with Windows. In Wi…

Windows Vista had the advanced search bar, the UI offered similar search options that were available in Windows (95-XP). Vista advanced search: http://www.mydigitallife.info/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/vis... Win95: http://toastytech.com/guis/win95find.png ; WinXP: http://www.adammathes.com/academic/search-engines/desktop/xp... ; Win2k: http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/system/features/sea... The major differen…

That history is funny. Win95 was also supposed to ship with WinFS, but instead it got only a "you don't ask for a find-like tool anymore" search window.

I don't know if MS finished the WinFS specification already.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#176

Post by marcosdumay »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #153
Pacabel wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the comments here and those that appear under the article, people in general are not at all impressed by these ideas. I don't think the hatred is as universal as it is for, say, Australis, but it's close enough that it should be discomforting. What is your response to this? Do you think it's right to continue work on a project that the majority of people dislike for a variety of very legitimate reasons?

"Based on the comments here and those that appear under the article, people in general are not at all impressed by these ideas." I wouldn't say that is a fair assessment, many people took it for what it was (a UI/UX experiment), and quite a few people who did take to it badly mistakenly thought it was a Firefox design concept.

Well, to be fair, the last 2 Firefox "design concepts" got almost verbatim into the mainline despite almost unanimous complaints, and now I have 2 different plugins installed to correct the mess they created.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#177

Post by [deleted] »

smarterchild wrote: post #174
Someone1234 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows tried to do that with their search (in Vista, 7, and 8). It has been a disaster. Hidden functionality is a UI and UX anti-pattern. How do people know to type "bm:" for Bookmarks? Google? Is a Google search now part of the UI's workflow? Or will people simply stop using Bookmarks because it is so obscure (you're seeing this with mobile browsers, Bookmarks are hidden so go unutilised). Ditto with Windows. In Wi…

> Hidden functionality is a UI and UX anti-pattern I suppose the entire terminal, by that argument, is an anti-pattern. I feel a little better about not ever getting past mediocre in shell. :)

[deleted]

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#178

Post by ZenoArrow »

marcosdumay wrote: post #176
ZenoArrow wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Based on the comments here and those that appear under the article, people in general are not at all impressed by these ideas." I wouldn't say that is a fair assessment, many people took it for what it was (a UI/UX experiment), and quite a few people who did take to it badly mistakenly thought it was a Firefox design concept.

Well, to be fair, the last 2 Firefox "design concepts" got almost verbatim into the mainline despite almost unanimous complaints, and now I have 2 different plugins installed to correct the mess they created.

It's only a "mess" to some, I personally have no beef with Australis, and the beauty of Firefox is that it allows for you to customise it to work how you want (hence you were able to 'fix' it). This flexibility means there's still plenty of room for UI experimentation. Besides, this Lightspeed design is explicitly not for Firefox, the designers acknowledge part of what makes Firefox what it is is the customisability, this design is seeing what could be done with an alternative browser.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#179

Post by blueskin_ »

phlsa wrote: post #83

Hi, I'm one of the people who worked on this and I wanted to provide a little background and a few clarifications. Lightspeed is currently not a product. It's a collection of sketches and thoughts. It is also NOT the next version of Firefox. While some ideas might find their way into mainline Firefox at some point, many of the assumptions on which Lightspeed is based are the exact opposites of Firefox core values (e.…

What exactly might? The day Firefox gets even 10% of the way to this is the day I stop using it.

Re: Lightspeed – A Browser Experiment

#180

Post by blueskin_ »

lucb1e wrote: post #68

Something about the "there are no settings to adjust" makes me want to fork Firefox and only apply security updates from the version before this new UI gets out of beta. And tabs a click away? That's a nightmare. Mixing what I type with search results, history and suggestions? Hello Chrome lookalike. I thought the separate search bar and awesomebar was one of the killer features for Firefox. Once that's gone, odds ar…

Try Pale Moon. Firefox with a sane UI and without the latest bloat and privacy violations, with the security patches and performance enhancements ported over.
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