J
Joseph Geretz
First of all, let me say, I LIKE the tabbed windows. It's a much more
efficient and cleaner way to manage multiple pages, then the alternative,
multiple browser Windows. That being said, there's so much that has been
engineered incorrectly, from a usability standpoint, that it leaves me
wondering 'huh'? How could the interface design professionals in Redmond
have gotten it so wrong.
1. Built in search area. I use Google toolbar. I don't need their search
area. But there's no way to remove it; you always need to keep at least one
search area defined. So it sits there wasting space.
2. Toolbar button placement. Ridiculous. The buttons I use the most Back,
Forward, Refresh and Stop are separated by the
wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide URL area. Was anyone thinking about
ergonomics when they designed this?
3. More toolbar placement issues. Menu items are top left, but other common
toolbar elements (Home for example, a very frequently accessed button) is
down and to the right of any open tabs. Who thought this was a good idea?
Has he been fired yet?
4. This one's not a biggie, but anyone thinking about the user experience
should have caught this: I frequently close the entire Browser window, when
really I only mean to close the current Tab. So the developers got it right,
but only up to a point. A dialog appears asking whether I really want to
close all Tabs. This is good. What's bad though is, the dialog box only
presents two options; Close All Tabs and Cancel. The one option which is the
likely option in many cases - Close Current Tab Only isn't presented. You
need to click Cancel and then explicitly close the Tab. Must have been
designed by the same guy who designed the toolbars.
IE7 - Good start, needs work, room for improvement. I give it a C.
5. Oh yeah, how do they release a major upgrade without providing a
Newsgroup? It's like after they won the Battle of the Browsers, they just
lost interest in the user base?
- Joe Geretz -
efficient and cleaner way to manage multiple pages, then the alternative,
multiple browser Windows. That being said, there's so much that has been
engineered incorrectly, from a usability standpoint, that it leaves me
wondering 'huh'? How could the interface design professionals in Redmond
have gotten it so wrong.
1. Built in search area. I use Google toolbar. I don't need their search
area. But there's no way to remove it; you always need to keep at least one
search area defined. So it sits there wasting space.
2. Toolbar button placement. Ridiculous. The buttons I use the most Back,
Forward, Refresh and Stop are separated by the
wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide URL area. Was anyone thinking about
ergonomics when they designed this?
3. More toolbar placement issues. Menu items are top left, but other common
toolbar elements (Home for example, a very frequently accessed button) is
down and to the right of any open tabs. Who thought this was a good idea?
Has he been fired yet?
4. This one's not a biggie, but anyone thinking about the user experience
should have caught this: I frequently close the entire Browser window, when
really I only mean to close the current Tab. So the developers got it right,
but only up to a point. A dialog appears asking whether I really want to
close all Tabs. This is good. What's bad though is, the dialog box only
presents two options; Close All Tabs and Cancel. The one option which is the
likely option in many cases - Close Current Tab Only isn't presented. You
need to click Cancel and then explicitly close the Tab. Must have been
designed by the same guy who designed the toolbars.
IE7 - Good start, needs work, room for improvement. I give it a C.
5. Oh yeah, how do they release a major upgrade without providing a
Newsgroup? It's like after they won the Battle of the Browsers, they just
lost interest in the user base?
- Joe Geretz -