

Enhancing Multitasking to Enhance our Minds - DaniFong
http://einfall.wordpress.com/2008/08/24/enhancing-multitasking-to-enhance-our-minds/

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ivank
Right now, I use Tree Styles Tabs as a sort of "temporary history", since I
got tired of thinking about which tabs I should keep open. I'm also using the
Ctrl-Tab extension just like Alt-Tab on windows (can't live without it). With
a vertical tab list, I open almost everything in a new tab. My depth first
search habits are limited by seeing the tab indentations and knowing where the
root is.

My ideal tab behavior would involve merging browser history and tabs into an
infinite vertical scroll. Pages with unsaved state (form data, important flash
objects, AJAX "state") would stay in Firefox's memory until explicitly closed.
All "boring" pages would stay in memory for a few hours, then convert to a
URL+scroll-position+selected-text object. Combine this with single-keystroke
tab tagging and I think that tabs will finally feel like a reliable part of
the browser, not just a taskbar-inspired hack.

edit: Ideally, desktop applications would work in a similar way. Right now I
have to keep ~30 windows open because I can't remember which serialize state
perfectly, and which don't.

~~~
DaniFong
I like Tree Styles Tabs, but it seemed to take up too much space for me to
consider using. And it wasn't nearly so good at showing the _temporal_
dimension of browsing.

Do you think the proposed system would satisfy your desires? It includes all
the data shown by Tree Styles Tab, and merges history and open tabs quite
seamlessly, with the 'history gutter' system.

~~~
ivank
I like some parts of it (like how it detects typing activity), but I think it
adds more visual complexity than needed. The temporal information _might_
cause confusion: what if almost all the pages in tab were accessed 14 hours
ago, but then you clicked a link in it and went back? what time would you
show? There's just so many time variables that I don't know which would be
useful. In either case, I would prefer a more subtle approach to showing age,
like fading tab color.

I think tabs have been broken from the beginning, though. My goal is to
traverse information as rapidly as possible, tagging things I like (today I do
this by manually with Save Page As). I simply visit too many pages to know if
a tab/page is a true "task" or not; this is why I don't see the purpose of
distinguishing between currently open tabs and history. And this is why the
gutter bothers me: why distinguish between what's open and what's closed (but
is still useful)?

I realize many people use just four or five browser tabs, but that kind of
workflow is more suitable to the OS taskbar itself. Often times, half these
tabs are a stateful application like gmail and the purpose of the tab is to
separate workflows. Automatically identifying tabs with stateful activity is
the key to this. Right now, users are doing it manually and keeping those tabs
open all the time. It should be the browser's job to know what is "important"
and what is "just a page". This is one of the true advantages of the iPhone (I
haven't used other smartphones) - all of the built-in applications preserve
state perfectly and I never have to fiddle with a separate "app launcher" and
"window switcher". In Firefox, the tabs are the unnecessary "window switcher".
Of course I'm ignoring the behavior of MobileSafari because it's a
memory/space-limited device.

This is somewhat separate from your design, I'm just finally writing my
complete rant on tabs. I realize I might be browsing the web very strangely.
Sorry to thread-jack :-)

~~~
DaniFong
No, don't apologize, this viewpoint is absolutely intriguing, and I greatly
appreciate the discussion. The goal is to make the best tab navigation system,
not to trumpet any particular design :-)

I especially like your point about identifying tabs with state, and
identifying tabs that are basically applications. Perhaps we can actually
accomplish much of this automatically? We can at least detect the presence of
things entered into text-fields. We can at least save a state of the DOM and
Javascript namespace instead of wiping everything else out.

If a tab is an application, it perhaps doesn't make sense to bind it to the
same horizontal time axis; perhaps instead to do as OS X does, by loading
applications into a doc. On the other hand, though, on OS X I just navigate
around with Quicksilver, which has a quasimodal 'task-leaping' behavior that's
totally supported by this version of FoxGlide.

It's certainly true that it's unclear which time variables are the most
important to display. At the moment, I suggest a hybrid approach -- organize
the tabs horizontally by order of opening, as is the default in Firefox. At
the same time, indicate on the activity ticker, for each time, which tab you
have opened, and what you were doing. This keep the horizontal ordering of
tabs static, aiding spatial memory, while allowing you to recall what you were
doing at any given moment, using the activity ticker.

Regarding the distinction between open and closed tabs, I think that most of
the population likes the feeling of 'finality' achieved once they close a tab.
They like knowing that they could recover it, if need be, but mostly, they
appreciate tabs being "out of sight, out of mind". It's always going to be
important to be able to close tabs (for stopping persistent behavior: eg.
Meebo, Pandora, Youtube).

I guess you would advocate the graying out of closed tabs, while perhaps
lowering their priority more rapidly. Is this correct?

Is it possible that the gutter can be adapted for your needs as well? Say, it
only shows up if you actually close something. We need to strike some
compromise between people who want closed tabs _out of their face_ and people
who want tabs _around_ , like you.

