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> "We’ve redesigned and modernized the core experience to be cleaner, more inviting, and easier to use." Why does the UI change with every single Firefox relea
by csmpltn 5y ago
> "We’ve redesigned and modernized the core experience to be cleaner, more inviting, and easier to use."
Why does the UI change with every single Firefox release? I find myself having to re-adjust every time a new update is shipped.
What's wrong with having a consistent experience that survives for more than 6 months? It's just a URL bar, and a bunch of tabs. Just leave it be already.
- _Microft 5y agoSadly, I think there is some truth to the adage that departments ensure their continued existence.
- teknopaul 5y agoI worry about that
- _Microft 5y agoFor good reason - design changes of a web browser might be the least of our troubles though. This problem is everywhere. The last thing we should do when we need a problem solved is creating a department or office whose continued existence depends on the problem being there.
- cutemonster 5y ago> This problem is everywhere Makes me think of "Defunding the police".
- jsight 5y agoI tend to agree. This is like the marketing team reworking the name, slogan, or logos every few years.
- Tempest1981 5y agoUI design is like fashion design, often trying to catch your eye. Sometimes trying to be edgy or controversial, to provoke a reaction.
- smolder 5y agoUIs can be function first just like clothing, which is how I like it, just like clothing. Fashion is nothing but an obstacle for people with practical concerns. Pardon me for hating fashion, but I do.
- zejn 5y agoBrowser is a tool to browse the web. Tools need to be functional first. There is a reason why there's no "summer 2021 hammer" in hardware store.
- jhanschoo 5y agoConsidering how complex the web is, and how technologically complicated a browser needs to be regardless of UX, a car analogy is perhaps more appropriate; and you do have '21 models of cars.
- SAI_Peregrinus 5y agoYet none of these new model cars re-arrange the pedals. They'll change the style of the brake lights, the trim, etc, but the basic "4 wheels, front two steer, wheel turns towards the direction you want to steer, brake, gas pedal" is fixed. But with software (including Firefox) even the operational aspects change, not just the cosmetics.
- aschampion 5y agoThe UX community seems to value rather than avoid breaking changes, and it's infuriating. Novelty and surprise are rarely usability virtues.
- dralley 5y ago"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." I guess it's unsurprising that UX designers would want to continue having work to do.
- teekert 5y agoIDK, I like it, I would be one of those people that would complain about the 90's look if they didn't do this every now and then. But, people like you are ok with desktops like XFCE I guess, I like trying new paradigms, see what works, change what doesn't. I enjoy the occasional refresh in look and feel. Actually I think people like you are a minority, the majority just continues to enjoy evolutionary steps in design and never complains.
- dsr_ 5y ago"never complains" This is not my experience. The number one complaint I get from non-technical people using computers is "This doesn't look like it used to, I don't know how to do anything anymore."
- edoceo 5y agoYea, I fucking love Xfce. Its been the SAME for over a decade. I can't remember the last time they did some crazy/stupid UI/UX shit. The most recent change was GTK driven, where the buttons on common-file dialog moved to the top. But, it hit every app at once so the relearn was abrupt but short. And it was only one thing. Not a frustrating batch of a dozen inconsistent half-baked "tweaks"
- thatguy0900 5y agoThey don't complain because they are not technically apt enough to complain, and complaining accomplished nothing anyway.
- mathw 5y agoLast major Firefox UI overhaul was... Firefox 57, the first Quantum release, in November 2017. It's had various tweaks since, but my day to day experience has been the same since then. This is not an absurd pace of UI change in my opinion. And yes it is a conceptually simple UI, but with the whole stuff around the web with security, permissions, tab and window management and how an awful lot of modern computer use by an awful lot of people is conducted entirely inside a web browser it's a UI that is worth improving where improvements can be found.
- pteraspidomorph 5y agoYour day to day experience isn't necessarily the same as everyone else's. It hasn't been long since "View page info" was confined to a hidden menu and all context menu labels were changed for absolutely no reason.
- 1_player 5y agoMy issue with the context menu is "Search [selection] with Google" is in the middle of the context menu, after "Print selection" and "Take screenshot". Why? I cannot be the only one that uses that functionality 100 times a day at least, and it's so not conveniently placed I used to misclick "View selection source" instead a dozen times a day, and now I'll be taking screenshots or opening the print dialog by mistake. I've been googling a way of rearranging the context menu on Firefox so that selection search is rearranged or has a keyboard shortcut and not _one_ soul has ever mentioned it in the past decade, which is maddening. One of the reason I use Edge nowadays is that "Search with Google" is the second option, between Copy and "Search with Bing in the sidebar", which isn't ideal, but it's still search.
