

Ubiquitous Firefox, Part 1: How Do You Design a Debris-Less Browser? - abraham
http://mozillalabs.com/conceptseries/2011/05/24/community-concepts-ubiquitous-firefox-part-1-how-do-you-design-a-debris-less-browser/

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ggchappell
There are some nice ideas here, but the general approach has me worried, for
two reasons:

(1) Web pages, and the current crop of browsers that enable them, form a
hugely successful interface, one that non-technical people find very easy to
learn & use, in my experience.

Ever helped a non-techie use a word processor? Personally, I find (say) MS-
Word to be quite intuitive. But they don't. Questions every 30 seconds.
Similarly with graphic file browsers, drawing programs, spreadsheets, etc. But
I've never had to give anyone more than a very brief intro to the web, and off
they go.

So: the interface we have, _works_. Don't break it!

(2) I want to stay in control of my experience on the web.

> For this exercise, I take as guiding principle the idea that content should
> be its own interface while administrative debris should be minimized or
> wholly eliminated.

That's a fine principle in a world in which skilled web designers are trying
to make their sites easy and convenient for me. But in the real world, I need
the ability to say "no" to a web page at a fine-grained level. I need Readable
and Flashblock and severe limitations on what JS is allowed to do. Take away
my "administrative debris", and you might be giving away my power to run my
own computer, to web designers who are unscrupulous, careless, or just stupid.
I realize that much of this article is all about how to re-enable the kind of
functionality currently available via all the stuff framing the content in a
browser window. However, he doesn't even mention the concept that the user
should be in control. And that scares me.

So: redo the interface if you must. But do it with a view toward keeping the
user in control.

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horser4dish
Is it bad that I want to browse using this bare idea? I had Ubiquity installed
in FF3.6, and it was quite handy. The inline maps and other website commands
were more and more useful as you got used to them. Integrating it into the
browser like this would be at least a neat experiment, if not a useful
fork/revamp of Firefox.

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wicknicks
If you find it TL;DR -- this video at the end of the page is very descriptive:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG3tLxEQEdg>

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rhygar
Where is the search box? That's the first question the vast majority of users
will ask when first presented with this UI.

Like it or not, the search box is how most users navigate the web.

