Product Design at Mozilla

https://air.mozilla.org/product-design-at-mozilla/

by mbrubeck • 14 years ago

46 32 14 years ago

air.mozilla.org

tferris• 14 years ago

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

Sorry guys, I won't believe that you will define the future of browsers in any way—significant innovations in this space have always been presented by other parties the last years.

Erunno4• 14 years ago

This is probably why so many features from Mozilla end up in other browsers:

-Notification bar in pretty much all browsers.

-Doorhanger panels

-Download pane which Safari managed to release first (unfortunately a common pattern)

-HTML5 video which Mozilla implemented first

-Do not track

-AwesomeBar which now all other browsers emulate with different degrees of success.

-Firebug which set the standard for web development tools.

And so on, and so on. The other browsers also contribute great innovations to the browser space and this is a great situation for the end user, but I don't really like how Mozilla is kept getting downplayed.

primatology• 14 years ago

Agreed that Firefox gets less credit than it deserves.

But Google realized with Chrome that the biggest part of the browsing experience is not the browser chrome or features, but speed. The single greatest user experience enhancement is responsiveness.

Anecdotally, there was a year or two where Chrome (and Safari, by extension) were lightening-quick. Firefox felt like it was crawling, by comparison, and gave up a good chunk of its market share. I've heard Firefox is snappy again, though I haven't seriously used it myself, but the damage is done.

johnchristopher• 14 years ago

To chrome/chromium's credit, these are the browsers that promoted a less clutered menu (orange firefox toolbar was introduced two years later).

I don't remember which vendor introduced the one-click star button to bookmark pages but it's a good idea too.

I also remember that the ie7 rss/atom summary page is still more elegant than mozilla.

I am sad no other mozilla software is enjoying the same success as firefox. All the "lab" experiments are in one way or another incorporated into the browsers but they never get established as perenial applications (it might not be the objective though). I still believe there is room for a easier-to-use xul application toolkit and a better "communication" hub aka thunderbird.

doublec• 14 years ago

"-HTML5 video which Mozilla implemented first"

I worked on the Mozilla HTML video implementation. Opera came up with the original proposal and presented a first experimental implementation. We started implementing this to be compatible.

Apple then presented their much more complicated proposal which was integrated with the Opera one and became HTML 5 video, along with feedback from other implementers, including Mozilla.

So it's a bit more complicated than "Mozilla implemented first".

amartya9162• 14 years ago

Congratulations to the Product design team at Mozilla. I loved what they've done with 'Junior', the browser on the iPad. For people who want to dive into the video for the demo, go to approx. 31mins.; otherwise, here's a summary of the stand out features:

a. Full screen browsing. No URL/address bar eating up screen real-estate.

b. Two translucent buttons on the sides, very close to where one would grip the iPad (easy access with the thumbs). These two buttons are the "<" (back) and "+". "+" allows you to access other fullscreen sites currently active in the browser and add new ones.

c. Party trick, drag on the buttons (again possible comfortably with the thumbs) mentioned above to expose "forward", "print" etc. Beautifully done, looks slick.

btipling2• 14 years ago

That is interesting, but Mozilla needs to focus on making its browser consume less memory and CPU when idle. These are the things that are killing its marketshare and leading users to switch to alternatives. Every time I see initiatives like the password account manager, iOS apps that use web view, a browser based editor and what not I just scratch my head because Firefox marketshare is plummeting and the old refrain "just wait until the next version" was tired since 3.0. Instead the general response is to get defensive and list new features. Yeah and are those new features stopping the user drain? Nope. Firefox is a sluggish memory sucking heap of software that drains resources even when it isn't being used.

I love and cherish Firefox as a product and a brand, because you have achieved a lot in your past. But now you are failing and it is depressing to see this happen.

amartya9162• 14 years ago

I would love to know what version of Firefox (and what platform) you are on. Firefox's total memory usage is in my personal experience better than Chrome right now (OS X 10.7 and Windows 7).

As someone mentioned below, Firefox doesn't get due credit when things improve. With Google's massive marketing muscle Chrome ate up a lot of Mozilla marketshare, but to call Firefox failing is completely unfair. If you love and cherish Firefox, contribute to the project. Contributions can be as minimal as being a test pilot.

asadotzler• 14 years ago

Firefox 13, when not overwhelmed by add-ons is the memory champion right now. Seriously, check it out. Download Firefox 13, create a new profile clean from crapware, load up a couple dozen tabs and surf around for a day. Do the same in IE and Chrome. Firefox wins. Firefox 15, just around the corner, has world-beating memory usage and it uses less RAM than any other browser, even when you've got "leaky extensions" installed because we've prevented extensions from causing Firefox leaks.

btipling2• 14 years ago

I always run the latest Firefox and the only extensions I have are Xmarks, 1password, Firebug and Webdeveloper.

azakai• 14 years ago

> Firefox is a sluggish memory sucking heap of software that drains resources even when it isn't being used.

Have you tried Firefox recently? It beats other browsers in terms of memory use, for example it won both memory usage categories in Lifehacker's recent shootout,

http://lifehacker.com/browser-speed-tests/

If you do see a memory problem, it might be a specific problem with the addons or plugins you use, please file a bug if so.

fl3tch• 14 years ago

I'm convinced that all the people repeating the mantra about memory and CPU use switched away a year ago and haven't actually tried a recent version. The alternative (to being ignorant) is that they are flat out liars, because anyone who has tried a recent version knows point blank that they are wrong.

wilfra• 14 years ago

That sentiment is one I've felt basically since I started using Chrome as well. Indeed, at that time, it was true.

Due to a bunch of Chrome bugs in our game I've had to switch to Firefox the last couple of months just to be able to browse other websites. I am amazed at how much they have improved, in terms of memory/speed as well their UI. I've now switched back from Chrome and dare say that I like it better.

As others have said though, the damage was done when so many people tried Chrome. Getting them to even try FF again is going to be very difficult.

nnethercote• 14 years ago

tl;dr: Your conventional wisdom is out-of-date.

"Mozilla needs to focus on making its browser consume less memory and CPU when idle"

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/MemShrink https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/Snappy

MemShrink has been going for a year. Snappy has been going for seven months. Both projects have made big improvements. You really should try a recent version.

Also, http://gs.statcounter.com/ suggests that Firefox's marketshare drop has flattened out and it's starting to grow again.

Samuel_Michon2• 14 years ago

Great, a new browser for the iPad. Not so great: encoding the video demo in a format that doesn't work in Safari on the iPad.

kaolinite• 14 years ago

They provided it in an open format, it's not their fault if Safari doesn't support it.

Samuel_Michon2• 14 years ago

I bet this is a very effective way for them to reach their target audience, not at all a huge waste of time and money. Next, they should release some whitepapers about their new iOS browser in ODF format and a podcast in Ogg Vorbis, that will really get the word out there.

gemlog• 14 years ago

"What are we doing to make sure that the ones working to disrupt Mozilla’s products is Mozilla itself"

Stop. Just stop it. All my users are sick of re-learning an app they've been using for years already. Every time they face relearning the FF interface means it's just that much easier to try something else -- and they do. Huge exodus to chrome(ium).

Product Design at Mozilla

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