- cecilpl2 5y agoIt's awful. "Search with Google" is actually the only reason I ever use the context menu. Copy? Keyboard/mouse buttons for that. Select All? Why would I want to do that when I just made a selection? Print Selection? How common can that actually be, to justify being positions above "search the internet for this thing"?? Take screenshot???? Really?? Why does "Inspect Accessibility Properties" get real estate there? That's a legitimate question.
- kumarvvr 5y agoIts ok for me if the changes are incremental. When Chrome first came out, the lightweight, clean and out of your field of view tab bar was a welcome change. FF did pretty good with small changes that, in my view, have made it look better over the years. edit : Ok, checked the new design. Definitely don't like the tab buttons, mainly because when there are multiple open, there are no discernable borders among them. So a tad bit confusing.
- ncann 5y agoSame, I definitely don't like the new tabs with no border around them.
- geenew 5y agoI agree, inactive tabs need to have a border around them. At the same time I like how the tab bar is separated from the address/bookmark bar. Makes it much easier to identify the active tab.
- ksec 5y agoI am not too sure with border. Especially when you have on mouse over the Tab are floated out with different colour. Especially when you have dozens of tabs, the current style make it cleaner.
- keymone 5y agoI got rid of top tabs panel in favor of tree view, can’t imagine ever switching back.
- izietto 5y agoThey haven't fired enough UI/UX designers yet /s
- matsemann 5y ago> Why does the UI change with every single Firefox release? It doesn't. Maybe small parts of it get tweaks here and there. But your argument about having to re-adjust every update is just dishonest.
- anonymousab 5y agoIf you use niche or power user features frequently, then it can feel like almost every single update is reworking or removing a feature you depend on. Firefox updates are a constant stream of "1% of users use this feature so it's fine to do X to it" but it turns out that a lot of people fall into a lot of those small buckets at once.
- BuckRogers 5y agoThe 1%, that was the excuse to delete my live bookmarks feature. Which was fine in a way because addons took its place, but that further pushed the 1-3% of users that knew about it to almost certainly doom it to 0.1% over time. No discoverability at all.
- dandellion 5y agoThey also removed bookmark description. Little by little they're removing every feature I've come to like in the last fifteen years.
- tinus_hn 5y agoAnd then after 99 times they act all surprised there’s no users left. They are killing themselves by a thousand cuts.
- forgotpwd16 5y agoWhat features are you talking about?
- j_4 5y agoE.g. the last update removed right click -> open image, which I used all the time to view images in full screen. Now there's only an option to open the image in a new tab, which requires additional clicks to achieve the same thing.
- runarberg 5y agoidk. I kind of trust that the firefox team has competent designers that know what they are doing. Perhaps they found some issues in usability studies, tested a redesigned that fixed those, and sent the patch in the current release.
- sp332 5y agoIt also got through Nightly and Beta/Developer releases without enough negative feedback to sink it.
- mmis1000 5y agoThe feedback form basically get 20% of total feedbacks about how do they don't like the new tab bar (see their github issue list generated from the proton feedback form). Consider how people are lazy about fill a proper form for just complain something. That is a lot.
- plorkyeran 5y agoHas something which made it into Beta ever been reverted prior to release due to negative feedback from users testing it? From the outside that just doesn't appear to be a thing they use the beta channel for.
- JohnBooty 5y agoI also frequently wish developers would leave well enough alone, but what changes are you referring to? I don't remember big changes since Firefox 57 and even those took me maybe thirty seconds of adjustment. This recent update seems more like a very minor reskinning than anything that would require adjustment.
- throwaddzuzxd 5y agoDon't be over dramatic. It's still tabs and an URL bar, there's nothing to adjust to.
- acqq 5y agoEven the back button is wrong in the new version. Previously it spanned up to the left edge of the window. Now it's moved to the right, lacks immediate feedback and then it is drawn to the right with some new empty space for no reason but to make it harder to hit the back button, the most used button of the interface. The visual cue with the circle around it is also gone. Even the lines used to draw the arrow are thinner, making it less visible. Compare: https://www.ghacks.net/2021/04/19/here-is-what-is-new-and-changed-in-firefox-88-0/ https://www.ghacks.net/2021/04/19/here-is-what-is-new-and-ch... It's very distracting to me.
