Also if you want to see what they have instore for a customization menu than see: http://www.stephenhorlander.com/images/dev-usability/Wireframe-%28CustomizationUI%29-%28Controlled%29-%28Overview%29.png

What I dislike, however:

- how the “add tab” button is placed. In my mind, I want it to be fixated at the far right, or else the button becomes a “moving target” that I have to scan for every time I want to use it.

- status bar should be visible by default. As others said, it’s the place for Firefox add-ons. It’s also for displaying useful information that users have been familiar and it would be a pain for it to go away.

- thought it kind of make sense to have URL bar under a tab, a tab-on-top design makes it very difficult to access tab bar. For those like me, who has at least 70+ tabs open at the time, and always want to scroll through tabs with mouse-wheel, changing this design is a really big deal. If possible, I would like you guys to reconsider this.

- combining URL bar and search bar might be OK for Chrome, but not so for Firefox. Since search bar in Firefox can be used for many search providers, it would be a pain when trying to toggle to different search engines. Besides, Firefox ‘awesome bar’ is already complex as it already is, and I don’t think it will do users any good to lump up even more functionality into it. When you type something, how in the world can you know whether what’s present to you is from where. I know that you can differentiate them using icons, but don’t you guys think it’s too much info for users to process when they type just a couple of letters? And what would be of Firefox performance, if you try to do too many things at the same time?

All in all, I guess what I’m trying to say is, yes, going for minimalistic design can be a good thing, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Trying to mimic bad designs from other browsers will upset users than making Firefox useful.

Tabs on Top is a VERY bad idea. Despite what Fitt’s law says, alienating your user base is a sure fire way to loose ground to other browsers. Also increases distance between the tab content and the actual tab and it can be much harder to distinguish the tab and its contents.

Removing the status bar is also unwise unless something else will replace it. Google Chrome uses a hover style status bar, but its never 100% removed. Opera after a while of it being gone, put its status bar back on the browser as well.

And what the heck is an “App” Tab? And why isn’t this “feature” documented in MozOrg Wiki?

The only thing wrong with the Firefox 3.7 design is the missing menu bar. I may be “old fashioned” by Web 2.0 standards, but I’m one of those who loves what Microsoft calls the “classic menu”. The first thing I did when I got IE7 was turn on the “classic menu” option. Down the road, Microsoft redesigned the IE7 installer to turn it on automatically.

Firefox 4.0 design, on the other hand, is something else entirely. Let me be blunt, I think it’s more crap than anything else. No menu bar, as I’ve pointed out, is just wrong. Beyond that, I have several other problems.

The location bar and search bar serve different and disparate functions. The location bar is for typing in URLs and quick searching bookmarks and history. The search bar for searching the Internet with the convenience of not having to go to a website (and to put a little money in Mozilla’s pocket). If you combine these two, will my bookmarks and history suddenly be running through Google or whatever search engine selected when I start typing instead of going straight from my hard drive to the location bar on the screen? There are back end changes that would have to be made so that the user can decide if they want a location bar or a search bar, else you have a privacy issue. Also, I prefer two separate bars for two separate functions and think it would be a mistake to combine them for no good reason. One long bar isn’t that useful to me anyway.

The stop/reload/go button idea sounds like dangerously overloading a button with too many functions. Its like the garage door opener with one button. It sounds good in theory, until some rainy night when you push the button to open the door farther to get your car in and instead the door closes on your car’s hood. I don’t even use the stop/reload combiner extensions available for Firefox right now. Moving all this into the location bar sounds just jarring to people who are use to it being to the left of the search bar. IE7 and IE8 have the stop button to the right of the location bar and I find it to be the least preferable spot.

DON’T REMOVE THE STATUS BAR!!! It is useful for extensions. The status bar also shows where a link points to, which is an incredibly useful function and also helps security because the user knows where they are looking before they leap.

Furthermore, I repeat what I said last time I posted a comment(http://blog.stephenhorlander.com/2009/08/17/menubar-and-toolbar-handling/comment-page-1/#comment-25):

“I do use Internet Explorer from time-to-time on truly cantankerous business and education websites and version 7 was a real bitter pain. I got use to it and use Internet Explore 8 now comfortably, but it did really hurt to lose all those skills I had built up. The odd thing for me is that I was able to use Office 2007 right off the bat after having lived in Office since Office 2000. I don’t know what difference made Internet Explorer 7 hard and Office 2007 easy, but it is clear to me that Microsoft initially screwed something up with the Internet Explorer interface design and implementation. I would hate for Firefox to have the same problem.”

I repeated the previous because I feel you are making same mistake the IE Team made. You are doing a UI redesign in Firefox 4.0 without making it beneficial to the user. The Office 2007 Team clearly did a lot of user testing to come up with the ribbon design, whereas the IE Team just seemed to decide “heck its 2006, lets junk and replace the interface for no darn good reason”. I tried Google Chrome once, didn’t like it, and uninstalled it within a couple of days of downloading it. You seem to be headed down the design path of “IE7’s doing it and Google Chrome’s doing it, so we should be doing it”. If you’re going to be a lemming going off a cliff with the herd, could you at least be the smart one and bring a parachute?

Albert Einstein once said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Firefox 3.7 does feel simple as possible, but Firefox 4.0 feels like you are pushing beyond simpler for simpler’s sake. The wireframes I like previously (Tabs-On-Bottom Version B, Tabs-On-Top Version B, Tabs-On-Top Version C, and Tabs-On-Top Version D) felt more robust than the new Firefox 4.0 wireframe in this post and I had concerns then too about Firefox being considered a “Chrome knockoff” or an “Internet Explorer 7 knockoff”.

One possibly good thing you have thought up is the turning off of the bookmarks bar. I will have to find a new place for my Sage extension button, Print button, Calculator 1.1.14 button, Flashblock button, and Adblock Plus button. That being said, the bookmarks bar wasn’t that useful when Netscape had it back in the day as real estate for the for the highest advertising bidder.

Now I do have some curiosity questions for you. What is the new “App” tab? Is the “App” tab like Prism? Could an “App” tab be turned into something like Prism by tearing it off the tab bar and dropping it on the desktop? What functionality is being planned for the home tab?