
Worst Idea of 2010:  Firefox Personas - gacba
http://www.lessonsoffailure.com/companies/worst-idea-2010-firefox-personas/
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gchucky
Is this really worth making a big fuss over? The only time most of us would
interact with personas is when Firefox upgrades and we see the update splash
page. Aside from that, it basically stays out of the way and you can use the
browser normally.

~~~
cookiecaper
I agree. This is a total non-issue. If you don't want to decorate your chrome,
no one's here making you. It doesn't seem to have any adverse technical
effects. And pretty much the same functionality has existed in Themes since
forever.

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hkuo
K. I have a simple solution for this guy. Don't change your Firefox persona.
It's a feature, and guess what? You don't have to use it!

I, myself, sifted through a few of them and landed on one that I quite like.
I've lived with it for a day, and I like it. It's not distracting, and it
livens up the grayness of the toolbar a little bit.

So I fall on the side of people that like it. There will be some that don't.
But again, you have the choice to do so or not. Nothing to create a whole rant
over!

~~~
hkuo
btw, I work in the field of user experience. I see zero usability problems
with this. Any choice a user makes for his or her own interface is their
choice, and if it works for them, then who is to tell them that they are
wrong? It is the usability expert's job to discover how and why a person does
the things they do, and not tell them how they should be doing it.

For example, have you looked at some of your coworker's desktops? Everyone
sets it up differently to how they prefer to work. Some have icons littering
their desktop. Some have 50 apps in their taskbar. Some people like to use
spotlight. Some people like to click through folders. There will always be a
better way, certainly, if they so desire, but some people just like things the
way they like it. And if they're happy with that, then they're happy. And
that's the most important thing.

~~~
mullr
Though I agree with you on this particular issue, I don't think the broader
one is quite as clear-cut. In particular, littered taskbars and desktops are
seldom the consequence of user intent. It's far more likely that the user
lacks either the knowledge or the motivation to go and change things. While
they are technically customizable, they get mucked with and messed up every
time you install something on the computer. (talking about windows, clearly) I
suppose it's a difference between an opt-in and an opt-out system.

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mortenjorck
Oh dear. Mozilla has just exhibited its first symptom of "everything disease,"
in which it has noted the ascendancy of a competitor (Chrome), observed it,
and started copying it without critically evaluating what it's copying.

Call it a shark jumping or whatever you will, but this to me marks the moment
Firefox's post-peak status became unambiguously evident. Remember Blake Ross'
philosophy that a browser should be as invisible as possible? By turning the
browser UI into a dormitory wall, Firefox's gradual descent into bloat is made
concrete, and its acknowledgment of Chrome as the future leader is implicit in
its blind imitation of its theming system.

As for me, I'll stick with Safari.

~~~
sp332
I'm not saying Firefox doesn't take cues from other browsers, but it had
Personas for a while before Chrome had themes. The first Personas were
uploaded in December 2008.

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wdewind
To everyone saying this is a non issue:

Like all dev teams firefox has a limited number of resources. It's not that
there's anything particularly wrong about this (well there is but that's a
different argument): it's that they could've been working on much more
important shit. It's also another completely unnecessary moving part which,
even though this one is probably relatively simple, adds unnecessary
complication. From a UI dev perspective it's also a feature that isn't
supported on OSX, and I assume it's also not supported on the linux versions.
It's even more of a waste of a time to focus on a feature that pulls these
three in different directions.

Logically: stupid. This is pretty small though, so mountains out of mole
hills? Yes.

~~~
harrybr
Given Mozilla is well into metrics -

It's very possible that they've A/B tested various landing pages, and found
that the persona stuff has been generating an uplift in conversions (downloads
/ installations / etc), which could be why it's gaining prominence. They also
track usage of and satisfaction of features in-app via projects like 'Test
Pilot'. So, they might be seeing a nice adoption curve.

A lot of assumptions there, but really it might boil down to how different
most web users are in comparison to hacker news readers.

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dpcan
I thought we were talking about attracting the "Normals" around here today,
and then this rant appeared. It feels kind-of out of place.

This is exactly the kind of thing that happens when software companies start
going after the "Normals".

Pretty pays, so function tends to take a back seat.

I believe that if you ask a "Normal" if they'd rather have more keyboard
shortcuts or a rainbow colored browser, they'd probably take fancy over
function every time.

~~~
ajb
Quite. I first heard about Firefox Personas in a group inhabited mainly by
'Normals'. They liked it. One person decided to switch it back off, but wasn't
upset by the process.

