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As a designer, I agree that Australis UI is horrible. They made a touch screen interface and slapped it on desktop. It uses all the touch screen patterns a desk

by lcnmrn 13y ago

As a designer, I agree that Australis UI is horrible. They made a touch screen interface and slapped it on desktop. It uses all the touch screen patterns a desktop interface should not have. In order to fix it, they first should provide a compact version: same button sizes on the toolbar, smaller and better looking tabs, less wasted space between interface items.

_pmf_ 13y ago
> They made a touch screen interface and slapped it on desktop. Which would be justifiable (not good, but justifiable) if there was a tablet where Firefox would actually be usable.
illumen 13y ago
More and more desktops have touch screens now. For the last couple of years this has been a trend. Also, some desktop OS's support touch quite well. So you better update your terminology, since desktop does touch. Whilst the new UI is a little bit of an improvement on touch devices, it still kind of sucks. The main problem is the poor scrolling performance of FF though.
- agapos 13y ago
  Still, degrading the desktop experience for 99% of the users for the sake of 1% is not a smart move (#1). Yet, we see it more and more often. (Even more so with websites.) Sure, they can make a touch-friendly interface, but they should just put in behind a flip switch in the options. Using the mouse for half a minute to enable it will not break anyone's hands. Best way to feed the goat and keep the cabbage. #1: guessed the numbers, but I will eat my non-existing hat if the touch screen monitors are over 5%
deckiedan 13y ago
Interesting - I find the Australis (on linux & OSX) cleaner and takes up less screenspace. I wonder what we're doing differently...
- ksec 13y ago
  Yes, the hideous refresh button is so small, with no border around it, your mental energy require to clicking it will definitely be much higher then something easy to point to and well defined with borders or signs. Taking less space, and looking nice is one thing. Easy to use is another thing.
  - deckiedan 13y ago
    Ah - that explains it. I hardly ever use the mouse for that kind of thing anyway. I pretty much only use it for navigating pages, I use the keyboard shortcuts for tabs, refreshing, loading, etc.

by lcnmrn 13y ago

_pmf_ 13y ago

> They made a touch screen interface and slapped it on desktop. Which would be justifiable (not good, but justifiable) if there was a tablet where Firefox would actually be usable.

illumen 13y ago

More and more desktops have touch screens now. For the last couple of years this has been a trend. Also, some desktop OS's support touch quite well. So you better update your terminology, since desktop does touch. Whilst the new UI is a little bit of an improvement on touch devices, it still kind of sucks. The main problem is the poor scrolling performance of FF though.

agapos 13y ago
Still, degrading the desktop experience for 99% of the users for the sake of 1% is not a smart move (#1). Yet, we see it more and more often. (Even more so with websites.) Sure, they can make a touch-friendly interface, but they should just put in behind a flip switch in the options. Using the mouse for half a minute to enable it will not break anyone's hands. Best way to feed the goat and keep the cabbage. #1: guessed the numbers, but I will eat my non-existing hat if the touch screen monitors are over 5%

deckiedan 13y ago

Interesting - I find the Australis (on linux & OSX) cleaner and takes up less screenspace. I wonder what we're doing differently...

ksec 13y ago
Yes, the hideous refresh button is so small, with no border around it, your mental energy require to clicking it will definitely be much higher then something easy to point to and well defined with borders or signs. Taking less space, and looking nice is one thing. Easy to use is another thing.
- deckiedan 13y ago
  Ah - that explains it. I hardly ever use the mouse for that kind of thing anyway. I pretty much only use it for navigating pages, I use the keyboard shortcuts for tabs, refreshing, loading, etc.