Firefox New Tab Page: Cognitive Shield

http://labs.mozilla.com/2009/03/firefox-new-tab-page-cognitive-shield/

by toni • 17 years ago

61 15 17 years ago

labs.mozilla.com

scorxn• 17 years ago

I don't get the point. The only time a blank tab opens is when you're typing in a URL or search phrase, at which point your eyes are on the chrome anyway. If the Cognitive Shield has any perceptible load time, it's not worth it. Granted, at least it doesn't look like an error message like IE7's default blank tab.

unalone4• 17 years ago

The mission is to make it possible to click some easy links without the visual clutter that other browsers' start pages give.

Have you not seen Speed Dial/Chrome/Top Sites? Because this is the exact same functionality as those other ones, and none of them have perceptive load times. Firefox is playing catch-up here: it's not giving anything particularly new.

unalone4• 17 years ago

I think the best compliment I can pay Aza Raskin is that whenever I look at one of his designs, I know immediately that it's his. He's got a focus for circular designs combined with an emphasis on minimal displays that convey a lot that's a signature look in my mind.

This stuff he's doing for Mozilla thrills me. It's great to see him working with a huge company.

markessien2• 17 years ago

I'm a bit skeptical. The circle is loved by designers, but it does not seem to survive in software that is actually being used by people. There are few pieces of software that uses circular control elements - the few that I can think of (the logitech mouse, LabView) don't handle well.

unalone4• 17 years ago

In this case, the design doesn't function as a circle. It changes to a linear list once you move your mouse. The circle is just there as a placeholder.

Have you used Raskin's music site Songza? It's a great example of circular navigation that works really well.

andreyf• 17 years ago

Chrome's tab-selection of top pages is a lot more useful to keyboard-centric users... anytime I have to move my hand to the mouse is time from my life I'll never get back!

A certain improvement would be to, instead of hitting tab-tab-tab-tab-tab-return, I could just hit alt-5...

unalone4• 17 years ago

Knowing Aza this will very likely support keyboard navigation. Aza's a stickler about having things ultra-accessible.

feverishaaron• 17 years ago

The big flaw with this design (the initial circle), of course, is what if a site doesn't have a favicon?

jerf• 17 years ago

Odds are it's not one of your favorite sites if the site owner isn't even committed enough to have made a favicon.

Before you smack the reply button to pop up with "But here's an example of my favorite site without a favicon!": I said odds are.

I doubt the number of favorite sites without a favicon is low enough at this point that Mozilla shouldn't spend a lot of time worrying about it.

philh• 17 years ago

The example picture has two sites with the same favicon, so the general-case problem probably isn't all that uncommon. Especially if you're the sort of user who does things like checking multiple twitter pages without an RSS feed.

Rabidmonkey1• 17 years ago

This looks like an awesome idea. I haven't been able to try it out yet because I'm running FF 3.07 (simply because Ubuntu repos haven't brought it up to 3.1 yet, and I don't really want to bother that much atm), but it reminds me of the controls built into some FPS's and even old Lucasarts Adventure games like Full Throttle or Grim Fandango. Except the default actions in this case are all favorite websites. Nice to see Mozilla labs pushing the envelope yet again.

quoderat• 17 years ago

Something else I'll promptly be turning off/removing ASAP when I am forced to upgrade to a newer version of Firefox. Firefox was at its best in 1.5 -- hardly anything after that has been anything but developer flights of fancy.

Firefox New Tab Page: Cognitive Shield

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