Re: FF 5. 0 and user interface

On 8/22/2011 8:57 AM, André Neves wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 11:48 PM, Felix Miata wrote:
>> On 2011/08/20 01:42 (GMT-0700) Asa Dotzler composed:
>>
>>> The good news is that we've moved to a much better system now where
>>> users won't get a huge pile of changes every year or two. Instead
>>> they'll see smaller changes spread out over many smaller releases
>>> happening every 6 weeks. I believe this will allow us to make the same
>>> kinds of changes we made between Firefox 3.6 and Firefox 4 but without
>>> disrupting the user like that.
>>
>> Good news is in the eye of the beholder. I'd rather large changes at infrequent
>> intervals that I can budget time to cope with based upon a version upgrade
>> announcement rather than minor disruptions at infrequent intervals slipstreamed
>> into place. Hmmm, I sound like Mike Kaply, don't I. But, I'm a mere mortal
>> user/advocate, not a large business admin.
>
> IMO the ability of millions to comfortably and incrementally adapt to
> UI changes trumps the ability of thousands to manage their systems.
> Too different orders of magnitude.
>
> Unfortunately for you and for those who like to keep a tight rein on
> their software, for which it means more effort, and maybe more
> trouble.
> Everything has a drawback.
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 21, 2011 at 8:50 PM, Stephan Hohe wrote:
>> But then different Firefox installations will end up with different menus.
>> And Firefoxes on your laptop/desktop/work machine all having different menus
>> can't be a good thing.
> Agree.
>

Maybe.  Most users seem to use a subset of the available menu items, 
depending on what they need to do, and how they approach the task at 
hand.  There are menu items I have NEVER used, for one reason or 
another, and I am sure others who use those daily.  What one needs to do 
has a lot of effect on what tools he uses, just like any other worker 
who uses tools in his work, even programmers, who find a subset of their 
favorite language and tend to use those same tools, because they 
understand how they work.  That being the case, a work computer, and one 
used at home may have very different menu needs.


> On Mon, Aug 22, 2011 at 3:29 AM, Reuben Morais wrote:
>> On Sun, Aug 21, 2011 at 3:50 PM, Stephan Hohe wrote:
>>>
>>> On the other hand: Unexcected changes to the menus and resulting user
>>> confusion will already happen anyway due to rapid silent updates.
>>>
>>
>> We could extend Sync to solve that problem.
> I actually never heard of anyone who uses Sync. (Maybe it's not just
> much talked?)
> Please consider Sync as "progressive enhancement", rather than solving
> not having it with "graceful degradation".

_______________________________________________
dev-usability mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-usability