Comments on: My Talk at Mozilla http://dubroy.com/blog/my-talk-at-mozilla/ programming, usability, and interaction design Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:29:58 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Jonathan Hayward http://dubroy.com/blog/my-talk-at-mozilla/comment-page-1/#comment-74953 Jonathan Hayward Tue, 25 Aug 2009 21:42:15 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2009/01/29/my-talk-at-mozilla/#comment-74953 <p>Two comments:</p> <p>1: You mention that some users find it easier to compare tabs than windows, but you were not sure why. I would offer the following suggestion: most nontechnical users do not have small windows side-by-side on a huge monitor; they have (some combination of) full-screen window(s) and tabs in the same. If you have pages in single-tab full-screen windows, revisiting the one you want is mystery meat: for most users with normal short-term memory, you don't know the window you want until you have pulled it up. By comparison, tabs usually have at least a few characters to jog your memory, and even if there are potential usability improvements, finding the right window out of five single-tab windows is harder than finding the right tab out of five (or, for that matter, ten) tabs in the same window.</p> <p>2: I'm not sure how you solicited participants, but it sounds like you have Firefox users who were already interested in tabs. I found your thesis in an attempt to dig further on a guess that some of what I have observed--people may be enchanted when I show them tabs, but they are often unaware. At least before the Windows update pushing IE8, IE6 was still very common, and IE6 is the one common browser (version) without tab support included by default. Yet many users don't migrate, even to IE7/8, of their own volition. (Tabbed use of any tabbed browser is better than any non-tabbed browser, so people failing to vote against non-tabbed with browsers with their feet speaks volumes.) Your page here did not answer the question behind my search ("How much does the general public really use tabs?"). It may be because that's not the point of your study, but how much the general public uses tabs is a cognate question and probably worth investigating.</p> Two comments:

1: You mention that some users find it easier to compare tabs than windows, but you were not sure why. I would offer the following suggestion: most nontechnical users do not have small windows side-by-side on a huge monitor; they have (some combination of) full-screen window(s) and tabs in the same. If you have pages in single-tab full-screen windows, revisiting the one you want is mystery meat: for most users with normal short-term memory, you don’t know the window you want until you have pulled it up. By comparison, tabs usually have at least a few characters to jog your memory, and even if there are potential usability improvements, finding the right window out of five single-tab windows is harder than finding the right tab out of five (or, for that matter, ten) tabs in the same window.

2: I’m not sure how you solicited participants, but it sounds like you have Firefox users who were already interested in tabs. I found your thesis in an attempt to dig further on a guess that some of what I have observed–people may be enchanted when I show them tabs, but they are often unaware. At least before the Windows update pushing IE8, IE6 was still very common, and IE6 is the one common browser (version) without tab support included by default. Yet many users don’t migrate, even to IE7/8, of their own volition. (Tabbed use of any tabbed browser is better than any non-tabbed browser, so people failing to vote against non-tabbed with browsers with their feet speaks volumes.) Your page here did not answer the question behind my search (”How much does the general public really use tabs?”). It may be because that’s not the point of your study, but how much the general public uses tabs is a cognate question and probably worth investigating.

]]> By: PaulH http://dubroy.com/blog/my-talk-at-mozilla/comment-page-1/#comment-34525 PaulH Sun, 24 May 2009 02:17:19 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2009/01/29/my-talk-at-mozilla/#comment-34525 <p>It is nice to see someone actually looking at how people use their browsers. I went to http://informationarchitects.jp/designing-firefox-32/#comment-152956 and they were advocating making Firefox like itunes. (hiding rss and having a huge list of sites to find what you want -- sort of like a list of changed history with search) Is there any way to sign up to make your study larger? I would volunteer. One other thing to keep in mind is hardware. When I had a 4:3 aspect ratio monitor I kept my tabs on top, but now with a wide screen I have the tabs on the side. Great article.</p> It is nice to see someone actually looking at how people use their browsers. I went to http://informationarchitects.jp/designing-firefox-32/#comment-152956 and they were advocating making Firefox like itunes. (hiding rss and having a huge list of sites to find what you want — sort of like a list of changed history with search) Is there any way to sign up to make your study larger? I would volunteer. One other thing to keep in mind is hardware. When I had a 4:3 aspect ratio monitor I kept my tabs on top, but now with a wide screen I have the tabs on the side. Great article.

