November 13, 2004
opera listens
It seems like someone in the Opera usability or user experience group started listening to users. I've just downloaded the Opera 7.6 Preview and I'm very impressed with the direction they're headed with the default interface.
This is a preliminary review and I've only been playing around with the app for a couple of hours so Opera users please don't go crazy on me if I've missed something or mis-represented something. Thanks ;-)
First, the install and first launch was pretty good. I didn't care for the first panel of the installer. I'm of the opinion that the installer isn't the place to introduce your users to the app's featureset. That's just an opinion, though. I was also a bit confused by the advertising selection dialog. It was odd that picking different ad types, google or normal, gave a different toolbar set. I also think that users shouldn't be making this decision. The text ads are clearly a better user experience. Opera should just drop the banners and streamline this experience.
The default browser window setup is so much better than 7.5 that I almost can't believe it's the same app. The menubar is clean and simple and browser-focused, like it should be -- without all of the mail and chat and other crap. The navigation and address/search bar is basically the same as what's offered in Firefox (excellent ;-) The last vestige of MDI, the max/restore/min icon, is finally gone and it feels like a real tabbed browser. Rather than spend a lot of time praising the new layout, I'll just note that almost all of my complaints about stock layout have been remedied.
That's not to say that everything was great. I'm sure that some of my early problems were simply bugs that will be fixed in the final release so I'm withholding final judgement until we get a final release :-)
First, I had a very difficult time with this odd "start" bar that pops up from the addressbar when you try to type in an address. I'm really not sure what value that toolbar ads and it's suffers from several bugs -- the worst of which are that it doesn't seem to go away and that it doesn't play well with the history auto-complete pop-up.
Second, I think the choice to use tooltips as the primary link location indicator is a bad choice. Tooltips are on a delay that's appropriate for tooltips, not for a quick check to see where the link is going to take you.
The "View" eye icon is really distracting and kinda creepy :)
It looks to me like many favicons/site icons are getting cropped or mis-scaled. Not sure if that's a bug or intentional.
Next, the pop-up blocked slideup notification widget seemed jerky and distracting with no obvious way to turn off. Also, the trash can in the there is a bit confusing. I liked that I could retrieve closed tabs but it was unclear why that was combined with pop-ups or how it relates to the bookmark trashcan. Maybe the icons need more differentiation or something.
Also, in my brief use, I experienced a couple of crashes which is a bit concerning. I've very seldom crashed Opera so I hope that they can get back to the stability I'm used to by the time they ship this update.
Finally, not getting the proper i-beam selection cursor when hovering over text was really annoying. I sure hope this is a bug and not as designed.
With a switch to the native Windows style and little customizing (which was much easier in this version than the last one I tested) and a $39 registration, I got a browser that was quite usable.
Opera still has a ways to go but little touches like putting the Preferences menu item on the correct menu and setting a start page that doesn't trigger 3 pop-ups, signals that the Opera browser team is moving in the right direction. In a couple more versions, they might be caught up to where Firefox has been for the last year ;-)
Posted by asa at November 13, 2004 12:41 PM
haha that last sentence was great!
Posted by: Kurt on November 13, 2004 01:51 PMI sincerely hope the Opera browser does well. I'm a huge Firefox nut, but any web browser that adheres to good UI and standards compliance is a good thing for the Web. Every time I have told people about how Firefox is so great because of standards compliance and being more secure than IE, I try to mention Opera as an example of another product that has that advantage as well. I just happen to _prefer_ using Firefox over Opera. In fact I wouldn't mind seeing their usage share get high enough so that it adds another significant voice to web developers that they should design for standards, not browsers.
Posted by: pepp5 on November 13, 2004 01:57 PMpepp5, while I mostly agree with you, it's previously been (and still somewhat is) extremely difficult to say that Opera "adheres to good UI". They've got a very fast and very featureful rendering engine and it appears that they've started to take steps to make their interface more accessible and digestible to more users, but they've still got a ways to go and this is still just a preview release. We'll see.
