User:David Regev/Ubiquitous Firefox: Difference between revisions

The Back and Forward functions have been standard for web browsers since the beginning. These functions are a necessary aspect of the standard browsing model: follow a link and it is loaded in-place, replacing the previous page wholly. If we are to rethink the Back and Forward buttons, we must also consider the standard browsing model. It is not difficult to see a number of problems with this model. Listing these problems will help us come up with a better, more modern, model.

# ''It hides your trail.'' Whenever you follow a link, the page you’re on simply disappears. Poof! And a new one magically takes its place. There is no visual indication of what is happening, no attempt at information design at all. The best you have is a bare-bones list of page titles completely hidden behind the Back/Forward drop-down.

# ''The Forward “history” is mutable.'' Whereas the Back button’s history is reliable and doesn’t change, the Forward button’s history is not immutable. If you go back three pages and follow a link, the three pages that were previously part of the tab’s history are now gone, replaced by the new page. One might have expected that the new page would have been inserted into the history in that place, or at least appended to the list at the end, but it’s not. Your browsing history for that tab is now incomplete. The only way to revisit a lost page is to dig through your browsing history, using an interface that preserves context even less, and hope you find it.

# ''Page transitions are awkward.'' Click on a link. What happens? In an ideal world, I suppose, the new page would simply appear immediately. In the real world, and for the foreseeable future, the new page takes time to load. What happens in between? The previous page remains displayed for a bit, but it is only partially active. Interacting with the page, such as by clicking on objects or by scrolling, is hit-or-miss and unpredictable. At some unpredictable point during the transition, the page completely disappears, and the new page starts loading. No matter how short or long this transition is, one thing is certain about it: it wastes time. During this wasted time, the browser is mostly useless and the user’s train of thought is put on hold, at risk for being lost altogether.

# ''Revisits are unpredictable.'' Go back a few pages. What happens? If you’re lucky, the intended page loads without delay and looks exactly as you remember it. If you’re unlucky, the page will reload, forcing you to wait. If you’re really unlucky, the page won’t load at all, but you will instead see a scary and unhelpful dialogue about POSTDATA.

#* Tabbed-browsing power users have a workaround here as well: if you think you might need to refer back to a page, leave it open in another tab. This eliminates the upredictability of going back to that page, as it’s simply a matter of switching tabs. This does, however, contribute to tab proliferation.