Wow times really flown by, with it being well over a week since my last posting here at kylemayne.com. I’ve been busy working towards exams, spending my time partying (yeeeah baby !!! “chuckles”) and attending work. In the past 3 or 4 days this site hasn’t even popped into my head, well fortunately for you it did today and its now back up and running.
So ok, I’m sick of hearing about about Skyfire, which is a free downloadable Web browser for smart phones that Skyfire claims is “just like browsing on a PC“. Skyfire’s browser is designed to “browse web sites built with dynamic technologies like Flash, AJAX, and Java, making video, music and social networking sites easily accessible from a smart phone” Now this might be a tantalising features for a lot people but for me its not the most important feature for a mobile browser. The main step is getting something that works well, Safari on the iPhone has came along way in mobile Internet but its still not perfect. The actual viewing of web pages (zooming in and out) works great, but the other Safari features make my head hurt (because I end up hitting it off a wall), for example moving between open web pages. Why do I need to tap, then scroll between pages, was adding a proper TAB feature so difficult? The desktop browsers have proven to work, therefore adding features to their mobile counterparts like tab would keep users (like me) happy. Anybody who uses the safari browser a lot on their iPhone or Touch will tell you about the repetitiveness of switching between pages. If users are familiar with software from past experiences it will greatly increase usability, at least safari has some form of tabbing just get rid of the repetitiveness of the whole thing. Make it more simplistic instead of trying to show off your interaction technique. For me I forget about the web page I’m moving to and more about actually getting there, which is a bad thing, I shouldn’t be thinking about the browser but the content I’m accessing. Anyway, below is a screen shot taken from the proposed interface for Mobile Firefox, do you think this would work any better than the one in Safari? (check out more images)
I can’t help but look at the mockup images and think “It reminds me of Safari” - Who knows maybe Apple did get it right ?
Mobile FF Touch Screen UI design has the following goals:
- 1-2 taps for most frequent activities
- Finger taps — no stylus required
- Familiar (to desktop users) where possible
- Intuitive
For me I have highlighted the two which are most important. I really look forward to watching the mobile browser market flourish in the coming years, currently having a competitive market within safari, opera and shortly Firefox is a great thing for end users. But most of all I’m interested in seeing the final product and how close they will actually be to their desktop counterparts.
-Kyle