--Asa
Posted by: Asa Dotzler on November 13, 2004 02:20 PMDisagree, I preferred 7.5 UI. THe new redesign of menus hides many features. Why does it have to look like Firefox to be "good UI"?
Posted by: Gman on November 13, 2004 03:05 PMBTW:
" The text ads are clearly a better user experience. Opera should just drop the banners and streamline this experience."
The big Banners are good for us who don't want our web pages being discerned by Google (almost the nature of spyware such?)
Posted by: gman on November 13, 2004 03:07 PMI totally agree about the new menus - the fact that I can't even remember what was in them before is testament to the fact that there was way too much stuff in them anyway. Only showing Mail/Feeds/Chat menu when they are first used is a neat solution.
The button in the tab bar for opening previously closed tabs is *really* useful and I hope something like this makes its way into Firefox, although I agree the icon is a little odd.
Overall a really big improvement over 7.5
Neil
Posted by: Neil Jenkins on November 13, 2004 03:19 PM} Finally, not getting the proper i-beam selection cursor when
} hovering over text was really annoying. I sure hope this is
} a bug and not as designed.
Actually, not changing pointers over text has been the standard Opera behaviour since time immemorial.
What's the correct location for Preferences? Firefox on Windows has it under Tools like Opera 7.5, while Firefox on Linux has it under Edit. (I miss the old Opera 6 way of having it under File^-^)
Posted by: Leons Petrazickis on November 13, 2004 06:06 PMAh! You made the UI just like Firefox. Then why bother to use Opera? LOL...
Anyway, this preview release is really much improved in terms of UI. I found that they has fixed some CSS problems too (floating element). However, I still don't understand why they had implemented just "first-child" but not "last-child"... I thought the two are just similar... :-/
Posted by: minghong on November 13, 2004 10:43 PMIt's great isn't it, how they seem to have listened (to you and I think a whole lot of other users). Things can only get better with competition.
Posted by: Cheah Chu Yeow on November 14, 2004 02:14 AMThe good thing is: You can still have a real MDI and aren't restricted to the »tabbed interface«. I really hope FF will have a similar solution for it's page handling one day.
Asa: What's wrong with having »Preferences« under »Tools« like in FF?
And keep in mind, this is a »Preview«. Opera tries some features which will or will not make it into the beta- or final-version.
Posted by: Thomas Scholz on November 14, 2004 03:49 AM@Thomas: reread. Asa praised Opera in the first sentence of his last paragraph.
It's a bit cynical to say that only when the UI will be a complete clone of Firefox, Opera will have reached perfection. We are now indeed making the default UI looking easier, but there are still a lot of MDI-lovers out there and they can still use Opera as they like after setting 'Advanced MDI' windows handling. Even MS Word 2003 still has a 'compare' function to easily tile two documents, and that is an important function of MDI. You can't do that with two tabs in Firefox. Anyway, Opera 7.6 will be almost as easy to use as Firefox, have more functionality out-of-the-box and be more customizable without relying on third-party extensions. I like to be on the cutting edge, and each time a major release comes out I have trouble updating my mouse-gestures extension because update.mozilla.org is overloaded.
Regarding the text-ad/banner choice: if we don't offer that choice up front, the accusations of being spyware would soon follow. Sad but true, a simple note in the installer dialog is not enough. The Start bar is brand new, we'll have to study the responses to this preview to see how useful it can become.
Posted by: Rijk on November 14, 2004 04:48 AMLeons Petrazickis: The reason that Firefox has prefrences under Tools in Windows , Edit under Linux and the Firefox menu under OS X is that each OS has a set of User Interface Guidelines.
Apple's HIG
Gnome's HIG
I can't find the url for the exact page where Microsoft states that options should be placed under the tools menu but it exists somewhere in the MSDN libary
-kbrosnan
Posted by: kbrosnan on November 14, 2004 10:01 AM"The good thing is: You can still have a real MDI and aren't restricted to the »tabbed interface«. I really hope FF will have a similar solution for it's page handling one day."
