Comments on: Navigation Toolbar on Windows

By: Orly

Orly — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:54:46 +0000

Where is the back arrow? Huh? What
did you do with it? Please restore
the back arrow. Okay.

By: RSchewe

RSchewe — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 05:49:30 +0000

I agree with 83 (Matt). Combine the Stop/Reload buttons into one. I use and extension to get the feature but to should be standard.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/313

By: darkangel

darkangel — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 10:59:53 +0000

I hate to have to say it, but these icons are … fugly. I far prefer the icons from FF 2, and the tabs as well.

I’m sure the IconFactory can do much better than this.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 00:08:57 +0000

I’m not entirely sure you’re putting enough thought into usability. The buttons are potentially pretty enough, but are they useful? Is the Back button so much more important than the Forward button that it needs to be twice the size? And just by looking at those buttons, I wouldn’t know how to show my history menu? Are the Back and Forward history menus combined, or is the small menu arrow beside the Forward button only for the Forward history menu?

I also strongly agree with those who say that the Home button should stay on the navigation bar. Users think of their Home page as more of a baseline or starting point for browsing rather than a bookmark, which puts it conceptually on the Navigation bar. Don’t make users change their paradigm just because you think it would be more aesthetic!

Finally, if you’re concerned about conservation of space, why not combine the Stop and Reload buttons, depending on the current state? You can’t Stop a page that has already stopped loading, and there’s little sense in Reloading a page that is in the process of loading without Stopping it first. This would actually improve usability by providing extra feedback about the status of the page — in usability tests, I’ve seen users compulsively click the Reload button in a futile attempt to make a page load faster.

By: Khufu_I

Khufu_I — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:48:01 +0000

The themes look very nice, but I think the stop button in vista should be red. Just because most things related to stop are red, such as a stop sign, streetlights, and the taillights of a car. Also some people have mentioned this already and I agree that the menu bar should be hidden by default under vista and if the navigation toolbar could be on a translucent background it would fit so much better into the Vista Aero theme.

By: Friendly_GUI

Friendly_GUI — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:32:40 +0000

Another vote for “Home button should stay in navigation bar. Don’t move it to bookmarks place.”

The home button is what people click on to get back to to their starting point or safe haven. It is also use for company homepage in corporate environment.

Firefox interface should be design based on users behavior. Please don’t make users change their natural behavior just to accommodate Firefox. Not only that, it is confusing and difficult for average users to customize Firefox to work the way they want.

For the sake of Firefox and its users, please reconsider the comment that you made in Firefox Bug 417152 “I agree that not
all users are going to quickly adapt to this relocation, but if it really
bothers them they do have access to a customization palette.”

By: zugu

zugu — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 07:59:19 +0000

Oh, God, the XP theme is fugly. Also, why aren’t the toolbar buttons equal in size, like in FF2? Is Mozilla trying to copy IE7?

Please, please allow users to keep the icon sizes and layout of FF2.

By: Brandon

Brandon — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 21:33:29 +0000

That Vista mockup, and the betas, the color is some ugly purple blue… Please…Please make it look a little better. I’m not too fond of this new theme.

Btw, other people don’t seem to like that color…

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4484

By: Markus Stange

Markus Stange — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:48:17 +0000

It’s really strange that the history button looks pressed all the time.
It should behave like this:
http://tests.themasta.com/historybutton/ (clickable mockup)

By: Max Shirshin

Max Shirshin — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:30:28 +0000

Alex, do you understand that the existing artwork for the “keyhole” buttons cannot remain there for a release version? I am a professional designer with 5+ years of experience, and I was shocked to see these poorly designed images. The idea itself is perfect, it is the icons that sux.

Problems with the current icons are:
- they do not blend with the background, some white pixels hang here and there
- the color change onmousedown is inconsistent with other buttons
- the color looks somewhat dirty on XP
- outline of the inner big white arrow is not smooth, looks more like an autoscaled version
- the selection box onmouseover is absent (compare w/other buttons)

They at iconfactory simply spoiled your excellent idea. This looks like all these icons were made by a freelance student, all for $50, in one day.

Either make Iconfactory produce better work for their money, or find somebody else who will design this.