]]> By: Jack Russell http://dubroy.com/blog/my-talk-at-mozilla/comment-page-1/#comment-32229 Jack Russell Sat, 16 May 2009 02:30:13 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2009/01/29/my-talk-at-mozilla/#comment-32229 <p>The reason people use the back button less could be because tabs allow for "disposable" pages. Lets say I want to read some news. I go to the BBC news page, whose front page contains titles and summaries for all the major stories of the day. I then middle-click all the stories I'm interested in reading, which opens each story in a new tab. I don't have to wait for the pages to load, and as they load "in the background" while I'm still busy selecting stuff from the main page. When I'm done, I can close the main page, and go to the first new tab. When I'm done reading the story, I close the tab, and onto the next story, and so on. No need to go back, because the tabs are all disposable. In fact, structuring the open tabs in this kind of branching pattern could be a an interesting experiment in usability.</p> The reason people use the back button less could be because tabs allow for “disposable” pages. Lets say I want to read some news. I go to the BBC news page, whose front page contains titles and summaries for all the major stories of the day. I then middle-click all the stories I’m interested in reading, which opens each story in a new tab. I don’t have to wait for the pages to load, and as they load “in the background” while I’m still busy selecting stuff from the main page. When I’m done, I can close the main page, and go to the first new tab. When I’m done reading the story, I close the tab, and onto the next story, and so on. No need to go back, because the tabs are all disposable. In fact, structuring the open tabs in this kind of branching pattern could be a an interesting experiment in usability.

]]> By: Patrick http://dubroy.com/blog/my-talk-at-mozilla/comment-page-1/#comment-31390 Patrick Tue, 05 May 2009 15:24:50 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2009/01/29/my-talk-at-mozilla/#comment-31390 <p>@Thom: You're right, I think immediacy of tabs -- the fact that they are always visible and always easily accessible -- is very important. Any new designs that try to replace tabs will need to address this somehow.</p> @Thom: You’re right, I think immediacy of tabs — the fact that they are always visible and always easily accessible — is very important. Any new designs that try to replace tabs will need to address this somehow.

]]> By: Thom http://dubroy.com/blog/my-talk-at-mozilla/comment-page-1/#comment-31092 Thom Sat, 02 May 2009 19:50:16 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2009/01/29/my-talk-at-mozilla/#comment-31092 <p>Nice reserach! "It's just right there..." Everyone working on Firefox needs to keep this in mind before they bury tabs in the history or categories or what not. Tabs are useful because, as your participants said, they're "just right there". I'm intrigued by the notion of moving tabs and other UI into the sidebar ( http://tinyurl.com/cv9c4w ) but we can't do these things at the expense of users who are happy with the way things are.</p> Nice reserach! “It’s just right there…” Everyone working on Firefox needs to keep this in mind before they bury tabs in the history or categories or what not. Tabs are useful because, as your participants said, they’re “just right there”. I’m intrigued by the notion of moving tabs and other UI into the sidebar ( http://tinyurl.com/cv9c4w ) but we can’t do these things at the expense of users who are happy with the way things are.

