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Mozilla Is Rebranding Firefox and Wants Your Feedback (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Mozilla is rebranding Firefox. The company is asking for feedback on the new look, which will try to cover the various Firefox offerings. For most people, Firefox refers to a browser, but the company wants the brand to encompass all the various apps and services that the Firefox family of internet products cover, "from easy screenshotting and file sharing to innovative ways to access the internet using voice and virtual reality." The fox with a flaming tail "doesn't offer enough design tools to represent this entire product family," Mozilla believes.
"We ruined our product and want people to give us a second look without realizing who we really are"
Bob.
None of FF's users care. This is just designers + managers making busy work to justify their jobs.
oh fuck me.
Look guys, I remember when Mozilla was a bloated monolith - irc, mail, usenet, i don't even remember what else. Oh, and a browser nobody used. Then firefox came out from your summer intern (Blake Ross), by getting rid of all that crud and being a browser. And only a browser.
And, poof, Mozilla (well, FireFox) became relevant again. And then you squandered it. Why will it be different this time? Honestly, close up hop and give the money to somebody else.
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Mozilla is the brand for the family of products, and Firefox is the brand for the browser product. Nice and simple. Why overload it and confuse people? This makes no sense at all. Other products should have other brands so you can tell them apart.
1) Change the name to something more recognizeable. Some modification of the "Chrome" seems to be popular right now, so try things like "Chromantum", "Chromicisity", or "Chromabat". The closer to "Chrome", the better.
2) The color scheme using steel grey and ice-cold blue still has a tiny bit warmth to it. This should be removed, using a browser should feel like entering a walk-in freezer.
3) The preferences pages still have a few lines and borders that give the options an organized feeling. Mozilla should transition to a completely non-delimited look, so that everything looks like it's just placed on a white page.
4) Also on the preferences, get rid of the group headers. Since all the options are labeled, the headers are useless anyway.
5) There is still too much contrast between screen elements. For example, the slider on the right hand side of the screen can still be distinguished from its rail - the slider should be made lighter and/or the rail should be darker, to reduce annoying contrast.
6) More animations, such as the "cylon stare" when loading a tab, or the "burst of shadow" that happens when you open a new tab. These don't take any time to implement, don't need debugging or maintenance, and add greatly to the browsing experience.
7) Be sure to change the programming interface with each new update. Users only use any one extension about 30% of all sessions (on average), so this matches well with what users want.
8) Never, ever incorporate popular extensions into the core product for efficiency. Blocking ads and better security should be the end users task to learn about, decide, and implement. If you *must* implement something like the "do not track" button, be sure to be extremely careful not to piss off advertizers: implement it by default "off", so that users can choose.
9) Don't bother implementing an easy way to use encryption in the E-mail reader - no one wants that.
10) When all else fails, copy the competition (Chrome). There's no such thing as "product distinction" in the browser marketplace, one browser is the same as another. Don't bother trying anything that could make you better than Google.
11) And finally, always cater to the average user. Never implement anything that would appeal to advanced users, never try anything new and innovative, and never "play to the choir". Keep it simple, and keep your average users happy.