<div dir="ltr"><pre>From the bug:<br>> == Addons Toolbar ==0
>
> The add-ons toolbar will be removed. The items in this toolbar will be placed in the customization target of the nav-bar.<br><br></pre><pre>What is the rationale behind this? The addon bar can display much more information/ addon buttons than crowding the main chrome area.
This is especially important for smaller screens. <br><br></pre><pre>Is there something about the addon bar that is different from other toolbars?<br></pre><pre><br></pre><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div>- Timothy J. Warren<br>
<a href="http://timshomepage.net" target="_blank">http://timshomepage.net</a><br><a href="mailto:tim@timshomepage.net" target="_blank">tim@timshomepage.net</a></div>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 4:12 PM, Mike Conley <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mconley@mozilla.com" target="_blank">mconley@mozilla.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Correction - that first footnote link should have gone to the up-to-date study results:<br>
<br>
<a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2012/06/firefox-heatmap-study-2012-results-are-in/" target="_blank">https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/<u></u>2012/06/firefox-heatmap-study-<u></u>2012-results-are-in/</a><div>
<div><br>
<br>
On 18/04/2013 3:58 PM, Mike Conley wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
I've gone through some posts on Reddit, distilled some recurring<br>
questions, and answered them from my perspective.<br>
<br>
<br>
"Toolbars created by add-ons are being untouched. Why?"<br>
<br>
We're focusing on the type of customization where users can drag and<br>
drop items to and from their toolbars and toolbar palette. The toolbars<br>
that add-ons inject do not by default fall under this category, so we're<br>
not doing anything to them. It's out of scope for the project.<br>
<br>
<br>
"Do we know how many users customize their UI's, beyond what add-ons do<br>
for them automatically?"<br>
<br>
We have lots of anecdotal data from user interviews, but as one might<br>
expect, we don't actively collect data about UI customizations. The<br>
heatmap Test Pilot study[1] is a tempting datapoint, since we can detect<br>
how many users in that study clicked on the "Customize" menu item -<br>
however, the datapoint is skewed by sample bias, and by the fact that<br>
customizations could have occurred before the study began. And it<br>
certainly doesn't tell us what type of customizations these are. It's<br>
simply not reliable.<br>
<br>
Whatever the number of users is, remember that the goal is to *increase*<br>
that number. We want *more* users to be able to customize their browser,<br>
not less. We want more users to feel comfortable moving toolbar buttons<br>
to where they want them, while at the same time, making it harder for<br>
them to break the browser.<br>
<br>
<br>
"Can't we make these changes pref-offable?"<br>
<br>
This might be something to consider, if the benefits truly outweigh the<br>
development and maintenance costs. But I think we'd need a really,<br>
really, *really* compelling reason to take on that kind of maintenance<br>
burden.<br>
<br>
<br>
"Why is small icons going away?"<br>
<br>
We're proposing this[2] because it's not the default view for icons, and<br>
the majority of Firefox users arguably don't even know this mode exists.<br>
Plus, there's the maintenace burden - it doubles the number of icons our<br>
designers have to create for GTK Linux, and it's yet another mode to<br>
test. We propose that if this is a really useful feature for some users,<br>
that it should exist as an optional theme.<br>
<br>
1: <a href="https://heatmap.mozillalabs.com/" target="_blank">https://heatmap.mozillalabs.<u></u>com/</a><br>
2: <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=863299" target="_blank">https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/<u></u>show_bug.cgi?id=863299</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 17/04/2013 6:29 PM, Mike Conley wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Hello folks,<br>
<br>
So the Australis project is chugging along nicely (if you haven't tried<br>
the UX branch build[1], you should check it out).<br>
<br>
One of the things we've started to work on is improving how users can<br>
customize Firefox. We want customization to be easy and pleasant to do,<br>
and hard to get wrong (ie, hard to break the browser).<br>
<br>
Customization is a hot-button topic, and it's not surprising that once<br>
we start fiddling with it, users who customize their browser UI are<br>
going to get concerned. So I wanted to open up the discussion here so we<br>
can perhaps discuss those concerns, and ideas for mitigating them.<br>
<br>
For those who aren't familiar with the project[2], I'm going to try to<br>
summarize the high-level changes to customization that we're proposing.<br>
I should emphasize that while we've started to write these things down,<br>
nothing is set in stone. It's just a place to start.<br>
<br>
Anyhow, so here are our thoughts:<br>
<br>
1. We want to introduce more specific customization targets into<br>
Firefox's UI. An example of a customization target would be a box<br>
immediately to the right of the AwesomeBar, or one to the right of the<br>
tabstrip, or one in our new menu panel. These boxes are places where<br>
toolbar items can be dragged to and from.<br>
<br>
2. We want to remove (or deprecate) the add-ons bar<br>
<br>
3. We want to have an in-content customization palette to replace the<br>
old window palette<br>
<br>
4. We're introducing a fixed Menu button at the end of the toolbar which<br>
opens the "menu panel". The menu panel will contain one or more<br>
customization targets.<br>
<br>
5. We're considering moving the back, forward, URL bar, refresh and stop<br>
buttons to the start of the nav-bar, and making them immovable when<br>
using the customization mode.<br>
<br>
We're going to need to migrate incompatible customizations over to this<br>
new world. Jared and I have started talking about that, and we wrote our<br>
initial plan down here:<br>
<a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=860814#c3" target="_blank">https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/<u></u>show_bug.cgi?id=860814#c3</a> - again, not set<br>
in stone.<br>
<br>
<br>
So, let's chat. In particular, I'd like to hear from the UX team in case<br>
I've forgotten something or made a mistake in my outlining of these<br>
points. But I'd also like to just hear from the firefox-dev community at<br>
large in case what we're looking at doing is in need of more tweaking.<br>
<br>
Sorry for the long post,<br>
<br>
-Mike<br>
<br>
1: <a href="http://people.mozilla.org/~jwein/ux-nightly/" target="_blank">http://people.mozilla.org/~<u></u>jwein/ux-nightly/</a><br>
2: a UI prototype to illustrate:<br>
<a href="https://people.mozilla.com/~bwinton/australis/customization/mac/" target="_blank">https://people.mozilla.com/~<u></u>bwinton/australis/<u></u>customization/mac/</a> and a<br>
spec to read:<br>
<a href="http://people.mozilla.com/~zfang/Customization/AustralisCustomization_Q4Spec.pdf" target="_blank">http://people.mozilla.com/~<u></u>zfang/Customization/<u></u>AustralisCustomization_Q4Spec.<u></u>pdf</a><br>
<br>
<br>
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