Articles About User Interfaces

OS Integration

What Happened To A Standard Interface? by Ed Hansberry on 13th November 2006:
“I like my desktop to look somewhat organized, but that thing above looks like a random jumble of UIness.” Phew. It’s not just me, then.
The Firefox 3 Visual Refresh: System Integration by Alex Faaborg on 10th October 2007:
“Visual integration with Windows and OS X is our primary objective for the Firefox 3 refresh.” We’ll probably get unequal-height circular buttons, though.

Web Browsers

Common User Agent Problems (CUAP) by W3C:
It’s just a Note but some browser makers took notice.
Self-Examination [of Mozilla Suite’s UI] by Dave Hyatt on 11th April, 2002:
“My own source of personal angst is Mozilla’s mediocre user interface.”
Putting it All Together by Dave Hyatt on 20th April, 2002:
“Another problem with the user interface [in Mozilla Suite] is the clutter from the other applications.”
The Start of Something New by Ben Goodger on 2nd July 2003:
“User Interface is an interesting thing. Everyone thinks they can do it, but the sorry truth is they can’t.” Ouch, dude!
Review of The Top 10 Usability Problems in Mozilla and vidication of MPT by James Graham on 3rd September 2003:
Separating the browser from everything else was largely for UI simplification.
Original Firefox manifesto reviewed by Blake Ross on 22nd January 2005, originally from 2003:
“The interface will not be ‘geeky’ nor will it have a ‘hacker-focus’. Nor will it be ‘minimal’. The idea is to design the best web browser for most people. (This doesn’t mean every feature has to be enabled by default.)”
The Firefox religion by Blake Ross on 22nd January 2005:
“The fact is that for most people, there is no one life-changing feature in Firefox, no ‘ah ha!’ moment; the Big Thing is the sum of a thousand little moments where Firefox worked with them, not against them.” Hear, hear.
Why I switched to Firefox by Scott Berkun on 12th September 2005:
IE UI developer for versions 1 to 5.
berkun switches to firefox by Asa Dotzler on 14th September, 2005:
“Oh, and as for your question on the gatekeepers for UI [in Firefox], that was Blake, Ben, Dave, and me :-)”
Interview with Firefox Founder and Creator Blake Ross by Daniel Goldman on 17th January 2007:
“I am strongly against shuffling UI around just to make a release feel ‘new’.” Agreed! Firefox has done it twice: once with the Options dialogue and again by making the default theme a custom theme. IE7 takes this to extremes.