“Improvements” that got worst in Firefox 3.0
June 25, 2008 3:08 pm
categories:
Technology, cyberculture
I installed, after the big World Failure Download Day, the version 3.0 of Firefox. Although it has lots of technical improvements, some things seemed to me a worst version than the predecessor. Take the location bar (autocomplete history function) for example.
The overcrowded Location bar in Firefox 3.0
I first got very shocked when saw the new version. It seemed to me too much unnecessary cluttered information. The previous version shows only a list of the URLs. The new version brings me Favicons, URLs, Site name…but the new layout does not make it easy to read and rapidly identify the URL in the middle of this so overcrowded information. Things got so messy that they decided to put some lines between the items in order to “help reading”. Ouch!
The elegant and simple location bar in the previous Firefox 2.0
It seems that this isn’t my only and lonely impression. As you can see, there’s an add-on to revert exclusively the location toolbar to the older version.
The second “improvement” that seemed to be a bad move was the Downloaded Items list. The poor design of the new version with big fonts, heavy contrasted colors between selected and unselected items, less space between the items, cluttered and unnecessary information, and a mysterious search field (search where?) again show that some bad decisions were made.
The horsy downloaded items dialog box in Firefox 3.0
The more elegant downloaded items dialog box in Firefox 2.0. Somebody, please give me a link to an add-on to use this older version!
I surely prefer in general the Firefox 3.0 with all its technical and performance improvements, but in therms of usability and interaction design, the community really have to go back to work a little more.
Mobile oven
June 9, 2008 11:05 am
categories:
Design & Marketing, Technology, cyberculture
We’ve seen this before. A new technology is brought to the masses, we don’t really know it’s secret dangers, we just love it and use it massively. Latter than the same scientists that discovered it finds that it gives us the cancer or worse. But industry and people became too much dependent that we can’t afford living without it. Does anybody really imagine living today without a carbon monoxide producer named car? How long did it take until we got a non-pollutant alternative and how long will it take until it becomes a industry standard?
Now we’re going to the same way with mobile phones, waiting until somebody’s brain burns out.
Don’t have any way to make some pop-corn? Try calling to your own mobile phone!
update: so, what’s the real story? Did I go through an April’s fool joke?
updated: 06/16/2008 - The mystery revealed: it was just a viral campaign from a headset company. And a very good one. They caught me, but I really liked it!
