A few mobile screenshots
March 17, 2008
Venky has uploaded some alternate designs for Mobile Firefox:
He is experimenting with the Firefox icon. In alternative designs the icon was translucent. He felt that this caused some confusion (e.g. you would see links behind the translucent firefox icon). Instead, a partially exposed Firefox icon sits at the bottom of the screen. When you press on the logo, we activate a menu:
What do you think?
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March 17, 2008 at 11:14 am
In my opinion, a partially exposed Firefox icon would cause confusion too, as if it is part of the web page. It’ll be a nightmare if the web page contains a lot of Firefox logos (eg. some fan site, whatever).
March 17, 2008 at 11:52 am
Wow! I love having the branding in the user interface. It’s gorgeous!
I <3 Foxkeh.
Would love to see some branding on the FF UI at some point. Maybe a firey-fox to the left or right edges of the toolbar.
March 17, 2008 at 1:32 pm
That looks like the old (1.0) version of the Firefox logo.
March 17, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I have to say I am not really a fan of the partial icon. You have to ask yourself some questions when designing an interface, especially for something that could potentially be very mainstream:
1. It is something that users will be immediately familiar with?
2. If not, is the element/design something that is obviously self explanatory?
3. Is the design consistent with native applications on the platform? Does it take advantage of native UI elements?
4. For a mobile device, is space being used efficiently?
5. Is the workflow, and to an extent, the design, consistent with other implementations of the applications?
I would have to say no to all of these, and there are plenty of other principles that need to be taken into account when designing an interface too, especially a mobile interface.
The desktop variant of FF is great example, in that it looks like it part of the host OS, whatever it is running on, not like some hello kitty widget without any window chrome. Despite this, the general workflow, design and branding is similar across the platforms.
When I look at this, it is very inconsistent with any current variants of FF. It is also very inconsistent with WM native interfaces. It wastes a lot of precious space on the screen, and requires the user to somehow know that a partially hidden sphere with a fox sitting on top it means navigation.
I think the concept of a simplified interface like what you guys have is great, if it can be intuitive and consistent with some standards and UI design principles, you will have a winning combo
April 1, 2008 at 2:02 pm
I miss a gesture system so that you can easily go back, forth, etc
About the logo, I’d rather replace it by a small arrow pointing up or something more intuitive. On the other hand, I don’t see the point of having the URL and the tool bar separated and in different positions, I think that when you’re wntering an URL you won’t need to go back or forth so maybe there’s an easy way to show either the URL or the toolbar.