Firefox 4 will completely redesign its user interface

Thanks to the people of Hispanic Mozilla, in a very complete post that we reproduce in its entirety, we found out that Firefox 4 will include a large redesign throughout its interface user, and the goal is not simply to give it a fresh and renewed air. The changes that we will see are being very studied by usability experts (UX) to optimize both screen space (important for netbooks) and user interaction. An aspect highly demanded by users.

We are going to see some of the changes that are being considered and their objective.

Before continuing, we would like to clarify that all the images we show they are simple sketches and it is possible that in the final version they are not the same.

Vertical space

Vertical space is crucial to be able to view more content on the web, and especially on netbooks that have a reduced resolution and this is currently a big problem. To achieve this, it is intended remove the menu bar, which would be replaced by a button called "Firefox" that would display the same, and place the tabs on top. The home page button would now be in the tab bar, taking us to a new function in the form of a tab where we will try to centralize our bookmarks and other social information.

In addition, ideas have been raised for add more options to the title bar, such as including controls when selecting a text box to undo, redo, cut, copy, paste ...

Contextual information

As we see in the image above, the messages and alerts that require action by the user will be as less intrusive as possible, allowing you to continue browsing or quickly ignore them.

The same goes for the download manager, which is currently presented in the form of a window, which once completed must be searched again in Tools → Downloads. This is to be avoided with something like what we see in the image.

Other windows that are currently open, such as the add-on manager and preferences, will be modified to conform to this philosophy, this time tab-shaped.

Observe how the address bar changes when it is a tab with options or browser information, so that in this way the user clearly identifies that it is not a tab that contains a website.

Clearer information

The user must always know clearly and specifically what is happening and what information the browser presents to him, that is why the dialogs of connection errors, alerts of fraudulent pages or session restoration will be improved.

La integration with the operating system is also a very important point, and work is being done to make Firefox look native on both Windows, Linux and Mac, following the style guides of each one and maintaining a self identity that is consistent on all platforms.

We look forward to all these visual changes, which as we have seen are not only trying to give a new look, but the main objective is to make Firefox an even easier to use browser.

Source: Hispanic Mozilla