Re: you want to change user expectations

On 18/08/2011 5:52 PM, David Tenser wrote:
> I'd like to understand what are you proposing Mozilla should do -- stop
> trying to improve usability for the ever growing internet population for
> the sake of maintaining status quo for the existing population?

I'm with Cheny: I don't like change for the sake of change. Browsers are 
rapidly developing into the kind of bloatware that makes Office suites" 
almost unusable.

> If that
> were our philosophy for the last 12 years, the web would be very
> stagnant and we wouldn't even have pop-up blocking today, or even tabs.

Pardon me, but that's a red herring. Pop-up blockers answer a need of 
the user: we just don't like them.

Tabs are useful because it makes it easier to switch between 
websites/pages. They also answer a need of the user. (For the same 
reason a two-up or four-up display of websites/pages would be an 
increase in usability. Many people still haven't got large, hi-res 
monitors, though, so this should not be a default.)

But dropping the throbber does not answer a user need. On the contrary, 
people _like_ signs of activity. Hiding the version number also doesn't 
answer a user need. I mean, who asked to have them removed? Those that 
want to know want to find it easily. Those that don't care needn't look 
for it. So leave it as is.

What _really_ annoys me is that somebody's favourite tweak becomes a 
default. Just because Someone Up There prefers IMAP was the way to go, 
it became the default e-mail setup in Thunderbird. Anyone who wanted POP 
had to be very alert to prevent this from happening. It just about made 
me dump Tbird.

I'll stop here, and start separate rants for the "improvements" I like 
least.

Wolf K.