Firefox 4 Beta: Tabs on Top Are Better
Miranda Capra / Usability / Web & SoftwareWith the release of Firefox Beta 4, Firefox joins Internet Explorer and Chrome in placing tabs at the top of the browser application window, above navigation controls, instead of between the navigation controls and the page content. Application-level functions like settings are now collected into a “Firefox” menu at the top. Buttons that affect the current web page, like back and mark as a favorite, are now lower, closer to the web page. Alex Faaborg, a user experience designer at Mozilla, has posted a video to his blog that explains the new features and the design advantages, but central to the design changes are classic interface design principles: proximity, error prevention, simplicity, context and grouping.
Proximity: page controls are lower and so closer to the page itself.
Error prevention: how many times have you stopped your music because you accidentally used your music tab to browse to a new web page? Now your Pandora tab can turn off the navigation bar to prevent this mistake.
Simplicity: the “navigation toolbar” is simpler because it contains only navigation functions. Browser tabs that don’t need the navigation toolbar can simplify the interface by turning it off.
Context: Web pages can add a toolbar at the top of the page, under the tabs, that makes it easier to access page functions. Since this toolbar is under the tab, it only shows when that tab is selected.
Grouping: the screenshots below illustrate how the current design has page functions (blue) mixed together with navigating to a new page (green) and application functions (yellow), but the new design has a cleaner organization and separation of these features.
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Michel
Great redesign of an user-friendly interface. Like to see the grouped elements and use of the interface design principles: proximity, error prevention, simplicity, context and grouping.
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