Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Could Google's Test of Hiding Complete URLs In Chrome Become a Standard?

Posted by timothy on from the dumbed-down-or-neatened-up? dept.

MojoKid (1002251) writes "The address bar in a Web browser has been a standard feature for as long as Web browsers have been around — and that's not going to be changing. What could be, though, is exactly what sort of information is displayed in them. In December, Google began rolling-out a limited test of a feature in Chrome called "Origin Chip", a UI element situated to the left of the address bar. What this "chip" does is show the name of the website you're currently on, while also showing the base URL. To the right, the actual address bar shows nothing, except a prompt to "Search Google or type URL". With this implementation, a descriptive URL would not be seen in the URL bar. Instead, only the root domain would be seen, but to the left of the actual address bar. This effectively means that no matter which page you're on in a given website, all you'll ever see when looking at the address bar is the base URL in the origin chip. What helps here is that the URL is never going to be completely hidden. You'll still be able to hit Ctrl + L to select it, and hopefully be able to click on the origin chip in order to reveal the entire URL. Google could never get rid of the URL entirely, because it's required in order to link someone to a direct location, obviously."

6 of 327 comments (clear)

  1. And the question of the day is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why? It's easier, more informative, more transparent, and arguably better just to show a plain old URL field than add some extra layer of crap to 'hide' it and make it less useful...

    1. Re:And the question of the day is... by VortexCortex · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yep, and when you click the field to give it focus have it highlight the whole thing so that you can start typing your search or Ctrl+C or Ctrl+V to copy or paste the damn link. I've been compiling my own Firefox for so long I had forgotten that this wasn't a standard feature. Sure beats triple clicking the URL to select it.

    2. Re:And the question of the day is... by cryptizard · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The benefit is ease of use for people who have no idea what a URL is. They just look up there and see, "yes, this is definitely my bank's website," instead of "holy shit what does long string of symbols that mean."

    3. Re:And the question of the day is... by epyT-R · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Deliberately hiding details because they confuse people is not a solid reason for turning everything into its fisher price equivalent.

    4. Re:And the question of the day is... by firewrought · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The benefit is ease of use for people who have no idea what a URL is. They just look up there and see, "yes, this is definitely my bank's website," instead of "holy shit what does long string of symbols that mean."

      Maybe a basic part of web literacy is learning what a URL is and what it's useful for. "Whoa!" you say, "we need to do anything we can to make computers easier and more self-explanatory." Well, yes, I agree with that, but we're reaching a point where designers start to "overtrain" their design. Take this "origin chip", for example. You make it slightly easier to identify the site you're on and perhaps slightly less intimidating for a newbie [which is sort of ridiculous in this context because the web is do damn ubiquitous now], but you've also made a host of other tasks slightly harder (viz., copying/emailing a link, fixing a link, manually entering a link, inspecting a link, etc.). In addition, you're no longer subtly informing the intuitions of future authors, librarians, technicians, webmasters, programmers, and judges/juries as to the URL~=page association. That's ultimately making it harder for people to understand how their technology works.

      Usability design is a noble endeavor, and I'm all on board with Norman, Tufte, etc. What I'm NOT on board is the current fad of software that drops functionality, removes technical visibility, and overhauls the interface with each release. That's just user-hostile.

      [ranting because Google Camera dropped exposure control recently]

      --
      -1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
  2. Nope. by X0563511 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What, do they want Chrome to be the next AOL?

    No. Show the URL. Start trimming that down and next thing you know we'll be back with keywords...

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...