Proclamation: I will never use a browser that doesn't support mouse gestures as long as I live
By Eddie Lopez. Tuesday, 15. September 2009, 16:53:36
(...unless forced to by work)
Post updated 17 Sept
Seriously- I love the irony of people haggling over milliseconds of JavaScript rendering times for pages, but don't bat an eye at the amount of time spent waste pushing a mouse pointer around the screen to find the "back" button, the "X" on the tab,the "new tab" button, or moving your hand back and forth from the keyboard to the mouse. I would think the user's "Locus of Attention" would at least factor in to the equation to some extent.
To me, reading a page and being able to have my browser respond to my muscle memory (without thinking of the UI at all) to close a page, and go back and forth in history is worth... oh, I don't know... maybe 1.2 gigawatts of JavaScript rendering time (Great Scott!) The best UI is one that doesn't get in your way.
Opera still does this the best of all browsers I've used, Firefox is okay, but the gestures extensions just aren't as "fluid" as Opera. But, since I just pointed out that I don't like to nitpick over a millisecond here or there, I think it's perfectly fine for daily use.
It would be nice to see Opera (the only browser I know of that has Mouse Gestures baked in by default and part of the browser) to do a usability or eye tracking study to measure out "Locus of Attention" in manipulating the UI
Post updated 17 Sept
Seriously- I love the irony of people haggling over milliseconds of JavaScript rendering times for pages, but don't bat an eye at the amount of time spent waste pushing a mouse pointer around the screen to find the "back" button, the "X" on the tab,the "new tab" button, or moving your hand back and forth from the keyboard to the mouse. I would think the user's "Locus of Attention" would at least factor in to the equation to some extent.
To me, reading a page and being able to have my browser respond to my muscle memory (without thinking of the UI at all) to close a page, and go back and forth in history is worth... oh, I don't know... maybe 1.2 gigawatts of JavaScript rendering time (Great Scott!) The best UI is one that doesn't get in your way.
Opera still does this the best of all browsers I've used, Firefox is okay, but the gestures extensions just aren't as "fluid" as Opera. But, since I just pointed out that I don't like to nitpick over a millisecond here or there, I think it's perfectly fine for daily use.
It would be nice to see Opera (the only browser I know of that has Mouse Gestures baked in by default and part of the browser) to do a usability or eye tracking study to measure out "Locus of Attention" in manipulating the UI
WIDGETIZE