Aza has been leading a discussion about what the blank tab should have. Chrome did a good job of taking some real-estate that was blank and providing something to the user that has value. Chrome hasn't had to deal with a serious usability problem we have in Firefox-land yet - that of addons trying to communicate with the user.
No place like new tab?
A couple of months ago, at the Mozilla Open House, Rey Bango talked with extension developers about issues we have and firefox users have. Some of it was pretty, but Mozilla (in particular Ray) did a good job of trying to move forward and find solutions. One issue he shared was highlighted by the user experience of Fashion Your Firefox. These extension packs could be quite painful as each extension runs first-run/setup in a different manner. Installing a pack could result in multiple dialogs, notification banners, and a frustrating user experience.
Aza's discussion of new tab is a great time to consider how users could benefit from using it as a place to interact with extensions. Ray and the AMO team probably have better ideas about how this could work, but here are some of my thoughts.
- When new extensions are added they can provide a box of info with how to use/configure it.
- Installed extensions are listed, providing quick access to settings/status.
- Non-crucial notifications (eg, something that doesn't warrant a window) could be added to an "inbox"/notices section on the tab.
Jono posted about Ubiquity's first run woes. It is clear that the Mozilla team is thinking how to make the user experience better. It would be interesting to see what Jono thinks can be generalized from the Ubiquity first-run/install experience and added directly to the extension platform.