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thingie
Worst idea? Uh. I also thought that browser should look like everything else
and so on, but then I simply tried some of these Chrome themes and some
Firefox Personas, and hey, I liked it. Why not. Not all of them are ugly and
makes everything in your browser illegible. It's just something nice to look
at, something that looks a bit "artsy". I'm living in a rented shared flat
with just gray wallpapers, some furniture, and the only decoration is an xkcd
poster. I'm so glad that I can get at least this, no matter how desperate it
may sound.

And, well, I have quite a lot in common with a teenage girl, but don't know
why I should be ashamed for that…

(You may not share my taste: <http://imgur.com/5r2B2.png>
<http://imgur.com/kuo4X.png>)

But please. Don't call something that I like and use, while you don't have to,
a "failure".

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robotron
This was actually implemented way back in 2009. It is also entirely possible
to not use a persona and completely ignore this feature. Skinning/theming is
actually a feature that some users may want. I've tried it and it doesn't seem
to impact performance at all.

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ThomPete
To many people the browser is just stuff around the page they are interested
in.

Yes some of those personas is but ugly but it doesn't have to be.

I don't understand the problem. You don't have to use them.

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dasboot
This is not personas, it's simple theming.

An actually useful persona feature would allow cookie profiles/sessions that
can be run in parallel (per window, for example) to log into several gmail
accounts at once, segment my search identities, etc. I've found the extensions
I've used lacking (maybe I've missed a good one).

But privacy and power usage don't seem to matter as long as everybody is
distracted by "OOHHH SHINY!". It's the curse of marketing to the hump of the
normal distribution.

~~~
cgranade
If you look at Mozilla's Weave project, they're doing exactly that. The time
they've spent on Personas pales in comparison to the time they've spent on
Ubiquity, Test Pilot, Weave and other Labs projects. Using a computer should
be fun, and so I don't mind a bit of ooo-shiny every now and then. It sure
isn't keeping Mozilla from getting shit done.

Edited to add: a nice work around that I use for multiple identities in the
mean time is to use the profile manager. Run Firefox with "firefox -P -no-
remote" to start a separate instance of Firefox with the profile manager,
create a new profile, and you're good to go. It is a pain, but as a
workaround, I've seen worse.

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javery
When did Firefox turn into Netscape? What I loved about Firefox was how it was
lean and simple to use. If it wasn't for a handful of add-ins I would have
switched to Chrome or Safari by now... and it's only a matter of time until
those add-ins are available in one of those browsers.

This seems to be a problem with lots of open source projects, features keep
getting added and added and added. It's easy to add new features, it's hard to
take a stand and keep things simple.

~~~
robotron
Chrome has the same thing:
[http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...](http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=148695)

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jerhinesmith
Maybe I'm not looking in the right places on their (Mozilla's) site, but how
is this different than the 'themes' that have been a part of firefox for
several years now?

~~~
Kliment
Zero-click preview, one click installation, and much, much easier to create
than themes. But I don't see much real value in it either.

~~~
jerhinesmith
Is there anything 'functionally' different once you have one applied? Or is it
really just Themes 2.0?

~~~
Perceval
No, no functional difference. The key difference is that personas are just a
wallpaper for the default chrome, whereas themes can actually change the shape
and positioning of the chrome, not just the color.

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bad_user
I take issue with the WinAmp comparisson ... normal users liked that stuff.
It's partly the reason Winamp was such a success (the other being that it was
ingeniously simple to use).

I think the author is the one thinking like a programmer.

~~~
mortenjorck
It is and it isn't a valid comparison.

Some Winamp themes were genuinely just different spins on the main window
chrome, and even looked kind of nice. Some, though, had "backgrounds" and
otherwise got in the way of the UI.

Which is the only thing that Mozilla personas do.

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rradu
I upgraded today too and played around with the personas. Most of them wanted
me to puke profusely, but I quickly found this one:
<http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/persona/1498>

It's a simple gray gradient that adds some subtle shadows to some of the text.
It's a welcome change. This brushed metal one is cool too:
<http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/persona/10897>

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jfi
I suppose they are trying to appeal to a younger audience, but I couldn't
agree with you more. I find the new skins distracting and far away from the
core value that I've come to expect and enjoy from the talented folks at FF.

~~~
robotron
You aren't required to use them.

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thwarted
Chrome has this too, and Opera's had support for it for a long time. I'm not
sure Mozilla should get the credit for this "idea".

