Comments on: The Design Review: Chromeless Browsing (ep 2)

By: Arron Dick

Arron Dick — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 06:13:16 +0000

Quick point(im not sure if anyones written it):
firefox, shift-ctrl-scroll, goes back and forward.
ctrl+pg up/down, goes through tabs etc etc

check out a program called “StrokeIt” i used to use it do draw shapes with the mouse to control my applications, probably could easily modify the idea for touch screens etc, i have a copy for win98 knocking around somewhere

By: Srirag G Doddihal (Brahmana)

Srirag G Doddihal (Brahmana) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 11:39:02 +0000

Not a suggestion, but I have a question. I have generally found the mock-ups presented by Mozillians, be in in bugzilla attachments or in the blogs, have been really good. Things like Alex Faaboorg’s mock-ups of the “Awesome Bar” in comparison with Google Suggest (or something similar) were really good. So I would like to know what tools are used for creating mock-ups and prototypes. This information will be very very helpful.

Regards,
Srirang (Brahmana)

By: Zach

Zach — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:35:40 +0000

This is one of the few times that eye tracking would be really useful, when in chrome-less/fullscreen mode we can see where people look. It would also be useful for your mouse-less Ubiquity, to see if people look at those little tabs. http://www.cogain.org/eyetrackers/low-cost-eye-trackers

By: david

david — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:36:35 +0000

I think a chromeless browser means a learning curve. if you can do everything you can do everything wrong.

You can use shortcuts or mouse gestures but how do you know which is the browser is using? Another thing is that both of them require knowledge of which shortcut or gesture is used to trigger the action.

So i think the most essential requirement is a universal way to see the quickhelp file. For windows the shortcut is f1, is this on linux and mac too? But which is it on smartphones?
So maybe drawing a question mark is the most universal way?

By: Vladimir Dzhuvinov

Vladimir Dzhuvinov — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:04:02 +0000

With or without chrome - the reqs are the still the same :)

By: Danny

Danny — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 13:42:05 +0000

I think there should be more ways to interact with a browser.
Shortcuts for the really hard core user.
The pie menu for the guys who have a large screen and are able to click on nothing.
And the chrome which only fades in when you move your mouse to the edges to have an easy to use UI.
This UI maybe can look like this:

pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dannys-pics/sets/72157613163886033/
html: http://firefox-fullscreen.webs.com/

But because I am stuck within my final examination, I only was I able to create a rough visualization of my idea so it can look a bit ugly and works not very well.
But the main parts of my Idea are involved and I hope I can inspire you to create other great interfaces.

By: Caleb

Caleb — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:29:33 +0000

I don’t know if anyone here would be familiar with linux, but there is a very interesting project for linux-based systems called gnome-do. It has some similar principles to Firefox’s ubiquity extension, but is more advanced and useful. It might be an interesting concept for some of the more advanced user input options in a chrome-less browser. For instance, searching your bookmarks would be hard without a some sort of gui. However, an interface like gnome-do or ubiquity would be able to accomplish the task very quickly without the use of a mouse at all. While keyboard input may be more difficult to learn/discover, it gives a lot of advantages in terms of usability. It completely shortcuts the process of moving your mouse and scrolling through lists and menus. However, I think a computer mouse would still be much more useful for simple tasks. Having some basic mouse gestures would be very good for simple “back” and “forward” commands.

Anyway, that’s just my opinion on the issue.

By: Mare

Mare — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:03:31 +0000

Also, I noticed that most people who use mouse have the posture with one hand on the mouse and the other laying down on the table, not even close to keyboard :)
So, don’t rely on ctrl-click like combinations..

By: Mare

Mare — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 23:54:56 +0000

Well, I’m a fan of keyboard, but it’s surprising how many people can’t get anything done without mouse. I guess that all the IE users (some 70% of worlds population) don’t know that they can use keyboard for doing stuff. And I guess that at least a half of the others prefer mouse. That leaves us with some 15% people max being comfortable with keyboard navigation.
Whatever you do with FF usability, keep the above in mind.
Also, I think that people who are annoyed with chrome can easily find the “customize” button. The others don’t really mind it. This is why I think that the right approach could be the Vimeos one - make chrome semi-transparent and remove it until user show the interest for it.
The only catch is how to actually read users mind :)

By: Michael Willis

Michael Willis — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:11:48 +0000

I would have to disagree with tylerstyle. I think that most “every imaginable thing” should be pulled out into browser extensions instead of built into a bloated options panel. That way the tech-savvy user can customize their browser experience, while the rest of the population can just focus on the web, not the browser.