This is a good point, I do like the preference for this. Opera is very good in this area (along with fast forward! ;))
"Leons Petrazickis: The reason that Firefox has prefrences under Tools in Windows , Edit under Linux and the Firefox menu under OS X is that each OS has a set of User Interface Guidelines."
Personally, I'm not sure Opera gives a damn about that , Good for them, because I don't care either ^_^. Opera is attractive as it is, a standard AT app, so I would not want i t look like Gnome as FF does, or follow the same interface paradigms.,
Also: KDE preferences are not under Edit!, Firefox has a bit of work to do theres ;)
Posted by: gman on November 14, 2004 11:48 AM"Personally, I'm not sure Opera gives a damn about that , Good for them, because I don't care either ^_^. Opera is attractive as it is, a standard AT app, so I would not want i t look like Gnome as FF does, or follow the same interface paradigms.,"
Sorry, should say "QT APPPLICATION"
Posted by: gman on November 14, 2004 11:48 AM"I like to be on the cutting edge, and each time a major release comes out I have trouble updating my mouse-gestures extension because update.mozilla.org is overloaded."
Hi rijk, a hint is to go to this website: http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?showtopic=1351
It is much better than u.mo.o and offers updated 1.0 packages as well..
Posted by: gman on November 14, 2004 11:50 AM"So what I have told you was true . . . from a certain point of view" - Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Hi Asa, your views and reasoning makes sense. However, I thought you might find it interesting to view the whole matter from a different angle.
Btw, sorry for the long post, I just think a bit of background info would make the conclusions at the end a bit more clear...
If you want to understand what has happened to browsers over the last 5 years, you need to dig a bit deeper.
If you do, you will see how mozilla and opera have taken quite similiar journeys afterall, even though they often choosed different paths.
You remember when gecko was young? Various projects to make just a clean "IE-clonish" browser with the gecko engine existed. They never got the momentum firefox has, for several reasons, but to keep this post as simple as possible I'll just list the two main reasons:
1. The "switch" browser phenomena did not exist. Advanced users would maybe switch because of desire for more features etc or being anti-MS etc, but that was basicly it. While advanced users were aware of IE being more prone to exploits, this had not yet caused the switch phenomena we see today. (more on this later)
2. The majority of the mozilla following naturally believed in the main product at that time, the suite. Gecko was still young, the cards had just been dealt, and no calls had been done yet.
Anyway, I just wanted to highlight those points because they explain a great deal.
First, to get back to Opera, point 1. explains why Opera focus always was on being more than just a simple browser. Sure, things can always be better, and Opera could have done the balancing of more features and simplicity better, but it explains the fundamental reasoning behind the design choices.
Opera could easily have shipped a Safari-like simple browser years before Apple bragged (like they always do :) that they had reinvented the browser, but there was not much use for such a browser. Afterall, IE is pretty simple to use already, the MS usability designers aren't stupid. In fact, they're very good.
Further, point 1 also explains why Mozilla/Netscape pursued similiar design concepts. Adding features and value.
And it worked. Someone might argue that mozilla or opera somehow failed becaused they didn't win over a greate share of users from IE, but that's simply failing to understand that for most people there was no reason for or awareness of switching.
However, because of Netscape history of having been a big player, some people did have way unreasonably high expectations.
Time passes and Netscape branded version of mozilla gets to really feel the fact that there exist no reason for normal users to switch and the dream of being a really big player fades.
Opera continues the focus on being browser++ and steadliy win over a couple of users and is content with that. However, if you look closer at the Opera development, you will see there is a lot of focus on customizability. This is not just because of the feature itself being good for advanced users, but it puts Opera in a position were they can quickly strip down the product if opportunity and reasons appear for them to do so. (which would turn out to happen this summer.. more on that later)
Firefox (I'll just use the most recent name :) is born because someone just want a simple and good browser using gecko, but noone would have guessed how perfect the timing would be and what that would cause.
