As promised, I sent some questions to Sebastiaan de With, the icon and interface designer who came up with the idea for a new web browser, Latitude, which was covered here at Browsersphere recently.
Sebastiaan was kind enough to come back with very thorough and informative answers, so I’ve posted them here in full, with a few minor edits and links added.
Has the idea for Latitude been lingering in your mind for a long time, or is it something that sprang to life only recently?
I’ve been thinking about browser interfaces since the last few months, mostly inspired by the expressions of Mac users about the lack of a Mac-experience in browsers like Firefox and Flock. Although most people consider an .app bundle adequately ‘Mac-like’, I think it goes down to the very mental model the user has of the software he’s using. Take, for example, Safari’s bookmark management. There’s this great bookmark bar, that lets you toggle between the bookmark view and your website. It’s a tiny button that usually confuses some novice users I know, but I can understand that’s no priority. However, the same kind of view pops up if you access ‘History’ from the menu. It’s something a lot of users find confusing, because these completely different content views are all accessed from different places and are dismissed differently (discounting tabs and undo). Firefox also does this wrong, using a separate sidebar for anything you might be able to imagine. No user wants to think “in what sidebar is this thing I need?”
There [are] two options to improve on Firefox’s models; you either take away all the crud, without reinventing the basic principle (Safari’s path), or you re-think browser interfaces from scratch, keeping in mind the paradigms of Mac OS X, and for example iTunes. Why can my mother buy a song in iTunes, while she can’t find a fun movie on the internet, or keep track of what’s happening in the world? It then struck me that original ideas should be implemented to reduce the screen estate the interface would consume, and the pieces of the puzzle soon clicked together. What do you want in a browser? I’m sure I could ask any intermediate computer user and get a list of his most wanted features. Now try condensing that into a new browser, with the basic premise that the UI should be minimal.
In your “My dream browser” post you wrote “I am aware of several ‘new generation’ browser projects, but none really line up with my ideas.” Can you share a few of these “new generation” projects and/or why you think they fall short?
The two projects that really [caught] my attention were Flock and Shiira; these two browsers are ideologically opposed to each other. Flock tried to make an integrated browsing experience and failed, in my opinion. The Mac version of Flock once counted no more than 10 buttons; these days, its toolbar is chock full of nondescript buttons and widgets. To me, it wasn’t just visually busy, but it was mostly a browser that seemed like a big hassle to get my head around. I just want something I don’t have to learn, while still being feature-packed. Shiira really did much better in this regard, but simply went a different direction, reinventing parts of the interface, making things more intuitive and visual, but in no way expanding on the feature set of browsers. I really want both; an intuitive browser that’s as functional for viewing web content as the Finder is for viewing files on your disk. Finder doesn’t just handle one format of files either; it can handle your content. And in my opinion, that’s what a browser should do today. Focus on content.
The feedback to both of your posts on the subject has been very positive based on the comments. Have you gotten a lot of other feedback through email or by other means, and has it been just as positive? Are there any instances where you received constructive criticism or even negative feedback?
I’ve gotten a lot of email from developers and people who really want to see this developed. I chatted with a few developers, but as I’m very occupied as a full-time icon and interface designer, I can’t oversee or manage such a project right now.
I’ve gotten more than enough constructive criticism and even negative feedback; from people saying my interface mockups are just ‘someone with Photoshop‘ to dismissing certain ideas or even calling me names for proposing to take away the tab bar when the sidebar is active. I think a lot of people misinterpret my designs; most think it’s intended to completely throw every interface paradigm in browsers today overboard, but that’s the opposite of my intention.
I want to make a browser with a more accessible and less cluttered interface. For loose ideas, like the ‘Time Machine’ view for history I mocked up, criticism is fierce, while I’ve always mentioned that it is just a mock-up of a more visual way to view your history for one website, suggesting a different view for all website history. But most people who express the most intense critique fail to offer any real better solutions to the problem.
In your “Latitude” post, you wrote “Several developers have contacted me with the desire to develop it, and some have already actively begun programming whole aspects of it.” Can you share what aspects have already gone under development?
Thanks to Apple’s WebKit, developers are able to implement a multitude of my interface ideas and gauge the feasibility other features I suggested . Currently, basic work is being done on making more intelligent sidebar behavior, fullscreen browsing, and changing things like Downloads and Bookmarks from their conventional format to something ready for the sidebar.
Will you be making the design document and centralized website you mentioned in that same post available for public consumption, or are you trying to limit it to only those actively working on the project?
I intend to make this as open as possible, and I hope all developers working on the project are eager to allow other people to chip in and collaborate to make a better browser reality.
I noticed some criticism of Firefox in your other blog entries. Is this your primary web browser today? If so, what do you think are its biggest shortcomings?
Although Firefox is not my primary web browser (Safari is), it is one of the most used browsers today, and the last beta version for OS X showed an interface that is absolutely nonstandard and horribly designed. I think Firefox, while aiming for a ‘good’ look and feel on all platforms, really fails to deliver on any, with perhaps the notable exception of Linux. As I said in the response to your first question, the lack of invention in the interface causes the user to go on a quest to find the features he needs, and disappoints most of the time in providing them.
Have you put any thought into working your visual design ideas into an already existing platform (e.g. Firefox) via extensions or themes in order to bypass all of the work that goes into creating a new rendering engine, etc.?
As I said in my response to question 4, WebKit already allows this, and thanks to that, I can deliver the interface in full Cocoa glory. Firefox (with the exception of Camino) still uses XUL to render its interface, which is something I wouldn’t want to touch with a ten foot cattle prod. Also, I think drastically changing the structure and interface of a browser like Firefox would require so much more than an extension, that working ‘from scratch’ is automatically the preferred option.
If readers of Browsersphere are interested in contributing, what kinds of help are you looking for?
Anything! If you can code a website, feel free to drop an email, but especially (talented) developers are encouraged to contact me to get details on the project before the official website goes live.
Tags:
Camino,
Development,
Features,
Firefox,
Flock,
Interviews,
Mac,
Minor Players,
Mock-ups,
Safari,
WebKit