~~~
ivank
I somehow forgot about the true need to close a tab sometimes. This problem is
much harder than I thought. But, one thing that I don't think will ever work
is a large intermediate screen (as the mockup) as the primary method of
switching tabs/pages. Most users (especially those on Windows) don't expect to
see large intermediate screens (things like alt-tab are tiny). And I'm wary of
two or more methods of switching, such as regular tabs plus the full-screen
approach. It would kind of bring the full-screen method into an "analytics"
category that most users would never use to their advantage. Is a full-screen
tab switcher intended to be the primary method of switching?

The problem is especially tricky because users have already adapted their
mental models of browsing to non-ideal tabs. This might require a very slow
transition into an ideal navigation method. The "find a tab using location
bar" approach is heading in the right direction.

I'm much more interested in improving the usability of existing horizontal
(and vertical) tabs, since that's what users are used to. I don't have a
compromise yet (if ever) but I would base it on these assumptions, which may
not apply to everyone:

1) Just because a page has a tab, doesn't mean it needs to stay in memory (for
most pages)

2) Keeping tabs, in-tab page history, and global history fragmented is _awful_

3) Firefox's history pane is unusable, which partly accounts for tab
proliferation (for many users - how many?)

As a side note, one of the reasons I like Tree Style Tabs is that it brings
the webpage text closer to the center of the screen. As long as the screen is
at least 1280 pixels wide, it's usually better for me. _edit_ : but, it is
kind of useless if the visual noise bothers you. It doesn't bug me; I like to
see a lot of information on multiple monitors, as long as nothing changes in
the background.

~~~
DaniFong
_One thing that I don't think will ever work is a large intermediate screen as
the primary method of switching tabs/pages._

It's interesting that you'd say that, because it's not at all what I'd expect.
There are two factors you might not be accounting for here: that the
transparency of the tab display would make clear that the screen is a
temporary one, intended to aid navigation, and that the quasimodal interface,
where you have to hold some hotkeys down, keeps transparent navigation
overlays from distracting from the browsing. Check out Enso for a live
example: www.humanized.com

Additionally, the tab display can be scaled down to whatever level the users
end up desiring: recall that navigation is done by dragging and zooming.

I will admit, I'm coming at this from the direction of 'what is the ideal
navigation system', not 'what will, for the immediate term, make the most
people comfortable'. I suspect that the system is fairly easy to learn,
unobtrusive, and that in time greater efficiency will win out.

I agree with your assumptions. In particular, keeping the tabs system on
different screens from history is terrible. But I must not fully appreciate
your sense that the history gutter will fragment history from tabs. It seems,
instead, that since it's part of the same screen, and the same unified system,
that it's a step in the _right_ direction. And I think there simply have to be
some compromises for people who want their finished tabs done away with.
Visual clutter is a _serious_ impediment for many people, me included.

------
pdubroy
Interesting ideas. I've been thinking along really similar lines.

Good point about how a large number of tabs on the screen can be distracting.
One of my friends actually moved his tab bar to the bottom of the screen, and
he said that he finds it much less distracting. It's there if you need it, but
stays out of your way when you don't.

------
ars
I like this quite a lot. I find I can not work if I have too many tabs open, I
wonder if this will help. But even if not, it's still a great idea.

~~~
DaniFong
Consider trying the 'full screen browsing' approach. It's not perfect, but
it's helped me a lot, and best of all, it's _implemented_.

