
Firefox Heatmap - How People Use Firefox's Interface - michael_fine
https://heatmap.mozillalabs.com/
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51Cards
If I read this correctly under Customizations: 95% use the "Status Bar"
(though in which way is unclear) Yet the status bar was removed from the
default UI with the argument that the space was wasted. (and replaced with the
optional Add-On bar, taking up the same space)

Easier to have just provided the option to hide the Status bar for the 5%?

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mbrubeck
This was based on an old study from Firefox 4 Beta when the status bar was
still on by default. (The study was in July 2010, when Firefox 4.0b1 was out;
the status bar was replaced about four months later in Firefox 4.0b7.)

The "Customizations" number just means that 95% of users had the status bar
enabled (i.e., did nothing and ended up with with the default setting) while
the other 5% customized Firefox by disabling the status bar. It says nothing
about how many users "used" (interacted with) the status bar.

Customization is not a good measure of usefulness. We know that 97% of
participants never used the RSS button in the main toolbar in Firefox 4.0b1,
but that doesn't mean that they all took the time to customize their toolbar
to remove the button.

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zobzu
Based on over 117,000 Windows 7 and Vista Test Pilot submissions from 7 days
in July 2010

It's the old 2010 study...

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mbrubeck
You can find results from the more recent 2012 heatmap study here:

[https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2012/06/firefox-heatmap-
study-20...](https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2012/06/firefox-heatmap-
study-2012-results-are-in/)

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nfm
Interesting, but note that it's a 2010 study. See also
<https://testpilot.mozillalabs.com/testcases/betaui>

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dbbolton
I'm assuming that they only tracked mouse usage, but I would assume many
"advanced" users would make extensive use of the default keyboard shortcuts. I
wonder if it could skew the data.

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bonzoesc
The first thing that jumps out at me there is the use of the vertical scroll
bar and back button, instead of hardware scrollers and back buttons.

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tommymorgan
The scroll bar numbers make me further believe that OS X Lion's scroll bars
are a bad design. My computer is not a tablet... saving ~10 of 1920 pixels is
not something I needed or wanted.

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Tyr42
I have turned my scrollbars back on, not because I want to use them, but
because I want to look and see how much of a page is left without moving my
mouse over there. I never actually click on it.

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MattDL
I think the only UI features I regularly use are the Firefox button and the
URL bar.

Everything else has been replaced either by hardware buttons
(back/forward/scrolling/new tab) or by extensions (reload with mouse gestures
etc.)

As has already been said the use of the scroll bar especially seems odd to me,
I'd have thought middle clicking would have nearly killed it off.

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idleloops
Try CTRL + L to jump into the location bar (that's if you have a keyboard.)

With regard to middle clicking, I assume you mean a scroll wheel on a mouse.
Which some users still don't have! (I know it seems hard to believe.) Also
trackpad users need to dupe this functionality somehow, and some haven't
picked up on the shortcuts.

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DigitalSea
Looks like it's time to get rid off the navigate to visit URL button like
Chrome did, nobody uses it. Interesting to see so many people use the search
field in the browser, don't think I've ever used that before to do a search I
search via the URL bar.

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SCdF
I know this is an old study, but I'm amazing at how many people use the back
button. I wonder if that's how a lot of people deal with search results that
didn't pan out (they hit back to go to Google, instead of opening them in a
bunch of tabs).

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notJim
I'm a web developer, and I use the back and forward buttons* all the time,
especially if I'm being lazy. For example, if I'm shopping for something,
rather than opening a whole bunch of tabs, I'll just bounce back and forth
using forward and back. I think I do this especially when I'm farther away
from what I want, and as I start to zero in more, I start opening more tabs at
once so I can compare.

Also, from some usability studies we've done at my job, it seems that most
people are almost completely unable to deal with window management. We rolled
out functionality for a while that broke the back button (poorly-implemented
infinite scroll) and found that our pages performed very poorly, because
people would lose their place and just leave. We kind of had assumed that most
people would use tabs, but that turned out not to be the case at all.

Anecdotally, watching my mom use the computer recently was enlightening. She's
been using computers longer than I have, and is very savvy with certain things
(e.g., she still knows how to use Excel to solve problems better than I do,
and I know Excel pretty damn well.) She seems to use browser tabs sort of like
"processes", rather than "threads". For example, she'll have her "hotel
search" tab, her "rental car" tab, and her "flight search" tab, and within
those tabs, she'll stick to that topic, using the back buttons to look at
different pages. When I switched spots with her, and started spawning a whole
bunch of tabs from each tab, she started to lose track of things.

* Edit: actually, I almost never use the buttons themselves, but I use the functionality as I described. I use mouse buttons, gestures or shortcut keys, rather than the buttons.

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ticks
Your mother sounds like she's using tabs like you would in Excel, where you
have different spreadsheets for different types of transactions. You see that
quite a lot with users who are experts in one area and try to carry over their
skills to another area - rather than adapting to new ideas.

As for forward and back, yeah I use them a lot too. Normally via extra mouse
buttons or keyboard though.

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FiloSottile
No, I can't believe that the URL box is used more than the search one. Thre
must be an error or, more probably, a bias towards tech-savvy people. I've
seen common people typing full URLs in the Google box.

~~~
mbrubeck
You're right about the bias. If you use the filters to view only data from
self-identified "Beginner" users, then the address bar usage is significantly
lower and the search bar usage is higher (but still not as high as the address
bar).

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ngokevin
Disable the navigation bar, and alt+d brings up a navigation window. No more
using the mouse to click on a skinny rectangle, and you get some screen real-
estate.

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adrianp
What strikes me is the low usage of the RSS button; the "RSS is dead" polemic
might not be that unsubstantiated after all.

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justindocanto
Anybody else having the overlay about 30 pixels higher than the image of the
browser? or is it just me.

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Tyr42
I am. Chrome on OSX. I'm not sure if that's intentional so you can see what
exactly was being clicked on, or a bug.

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techmm
Beta testers are not typical users!

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justindocanto
74% of advance users used the search bar VS 54% of beginners using it. Wonder
why.

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dfc
What is the "firefox button"? Does this exist in the linux versions?

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mbrubeck
The Firefox button is shown when the menubar is hidden (View: Toolbars: Menu
Bar, on Linux). The menubar is hidden by default on Windows Vista and Windows
7.

On Windows the Firefox button is orange and is integrated into the window's
titlebar. This is not yet implemented on Linux, so on Linux it just appears in
the tab bar.

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zalew
exactly. I use it on my laptop (linux) to save space.