- n3k5 5y ago> Even the back button is wrong in the new version. Previously it spanned up to the left edge of the window. When you actually try it instead of comparing screenshots, you'll see that its clickable area still goes all the way to the edge of the window. The button hasn't moved to the right; there's just more negative space because they removed the circle around it. Deleting that space would actually move the button to the left and make it more difficult to hit. As it is, it's as easy to hit as ever, and the “empty space” isn't there “for no reason”. (Moving it closer to the edge would actually be a mistake; there needs to be some margin for situations where pointing close to the edge changes the cursor's function to resizing the window.) > lacks immediate feedback How so? As soon as the mouse pointer touches the clickable area, the button lights up; after a second of hovering, I get a tool-tip explaining what it does, what the keyboard shortcut is, and how I can use it to show the tab's history. Again, that seems the same as it used to be?
- acqq 5y agoAfter I move the mouse over the back "button" at first nothing happens, it's surely nothing happening "as soon as the pointer" enters the area. Then after some delay, the "area" of the button is shown, but not inclunding the newly "empty" space, which you claim is clickable. But what is highlighted starts to the right. If my mouse is already close to the edge, it visually signals that it's not over the button, that is, that I moved the mouse too far. It's very awful experience: not having the limits of the button drawn (which doesn't give me any hint of the area I can target), then not showing the limits fast enough once the pointer is there, then misleading about the limits (forcing me to move the mouse to the right even if I was already on the right place), drawing with the thinner line the arrow (also making it less obvious where it is): four wrongs in just one enforced update which is claimed to "improve" UI. On the most used button.
- pessimizer 5y ago> Why does the UI change with every single Firefox release? Something material to point out as your contribution to firefox when you're interviewing for your next job.
- megous 5y agoIt wouldn't be so terrible, if installable themes were actual UI themes that could modify all the styles and not just a background image.
- ProAm 5y agoIt makes me dread taking their monthly releases. I wish they would decouple security fixes with everything else. My address bar is permanently broken, I cannot delete previously viewed sites as suggestions at all anymore.
- dinosaurdynasty 5y agoThey do, it's called Firefox ESR.
- rurp 5y agoI tried that a few years ago, but within months they overrode my update preferences and policies.json file to force push an update that broke functionality I use. That and some other really annoying decisions are why I never recommend Firefox to anyone any more. I grudgingly use it as the current least worst option but would love to bail if there were options.
- blibble 5y agoI switched from gmail to another provider and I just couldn't get rid of "gmail" when searching for "mail" deleting and re-importing history/bookmarks did nothing, but what did eventually work was opening the sqlite table and deleting the rows manually...
- ProAm 5y agoSilly question and I know I can google it but how hard was it to change the sqllite table? (identifying the records, etc..)
- blibble 5y agovery easy I found the file with strings | grep (was "places.sqlite") sqlite3 places.sqlite then found the row with .dump, then deleted with DELETE FROM moz_places WHERE id = XXX:
- EMRZ 5y ago> "We’ve redesigned and modernized the core experience to be cleaner, more inviting, and easier to use." This usually means we reskinned and somehow ended with it being slower. Also the whole release notes are UI changes, particulary for mac ? I wished the only non-chromium browser with active development was.. idk, different?
- godelski 5y agoI've been on FF for decades, what are you talking about? The last "major" change was quantum and it still looks 90% the same. Even the UI changes look mostly the same. I've seen bigger UI changes between every Android/iOS version. GitHub has changed more. Spotify. Slack. I'm still the tabs, url bar, bookmark toolbar that I've had since the early 2000's. I actually appreciate the fact that things haven't changed much. Edit: I just upgraded after I posted this. Difference? Slightly darker and forward/backward buttons don't have a circle around them. And pocket button isn't in the URL bar and I can actually remove it (and here the other day everyone was complaining about it being bigger. GONE NOW). That's almost unnoticeable (unlike Android changing the clock location) and I can remove pocket. Win?
- szszrk 5y agoCheck out mobile. I had to spend a lot of time with parents to teach them how this works after upgrade. Only to realize I did not understand recent changes - I though collections are there instead of bookmarks, but it's a collection of tabs... Really confusing for me and my parent-users. Also very easy to mess up by them. So collections/bookmarks weirdness, menu moved to bottom, dark style, major changes on "new tab" screen. I hope there will be no more changes to mobile view in this update.