Opera Founder Opens Up About New Vivaldi Browser (networkworld.com)

alphadogg writes: Since the days of Mosaic in the early 1990s, Jon von Tetzchner has been working on web browsers. He is one of the creators of Opera, the alternative browser that's been a power-user favorite since 1995. His new project, Vivaldi, is heading for its first stable release. Network World sat down with von Tetzchner on Thursday to talk about Vivaldi and Opera at the Innovation House, a related venture of his.

Comments

Intuitive

[fyngyrz]

Sometimes simplicity can (somewhat non-intuitively) impede productivity

It's not non-intuitive at all.

Simplicity is great for two classes of users: power users who don't want to be power users of that particular segment of tech, and the broad swath of droolers out there. That's by far the largest chunk of market. Their version of productivity is "do the average thing without being bothered by anything." So for them, simplicity is productive.

Unfortunately, that leaves power users who do want, or even might need, sophisticated features, without the tools they need to be specifically productive. And it leads to the kind of brain-dead thinking that gives us "features" like hiding the URL and just showing the domain, non-standard (and broken) buttons because "oh, pretty", UI elements that migrate like addled geese, not to mention just up and disappear...

Sigh.