]]> By: Browsing behaviors revisited — TabViz http://dubroy.com/blog/my-talk-at-mozilla/comment-page-1/#comment-27566 Browsing behaviors revisited — TabViz Mon, 30 Mar 2009 04:41:22 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2009/01/29/my-talk-at-mozilla/#comment-27566 <p>[...] Another tab related behavior is that some people open many new pages (even from the same website) in new tabs instead of the same as the tab of origin website.  This is also related to Patrick Dubroy’s findings that some people are using the browser’s back button less and less because of opening new pages in new tabs.  A use case where this is very frequent is when opening a handful new tabs from a list of search results (or a list of aggregated news stories).  A big problem with this kind of behavior is that you loose track of the connection between tabs and of which tabs (search results) you haven’t looked at yet.  We are addressing this problem in our fan-shaped Radial Tab visualization. [...]</p> [...] Another tab related behavior is that some people open many new pages (even from the same website) in new tabs instead of the same as the tab of origin website.  This is also related to Patrick Dubroy’s findings that some people are using the browser’s back button less and less because of opening new pages in new tabs.  A use case where this is very frequent is when opening a handful new tabs from a list of search results (or a list of aggregated news stories).  A big problem with this kind of behavior is that you loose track of the connection between tabs and of which tabs (search results) you haven’t looked at yet.  We are addressing this problem in our fan-shaped Radial Tab visualization. [...]

]]> By: Patrick http://dubroy.com/blog/my-talk-at-mozilla/comment-page-1/#comment-26561 Patrick Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:58:29 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2009/01/29/my-talk-at-mozilla/#comment-26561 <p>@vijay: I think there are a few examples of AJAX applications that either remove the need for tabs, or make it harder to use them. GMail comes to mind -- quite a few people mentioned that they wished they could use tabs more easily there.</p> @vijay: I think there are a few examples of AJAX applications that either remove the need for tabs, or make it harder to use them. GMail comes to mind — quite a few people mentioned that they wished they could use tabs more easily there.

]]> By: Dubroy.com/blog - Hire me for programming or interaction work http://dubroy.com/blog/my-talk-at-mozilla/comment-page-1/#comment-26532 Dubroy.com/blog - Hire me for programming or interaction work Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:43:55 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2009/01/29/my-talk-at-mozilla/#comment-26532 <p>[...] For the past two years, I’ve been working on my master’s degree in Computer Science (with a focus on human-computer interaction) at the University of Toronto. For my master’s thesis, I did a field study examining how people use tabs in Firefox, which I recently spoke about at the Mozilla Mountain View office. For one of my courses, I also did some interaction work on the One Laptop per Child XO laptop. [...]</p> [...] For the past two years, I’ve been working on my master’s degree in Computer Science (with a focus on human-computer interaction) at the University of Toronto. For my master’s thesis, I did a field study examining how people use tabs in Firefox, which I recently spoke about at the Mozilla Mountain View office. For one of my courses, I also did some interaction work on the One Laptop per Child XO laptop. [...]

]]> By: vijay http://dubroy.com/blog/my-talk-at-mozilla/comment-page-1/#comment-26529 vijay Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:50:24 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2009/01/29/my-talk-at-mozilla/#comment-26529 <p>Quite interesting work you have got there. with ajax applications growing rapidly(eg: GoogleReader the articles are visible inline), tabs are hardly required. I wonder will this be detrimental to your study or the people helping you in this study.</p> Quite interesting work you have got there. with ajax applications growing rapidly(eg: GoogleReader the articles are visible inline), tabs are hardly required. I wonder will this be detrimental to your study or the people helping you in this study.

]]> By: Dubroy.com/blog - tlogger: Capture click-stream web browsing logs http://dubroy.com/blog/my-talk-at-mozilla/comment-page-1/#comment-25441 Dubroy.com/blog - tlogger: Capture click-stream web browsing logs Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:03:34 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2009/01/29/my-talk-at-mozilla/#comment-25441 <p>[...] If you’re reading this, chances are that you’ve heard about the web browsing study I’m doing for my master’s thesis. If not, you might want to check out the summary of my talk at Mozilla, the responses to the talk from Jono and Boriss, or just check out the posts under the “research” category. [...]</p> [...] If you’re reading this, chances are that you’ve heard about the web browsing study I’m doing for my master’s thesis. If not, you might want to check out the summary of my talk at Mozilla, the responses to the talk from Jono and Boriss, or just check out the posts under the “research” category. [...]

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