First, the mozilla following (tempting to generalize and call it the open source following.. ) is ready for a new hope. It just seems to be the perfect luke skywalker. Gecko is mature. XUL is mature. The tech bits are thus covered. XUL being cross platform makes any platform issue covered too, combining forces. And it had royal blood, coming from "real" (and very good may I add) mozilla developers.
Anyway, we all saw the prince grow up, and how it relit the dream of making a mozilla browser eat marketshare.
The timing was close to perfect.
If the firefox developers should thank anyone, they should send flowers to all spy/ad/malware etc makers.. :)
Because things had been happening in the normal IE world. Last couple of years increased problems with such badware culiminated this summer when Department of Homeland Security's suggested that people use a different browser than IE.
So the browser switch phenomena came to normal users, and at a time when Firefox was close to version 1. Perfect product for the job. A bit of luck though :)
This was great news for Opera too, since now plenty of users wanted to switch browser for no other reason that they were told to not use IE anymore. These users don't look for advanced features and Opera takes action and simplifies the default UI. This is what you now see in Opera 7.6, the first version after the browser switch phenomena was hyped this summer.
Again, if you look closer, you will see how Opera was anticipating how something like this might happen, since Opera 7.5's design is perfectly suited for being stripped down.. ie. the design scales both upwards and downwards.
Anyway, I just wanted to dvelve into all of this to point out that there never was a "opera did things wrong, but now they listened to users and did right like firefox". Not sure if you really meant that though, maybe you just wanted to tease the readers for all I know..
Hopefully, this post was helpful for some at least, to understand the reasons behind opera's development compared to firefox..
Alan.
@gman: I don't want hints, I want smooth upgrading of extensions I've got installed already. If I click on the 'get more extensions' button, I get directed to 'update.mozilla.org'. I don't say it is an easy task to keep such a server running at times of stress though, I can fully appreciate the problems. Opera's my.opera.com also has problems sometimes.
Posted by: Rijk on November 14, 2004 01:03 PMAlan, very interesting perspective! What you are saying does make a lot of sense, without making fun of either of the programs, or their followers. Good one.
Posted by: howie on November 14, 2004 02:15 PMWell rkj, all I can say is update.mozilla.org generally sucks. So I just make a better more-informed choice, that's all ;)
Posted by: gman on November 14, 2004 02:43 PMupdate.mozilla.org is certainly not an unknown problem, and I'm sure given time Wolf and others who work on it will iron out more of the problems with it.
That said, we really do need to throw some more hardware at www and update so that they don't fail or slow down to pathetic speeds when download rushes hit.
Posted by: Jeff Walden on November 14, 2004 03:44 PM@gman: "The big Banners are good for us who don't want our web pages being discerned by Google (almost the nature of spyware such?)"
It's good to see I'm not the only one who doesn't forget about privacy issues, only because the company's name is Google, like most people seem to these days.
At the rate with which Mozilla.org is embracing Google, I wouldn't be surprised if they start sending all visited URLs to them in the future, too, like Opera does now, when text ads are enabled.
And privacy issues aside, as a webmaster I also hate it if Opera users cause double traffic when Googlebot-Mediapartners comes along and fetches the same pages that the user just visited.
Posted by: mr.tinfoilhat on November 14, 2004 03:48 PMAsa, how come in your build if Firefox their are close boxes on the tab itself. On the 1.0 build I am running, the close box for the tabs is off to the right of the tab bar instead of being integrated in the tab. Your screenshot looks to me to be the correct behavior with the close control directly associated with the tab.
Posted by: Pat Lee on November 15, 2004 08:25 AM@Pat Lee: "how come in your build if Firefox their are close boxes on the tab itself."
ROTFL, because it's Opera, not Firefox :))) (with customized toolbars).
Posted by: Operation on November 15, 2004 10:52 AM