Time to break out your favorite prototyping tool or image editing software, Aza Raskin of Humanized is running a design challenge for dealing with tab overflow in Firefox:
Not only does the winner get a Humanized Puzzler t-shirt, but also the very real chance of their solution getting integrated into Firefox! Post your answers as blog comments. Also, prototypes and mock-ups get extra brownie points: there is no substitute for getting your hands dirty and trying out the solution.
Mozilla’s UX team is really looking forward to seeing the creative ideas that people come up with.
I noticed when you were asked about tab overflow that you mentioned smooth, animated scrolling.
In case you don’t know, Bug 347363 has a complete patch for this. Problem is its been held up in ui-review for months and is the only thing stopping the checkin. Now that I’ve mentioned it, I wonder whether you’d be qualified to give the ui-review it needs? Or at least leave a comment :)
We need more ui-reviewers. ;)
It’s understandable that beltzner and mconnor are busy, and it’s holding us back. The mentioned bug should really have been fixed months ago, which would have given us the opportunity to tweak the implementation (let alone fixing bugs/regressions) based on the feedback. The later it lands, the lesser optimized the final release will be.
I think this is solving the wrong problem. Overflow is OK and will always happen and solving it with scrolling, or multiple tabs doesn’t address the real problem.
The problem is not overflow but that the interface doesn’t allow for larger sets of active ideas/pages.
Luckily this problem has already been solved in other applications and the solution can be elegantly applied to the FF UI.
The Linux desktop has dealt with this issue in the taskbar UI by allowing users to have multiple desktops. The solution isn’t to allow scrolling on the taskbar. Instead you eliminate the problem by giving users an alternative:
http://www.raizlabs.com/blog/uploaded_images/fftabs.jpg
I’ve shown a quick illustration of how multiple browser “workspaces” can be done. Once a user starts to have 6 or more tabs you can allow them to switch workspaces giving them a clean slate to continue working.
The workspaces are simple and predictable. They don’t get in the way of a beginner and they are a great power user tool that has more flexibility then alternatives that try to address overflow.
I think the problem is the UI is attempting to accommodate lazy users. I use tabs to the point of overflow like none other. The problem is I may still have one or two browser windows open and will eventually forget I even had many tabs open? Why? Because there is no consequence if I open many. The interface HIDES them from me. My suggestion is a simple solution:
Don’t Hide Tabs.
Once you’ve opened the maximum amount of tabs in a given row start a new row, and another row, and another. The more tabs you open the more rows and rows of staggered tabs you should find yourself seeing. This does two things:
1.) It constantly keeps the user conscious of all the tabs they have open at any given time.
2.) It forces a constraint or consequence upon me. The more tabs I open the more vertical window space I end up losing. This is not a BAD thing. God forbid once I have 15 to 25 tabs open I could close about 6 or 7 I no longer need open.
It’s simple, easy, and more importantly, it’s intuitive and makes sense. It’s what you expect to happen. If you through toys into a box and it fills up the box does it magically become an endless black hole? No you need to get another box to fit the rest. It’s human nature.
Sorry I forgot to include a regular link to the screenshot:
http://www.donttrustthisguy.com/?attachment_id=69
I’d love to enter this challenge, however all my attempts to post to the Humanized site seem to have got lost in the moderation queue :(
So that my efforts don’t disappear completely, I’ll post a link here instead. It’s essentially a combination of an Expose-style view with a sprinkling of ZUI thrown in for power users.
http://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php?title=Markc:Firefox_Tab_Mockups
I agree with the guy that says to expand vertically. After all, I generally don’t take notice to the search bar taking up real estate, though I think Ctrl+F should toggle it on / focus if not already / off. Other than that you have the workspace and expose solutions? either way, they’re taking more tab real estate.
Really, what’s more important? Tab overflow real estate or page real estate. In my opinion, if my tabs are overflowing I need the extra real estate more than I need to see that 24px of the webpage, and I will also be able to more easily get that 24px back.
Greg (#4), you’ve just described the solution of multiple browser windows. For me, that’s not good enough. Also, multiple workspaces haven’t solved the issue of taskbar overflow; they’ve moved it to a higher level where it will take longer to be a problem. That solution doesn’t scale.
It seems to me that ZUIs might be the magic bullet for bloat.
My current workaround is to simply bookmark all my tabs when Firefox starts to get unresponsive. I have a todo folder in my bookmarks, and I use bookmark extensions such as Bookmark Duplicate Detector to help manage the crazy mess.
Reading Lists might help avoiding excessive tab usage by offering something more lightweight:
http://www.eccentrix.com/members/peterg/fftabs/index.html
For widescreen users, it would be nice to have a docking window listing the open tabs. That window could be docked on the left or right of the browser. Of course it shoud be resizeable horizontally, so that more than one tab can be put side by side, so to form a matrix.
Thanks.