Firefox/Projects/Animation priorities: Difference between revisions

Firefox/Projects/Animation priorities (view source)

Revision as of 19:49, 17 August 2009

68 bytes removed , 17 August 2009

moving down summary/rationales

Jboriss

Confirmed users

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edits

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 To bring animation to Firefox, we decided to first focus on three key areas that we felt would give users the most benefit by adding animation.  Out of many possibilities, we looked for places where animation would make interactions feel faster and help users perform tasks.
-Three three areas we're focusing and the rationale for choosing each are as follows:
-==Tab tearoff==
-Currently, tearing off tabs is functional... but that's it. There's little affordance to tell the user what is going on - if they've grabbed a tab, where it's targetted, and what will happen when they let go.
-All of the browsers more or less treat tabs as real world objects. We describe them with real-world metaphors, like "dragging" and "tearing." And, we manipulate them like real-world objects we can, by rearranging and moving them. Thus, animation could help to reinforce this real-world metaphor while providing a visual affordance for how the tab is being manipulated.
-==Text search on page==
-Currently, finding text on a page in Firefox can be challenging. The text is highlighted as the user types matching input, but this slow color change can be difficult to detect - especially when the highlight is similar to the background color. A subtle animation as the user types input could direct the user's attention to the word they are trying to find.
-==Movement of toolbar items within rows (UI elements, bookmarks, tabs)==
-Currently, items in the toolbars can be added, removed, and rearranged.  By giving these items some slight animation, not only may Firefox feel more lightweight and adaptable, but it will be more visually clear what the user is manipulating and how the browser will be changed by letting go.  For instance, animations of tabs being arranged is essentially live preview of tab rearrangement: if a tab is slid to the right and an animation shows it doing so, releasing it only makes permanent what is being shown.  This is in contrast to the current system, where a small marker shows where a tab will be dropped but not what the arrangement will look like once is in that slot.  Other rows give no feedback at all: not even a bar.  The customize toolbar window, for instance, does not give an indication of what will happen when a UI element is added to the toolbar.
 =Status=
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 =Design=
-==Mockups==
+==Tab tearoff==
+===Summary===
+Currently, tearing off tabs is functional... but that's it. There's little affordance to tell the user what is going on - if they've grabbed a tab, where it's targetted, and what will happen when they let go.
+All of the browsers more or less treat tabs as real world objects. We describe them with real-world metaphors, like "dragging" and "tearing." And, we manipulate them like real-world objects we can, by rearranging and moving them. Thus, animation could help to reinforce this real-world metaphor while providing a visual affordance for how the tab is being manipulated.
+==Text search on page==
-==Sketches==
+===Summary===
+Currently, finding text on a page in Firefox can be challenging. The text is highlighted as the user types matching input, but this slow color change can be difficult to detect - especially when the highlight is similar to the background color. A subtle animation as the user types input could direct the user's attention to the word they are trying to find.
+==Movement of toolbar items within rows (UI elements, bookmarks, tabs)==
+===Summary===
+Currently, items in the toolbars can be added, removed, and rearranged.  By giving these items some slight animation, not only may Firefox feel more lightweight and adaptable, but it will be more visually clear what the user is manipulating and how the browser will be changed by letting go.  For instance, animations of tabs being arranged is essentially live preview of tab rearrangement: if a tab is slid to the right and an animation shows it doing so, releasing it only makes permanent what is being shown.  This is in contrast to the current system, where a small marker shows where a tab will be dropped but not what the arrangement will look like once is in that slot.  Other rows give no feedback at all: not even a bar.  The customize toolbar window, for instance, does not give an indication of what will happen when a UI element is added to the toolbar.
 =Reference=