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Most of the discussion so far has focussed on the development environment (APIs, languages, etc) and performance issues. I would therefore like to raise the qu

by dhx 14y ago

Most of the discussion so far has focussed on the development environment (APIs, languages, etc) and performance issues. I would therefore like to raise the question “how will Firefox OS encourage a consistent and usable experience across applications?” Gnome[1], iOS[2] and Windows have comprehensive human interface guidelines and the systems tend to be user-friendly as a result. The latest WHATWG HTML standards do make an attempt to improve user interface consistency by adding new, specific tags. While this will help to some extent, I do not think it will solve the underlying problem. Web developers are accustomed to creating whatever interfaces they like with little regard to usability considerations including consistency with other websites. Different colours, typography, borders, page structures, navigation styles, etc between websites and applications produces a difficult user experience. [1] http://developer.gnome.org/hig-book/3.5/ http://developer.gnome.org/hig-book/3.5/ [2] https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/userexperience/conceptual/mobilehig/ https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/usere...

mbrubeck 14y ago
UX design guidelines are coming; the designer who is working on them gave a talk at MozCampEU last week. (Only the slides are available for now, but a more detailed write-up should be posted soon.) https://wiki.mozilla.org/MozCampEU2012/Design-Principles-behind-the-Firefox-OS-UX https://wiki.mozilla.org/MozCampEU2012/Design-Principles-beh...
- dhx 14y ago
  Thanks for the link to the presentation. As is the case with other mobile platforms I noticed a wide array of button styles. Small symbolic buttons in applications such as the photo gallery and messages screen, large glossy buttons for the radio and calculator, blue rectangular buttons for the time and date selection screen and a long red button for cancelling a call. Some applications are dark and 2D, others are light, colourful and 3D. I do like a lot of the work shown off in the presentation but still get the feeling that applications/screens on the phone are not tightly integrated or connected. This isn't criticism of Firefox OS. Rather it is an observation that I have for all mobile platforms I have used. I will look out for the detailed write-up to get the details of what is planned.

by dhx 14y ago

mbrubeck 14y ago

UX design guidelines are coming; the designer who is working on them gave a talk at MozCampEU last week. (Only the slides are available for now, but a more detailed write-up should be posted soon.) https://wiki.mozilla.org/MozCampEU2012/Design-Principles-behind-the-Firefox-OS-UX https://wiki.mozilla.org/MozCampEU2012/Design-Principles-beh...

dhx 14y ago
Thanks for the link to the presentation. As is the case with other mobile platforms I noticed a wide array of button styles. Small symbolic buttons in applications such as the photo gallery and messages screen, large glossy buttons for the radio and calculator, blue rectangular buttons for the time and date selection screen and a long red button for cancelling a call. Some applications are dark and 2D, others are light, colourful and 3D. I do like a lot of the work shown off in the presentation but still get the feeling that applications/screens on the phone are not tightly integrated or connected. This isn't criticism of Firefox OS. Rather it is an observation that I have for all mobile platforms I have used. I will look out for the detailed write-up to get the details of what is planned.