A matter of fiction

Tabs and I just can't be together

nobody@vox.com(jonathanj) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:30:28 +0200

We need to talk. It's not me, it's you. You're just really busy at the moment. I'm just moving too fast. You need some space.

Tabbed user interfaces are really meant for grouping collections of user-interactables into logically categorised, more manageable arrangements. More than 5 tabs and you should be thinking "This isn't great," more than 10 tabs and you should already be thinking about making changes.

Enter Firefox, where I seldom have fewer than 30 tabs open at any given time. Anyone, who has tried to use Firefox once the tab bar starts getting wider than the window, knows that this UI is a square peg in a hole that doesn't exist. Tab widths are almost always greater than tab heights, so who thought it was a good idea to have tab bars run horizontally?

Fortunately some people have realised that disaster is afoot. I like Aza's suggestion that web apps are treated more like OS X dock items than plain old tabs.

My current approach to tab management is a rudimentary grouping mechanism, based around the awesome Tree Style Tab Firefox extension: Once I have a bunch of tabs open on a particular topic, I create a blank tab, set its address to data:text/html,<title>Sci-fi</title> (or whatever the relevant category is) and dump the relevant tabs in there. A recent addition to my management policies is "shelving" a tab group that I haven't interacted with for a while, meaning I bookmark a tab group and close all the tabs. Being able to reduce the number of active tabs (usually in the region of 10 to 20) really helps with Firefox startup times. I just wish I could navigate my tabs without the mouse (filtering, selecting, etc.)

Alexander Limi has a great post about approaching redesigning tabs. However, one sentence troubles me greatly:

The first thing people say when we indicate that we are looking into alternative approaches is usually “But I like my tabs. Please don’t take away my tabs!”

People really say this? Who are they? They can have all my confounded tabs! I want something better than tabs.

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Annoying software is annoying

nobody@vox.com(jonathanj) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:14:57 +0200

Specifically, I'm referring to Mozilla Firefox and it's incessant addon pestering, in various shapes and sizes. Ironically, the addons behaviour feels like the most bolted-on thing in Firefox.

Firstly, short of the sky falling, nothing should prevent software from getting to a usable state when the user performs the relevant action to start it (clicking a shortcut, invoking a link handler from another process.) Possibly the most annoying thing that Firefox does is pop a dialog up in your face telling you about how your addons have updates before the rest of the browser starts, bringing about (at least) two sub-annoyances:

It prevents you from actually using the software until you make a choice as to whether you want to update your addons or not;
If you happen to click multiple links (expecting them to all open in tabs), only the first one is handled while the rest vanish off into the ether.

I realise that, in someone's mind, this might have been a good idea because you can't update addons without restarting the browser, and that restarting the browser isn't what most people would call fast; but it really wasn't a good idea. At all. Ever.

Secondly, after having survived the first point and chosen to update your addons, you still have to watch progress bars slowly fill up and your browser restart, while you twiddle your thumbs. You are then assaulted with another addon dialog, informing you that the progress bars you just watched complete were actually addons, by the same name, being updated! If you're lucky then you are ready to start using your browser. If you're not so lucky, some of your addons (I'm looking at you, NoScript) have taken it upon themselves to provide additional annoyances, usually in the form of opening new tabs that explain very little about what you did not know and quite a lot about what you did already know.

There have been some attempts to openly discuss improving the current addon experience, although things seem rather quiet at this point in time, one can only hope that the Firefox team realises that there is a problem and maybe Firefox 4 will have teleportation, time travel and an improved addon experience.

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Cyberdyne goes to see the Wizard but forgot what to ask him for

nobody@vox.com(jonathanj) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:25:00 +0200

Colin recently wrote about this and although I was probably the person who lead him to write his post, I had no intentions of writing a post myself. However, after reading his post the reality of the situation struck me, as if I were a car stranded in the middle of the tracks of the supersonic clue-train.

To fill in a bit of background, I've been a faithful Cyberdyne customer for at least seven years now, to date I have zero (count them, none) complaints about them, in fact my only comments had been positive ones. I've had fantastic service from them, generally no questions asked and only too happy to help. As far as the human component goes, I don't think anything has changed.

Recently they've made an effort to improve their website and online presence (they were very manual process-ish,) an honourable task. Unfortunately (for the general population at large) they seem to have gotten the meanings of "improve" and "destroy" switched around and I'd like to provide some constructive criticism.

The very first thing you will notice (when using Firefox, Chrome, anything not IE) is that it is impossible to focus the inputs for your login credentials, making it quite the challenge to log in. I actually lied when i said "anything not IE" because it doesn't actually work in IE8 (in standards compliance mode aka the default.)

The second thing you will notice is that your credentials no longer work, despite typing them in for a second time. The reason for this is that your previous account has actually been deleted, purged from this earth. The only clue to this mystery is a little blue information icon next to the "Register" hyperlink that, when clicked, pops up a cramped bubble explaining some nonsense before getting to the crucial information: "Your account is... gone. HAHAHAHA! Seriously, how long did that take you? That long huh?"
No news page with a post explaining what the hell is going on, no email in my inbox explaining that I will need to register again. Hell, I didn't even know the new site was launched. None of my information was migrated. My old account name wasn't even reserved, my personal details were thrown away like a broken toy and my order history banished.

Now, if you've managed to stagger your way through the crotch-high thorn bush that was logging in, you probably want to submit a quote request. From the cramped product selection widget to the 10-item paginated stock display to the lack of a search mechanism to the lack of product images... Hell, if you actually managed to find and select the item you were looking for, you should probably be receiving it free of charge as compensation for mental distress caused.

What I see here is essentially an e-cart system maybe with integration to warehouse or stock systems. There are lots and lots of examples of successful e-cart systems on the Internet, one small one you might have heard of is "Amazon". The serious disregard for usability (which ultimately equates to userbase population) is not entirely uncommon amongst South African online businesses, but this doesn't mean that it is acceptable. If it's this hard to get me to spend my money to buy something I want then you're doing something seriously wrong.

On a postive note, the order status and process feedback features are a welcome change.

Finally, to come back to Colin's main point, targetting a website at a single platform (it's really more like half a platform) is suicide. What do you do if you don't have access to IE6 or IE7 (consider the average Mac OS X user)? You go somewhere else to spend your money, that's what.

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