Comments for The Usability Blog

Comment on Designing for Mobile Users by David Hamill

David Hamill — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:27:12 +0000

I don’t really agree with your ‘Focus on information’ advice. You should always focus on tasks when creating a website. This advice does not change from device to device. However the device that is being used, may allow you to prioritise some tasks over others. Because the context of use is likely to be different.

This is what then puts into to question point 6. People tend to use a phone to access the internet because they are not at a computer. I’m not sure there is a great need to optimise every task for mobile use. Doing so will just clutter the important tasks that people using phones want to do.

The Right Move mobile site is a perfect example on focussing on the appropriate context of use. http://mobile.rightmove.co.uk/. Incidentally it focusses on one primary task.

Comment on Google Chrome: A User Interface Review by Has Google Chrome got room for Improvement or will it beat Firefox and IE? | Josh Chandler's Blog

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 21:48:23 +0000

[...] browser whether this means Google will begin to build out a more substantial UI is yet to be seen, UsabilityBlog.com had a good feature on the Chrome UI which you might want to check out, but I think for Google to be [...]

Comment on Google Chrome: A User Interface Review by led

led — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:28:29 +0000

well, chrome is not that fast. it is only a hype. with the kind of clutter it has it is bound to be much slower than IE

Comment on Google Chrome: A User Interface Review by Lee

Lee — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:11:17 +0000

I agree that the average user shouldn’t want to use chromes task manager, but it is a great development tool. If chrome didn’t have helpful development tools nobody would ever try to fix issues there site might have rendering on chrome.

I really like the fact that address bar is under the tabbar. It just seems more correct. But the whole thing is definitely still a beta.

Comment on Google’s New Chrome Browser and Fitts’s Law by Nathar Leichoz

Nathar Leichoz — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:26:25 +0000

Maybe they did a study and found that people used the back-forward buttons more than switching tabs and so moved the back-forward buttons closer to the webpage and the tabs farther away.

Comment on Google’s New Chrome Browser and Fitts’s Law by john

john — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 07:13:53 +0000

Tabs at the top, besides Fitt’s law advantages (re ian), also reuses the otherwise useless window header. I think Chrome is trying to minimize the total “toolbars” area. Merging the URL entry bar and the search bar is another strong example to maximize the browser area.

Comment on Google Chrome: A User Interface Review by roberts

roberts — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:19:02 +0000

there are so many advantages and features with Chrome, such as it’s speed, for example; now if only they would take care it’s quirky cookie management…

Comment on Google Chrome: A User Interface Review by J. J. Gould

J. J. Gould — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:43:48 +0000

Hi all –

Very good points as to Chrome. My own biggest peeve is the current Bookmarking functionality and user flow; I find it hard to believe that the powers-that-be at Google did not simply mimic FF or IE7 browser-based bookmarking features for this Beta launch. There is no need to break this convention if breaking it offers no real benefit (and in fact, more detriment than benefit).

However, on a tangent, I would really have to dispute that: “youâ��ll find that many people in the field of user experience favor Mac.” At least on this side of the pond (in Canada), I know of zero UX Professionals/IAs/Interaction Designers who work primarily in Mac. For example, an established and extremely powerful Usability Test tool like TechSmith’s Morae (http://www.techsmith.com/morae/systemreq.asp) has not been launched in Mac. I find that telling.

It just smacks to me as yet more Microsoft and Vista bashing. Sure they’ve ripped off so many of Apple’s GUI elements, but it doesn’t mean that UX Professionals wouldn’t be using it without complaining every day.

Comment on Google Chrome: A User Interface Review by Dave Musson

Dave Musson — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:13:59 +0000

Ah, web applications. Thanks for pointing them out Francis because I’d missed them. Interesting feature, now my Gmail can be in its own window instead of a tab. Not sure if it is useful yet but at least I know about it now. Something I’d missed.

Anyway I wanted to highlight the nightmare that is the downloads window, it is hard to find and all the ‘downloaded file’ options are hidden in the right click context window. And my real issue; I’m downloading a file but no longer want to use the browser so I close it and guess what happened, the file download was cancelled. Opps. Beta or not that was annoying and against the ‘norm’ for browsers now a days.

Comment on Google’s New Chrome Browser and Fitts’s Law by simon

simon — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 09:22:44 +0000

You’re absolutely right Ian, it’s widely accepted that interface elements at the edge of the screen are calculated as having larger target areas than they physically posess. You’re also right about areas that are near the top of the screen being particularly difficult, especially for users who have difficulty using a mouse. Looking at Chrome, the tabs aren’t positioned at the top of the window, there’s a gap above them. This, in my opinion puts them into that dangerous “not quite at the edge” area. And of course there’s nothing to guarentee the browser must be used full screen anyway.