Firefox 3: A Few of the UI Improvements
The Mozilla Foundation is to browsers what Apple is to computers. Mozilla has learned how to question existing paradigms and improve upon existing designs. I’ll admit that I thought Firefox 2 was nearly perfect from a UI perspective (from a performance perspective, not so much).
Here are a few examples on how Firefox 3 continues to push the envelope on browser design:
- A larger back button.
This seems obvious, doesn’t it? I’m not sure what the data says, but my guess is that when the back/forward buttons are used, the back button is used 90% of the time.
- The little dot to resize your toolbar. And, the star to bookmark something.
You see that little dot in between the location bar and the search box? It serves two functions: to resize the boxes and to provide a minimal visual separation between the two fields. Genius.
The star at the end of the location bar is used for bookmarking. So now you don’t have to go up to the Bookmarks menu (or use the shortcut keys). Simple.
- A link to Home, and Smart Bookmarks.
Why do we need a Home button on every browser? After all, home is just a bookmark. Mozilla put a link to home on the Bookmarks toolbar in the top-left (which follows the popular web design standard).
Also, Mozilla added a feature called “Smart Bookmarks.” This brings out the list of your “Most Visited,” “Recently Bookmarked,” and “Recently Tagged” websites. These features aren’t new, but they deserved to be highlighted in the UI.
Overall, Firefox 3 is a big step forward, and I’d encourage you to abandon your current browser in favor of the beta version (or the stable version if it is released when you are reading this).
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