Firefox User Experience

Much like Justin, I'm discouraged by the user experience in Firefox 1.0. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see a standards-based, open source browser making strides. I always test sites against Firefox, and it's rendering engine is way beyond WinIE. Writing a browser is no simple task, so you get a heap of credit just for showing up.

That said, on Mac OS X, Firefox's user experience runs a distant, distant third or fourth after Safari, OmniWeb and possibly even IE. Since a lot of people are caught up in the Firefox excitement, I think we should make it clear why Mac OS X users aren't necessarily cheering along.

Safari is exactly what I want in a browser, and I don't think I'm alone in that. It has a focused mission of fetching and rendering web pages and then getting out of the way. OmniWeb is very good for people that want a lot more features.

Even though it's supposed to be the streamlined, browser-only counterpart to the monolithic Mozilla/Netscape, it still feels like it's trying to do too much. I hear Firefox has all sorts of extensions, but I haven't been able to get to update.mozilla.org for the past 24 hours, so I'm not sure what's there.

One of the key issues I'm running up against is the skinning situation. I assume Firefox is using XUL like Mozilla. The problem with using non-native views and controls is that you have things that sort of look like Aqua, but behave much differently. For example, here's a sheet in Firefox:



There are a number of issues here. First, it's really a faux sheet, because you can't move this window when it has the sheet deployed. Secondly, it shouldn't be a sheet at all. Application Preferences are global, not per window. A preferences dialog should be a separate, non-modal window. In addition, preference pane icons in Mac OS X apps are never laid out vertically.

You can slide by with this kind of stuff on Linux and even Windows, but Mac OS X users are Mac OS X users because they value consistency and refinement. A lot of Windows and Linux users think Aqua is just a skin. It's not. It's visuals and behavior model. It's both.

This is part of the reason I don't think cross-platform apps with different skins are really practical. Users expect certain behavior that is implemented by the native widget set. Linux behavior with a Mac OS X paint coat does not make a Mac OS X app.

And swapable themes are nice, but I'm not sure they make sense if they sabotage the ability for the application to use native controls and their associated behaviors.

And then there are the forms:
    


Ugh! Welcome to Motif. :)

And while I appreciate the noble efforts of trying to implement every detail of the PNG spec, the practical results of gamma correction just aren't appealing. All of my PNGs are washed out:



Unless everyone has their monitors calibrated, I'm not sure how displaying gamma-corrected images on the web is really a step forward. It just gives you a moving target because the images look radically different between browsers on the same platform.

One feature, however, that is very cool for a web developer/designer is the DOM inspector. This allows you to visualize page objects in an outline view. And when you click on a particular DIV, a red box flashes around the rendered area:



Hugely helpful, although the tool is a bit erratic. There are also some visual artifact issues:



There would be rioting in the streets if Safari did something like this.

So overall, yes Firefox acceptance on Windows and Linux is a good thing. Safari and Firefox basically speak the same language. And the browser has some merit. But the Firefox 1.0's user experience is so far below the Mac OS X standard that I can't see recommending it to anyone.

I don't think this is any one Mozilla designer's fault as much as it is a strategic issue. I don't think pure cross-platform apps really work. The underlying engine can be cross-platform, but the UI should use the native widget set.

Comments Temporarily Disabled

I had to temporarily disable comments due to spam. I'll re-enable them soon.