July 2010
1 post
TabCandy Alpha →
Aza Raskin’s TabCandy project, which I’ve mentioned here before, was publicly announced last week. Give it a try — it’s very cool.
Jul 29th
June 2010
1 post
Jun 2nd
May 2010
2 posts
Chrome to Phone →
Chrome to Phone is a Google Chrome extension and corresponding Android app that lets you push web pages and maps directly to your phone, at the click of a button. I’ve been using this for the past few days on my Nexus One, and it is super useful.
May 29th
Firefox Home Coming Soon to the iPhone →
The project formerly known as “Weave for iPhone”, which I posted a while back. Looks like it could be really useful for Firefox & iPhone users.
May 29th
April 2010
6 posts
Account Manager - Experimental Firefox add-on →
Account Manager is an experimental Firefox add-on for supporting identity directly in the browser.
Apr 28th
Pre-alpha of Firefox Mobile (Fennec) for Android →
Great to see that Firefox Mobile for Android is progressing along nicely.
Apr 28th
Chrome dev adds support for desktop notifications →
Very cool. The demo doesn’t seem to work for me though (Chrome 5.0.342.9 beta on Mac OS).
Apr 21st
Web browsing research at CHI 2010 →
Alex Faaborg (Firefox UX Lead) rounds up some of the browser-related research at CHI 2010 this year.
Apr 21st
Ask Reddit: What are your Firefox pet peeves? →
Firefox UX Designer Alexander Limi polls Reddit users to gripe about their biggest pet peeves. 2300 comments, but there are some great ideas in there.
Apr 21st
Apr 15th
March 2010
5 posts
Improving download behaviors in web browsers →
A great article by Firefox designer Alexander Limi. Touches on a couple of usability issues that I’ve written about before: Uploading and Downloading are Seams in the Web Experience and Avoiding the mailto Trap.
Mar 30th
iPad Guided Tours - Safari →
Mar 30th
Mar 30th
Mozilla Labs Home Tab Concepts →
The “Best in Class” awards for the Mozilla Labs “Home Tab” Design Contest have been announced. Below is my favourite concept, by Blake Cutler, which was the winner in the “Utility” category. Mozilla Home Tab Challenge Entry from Blake Cutler on Vimeo.
Mar 18th
Behind the Bikeshed: Random clippings and images... →
Via Mike Beltzner: In the past when we’ve tried to share early sketches at Mozilla, the enthusiastic (yet often awfully harsh) feedback of the community ends up ending design explorations before they really get started. The result is that designers have waited until more fully fleshed out mockups and designs can be shared, but this comes at the cost of not being as transparent as we feel we...
Mar 18th
February 2010
1 post
WatchWatch
Too cool. Mozilla Weave client for iPhone lets you access your history, bookmarks, and tabs from your desktop browser. It’s like Dropbox for your web browsing. See the Weave blog for more details. There are few other client implementations: web, command line (!), and Palm Pre.
Feb 9th
January 2010
17 posts
Firefox Mobile is out →
Currently only for Nokia Maemo phones, but coming to more platforms in the future.
Jan 30th
An In-Depth Look at the User Experience of iPhone... →
By examining the most widely-used (and arguably best) mobile web browser, we can better understand what it takes to make a great mobile web browsing experience, and how we might do even better. But also, looking at the design choices made under the iPhone’s contraints can help us break free from our assumptions of what a browser interfaces should be. (Some shameless self-promotion)
Jan 29th
Mozilla Labs Weave 1.0 Released →
Weave Sync synchronizes your bookmarks, saved passwords, browsing history and open browser tabs. And all of your data is encrypted end-to-end to ensure your privacy.
Jan 29th
“Even though the screen offers the same pixel count as what was once the standard...”
– John Gruber, Various and Assorted Thoughts and Observations Regarding the Just-Announced iPad
Jan 29th
Jan 28th
Firefox UX Index →
A fascinating look at some of the UX improvements that are being considered for future versions of Firefox. There’s also a list of Priorities for Firefox 3.7 if you’re only interested in the stuff that’s most likely to make it in. Oh, and it’s Mozilla — so you should contribute your thoughts!
Jan 27th
Jan 26th
Google Chrome: Extensions & Bookmark Sync Out of...
From the Official Google Blog: Today we’re excited to introduce a new stable release of Google Chrome for Windows, which includes two of the browser’s most frequently requested features: extensions and bookmark sync. This is a pretty big deal, because extensions are the main place where Chrome is still playing catch-up to Firefox. Chrome’s extension mechanism (developer...
Jan 25th
Chrome's non-modal authentication dialogs
Have you ever noticed that there’s something a little odd about Google Chrome’s HTTP authentication dialogs? It’s especially noticeable on Windows: Compare this to the Firefox dialog box: Notice the difference in the style of the window? Chrome’s dialog is actually faked; it’s a custom UI element that can’t leave the confines of the content area. If...
Jan 19th
Mozilla Labs Design Challenge: The Home Tab →
Alex Faaborg on the latest design challenge from Mozilla Labs: In the upcoming releases of Firefox, we’ll move the Home button to be a “Home tab” instead. We will keep the existing functionality where you can display a web page of your choice — or disable it altogether — but since we’re moving this page to live in Firefox instead of on the web, there are...
Jan 15th
Jan 12th
“I’m opening up tabs from Digg and they’re appearing at the end of my...”
– One of the participants in my study on tabbed browsing.
Jan 9th
Jan 7th
A basic usability test on ten phones (and... →
A great article by ppk, who observed a non-technical friend using 10 smartphones to try to access his banking web site. It’s not browser-specific, but there are lots of good points about what it takes to make a good mobile browser. Unsurprisingly, he had a great experience with the iPhone: The touch event is way overloaded. Touching the screen may start a click, a scroll, or a zoom...
Jan 6th
3 tags
A Form of Madness - Dive into HTML5 →
An awesomely informative chapter from Mark Pilgrim’s (unfinished) Dive Into HTML5. Some interesting tidbits on subtle usability improvements that HTML5 brings to web forms. E.g.: Apple did something very clever in the iPhone’s web browser. It recognizes several of the new HTML5 input types, and dynamically changes the on-screen keyboard to optimize for that kind of input. Aha! So...
Jan 3rd
Jan 3rd
3 tags
Redesigning Firefox’s Addons Manager →
Good thoughts from Firefox designer Jenny Boriss on how to improve the Firefox Add-On manager. Some interesting suggestions in the comments as well. Also check out the follow-up post which talks about putting the Add-On Manager in its own tab.
Jan 3rd