Saturday, September 13, 2008

URL button concept

This is just a quick concept image of what the URL bar would look like if it used buttons instead of text for a path. It's not intended for people to just stumble upon, and will most likely bore anyone who did not intend to view it.
In my opinion this would only appear when a page has already been navigated to, on the opening of a new tab the standard URL bar would appear.
A reference of what it looks like now (taken from the blender website - art gallery):



What the same site would look like with buttons:



There would be benefits and deficits to this design:

Benefits:
- Less issue with 'information overload'
- Would integrate more fully with the modern operating system (the button design is taken from Nautilus in Ubuntu, but a design could be made using the Vista 'arrows')
- Aid usability enabling 'drag and drop' onto the tab bar, etc.
- Easier to go to a higher level of the site.

Deficits:
- Difficulty implementing (with many weird URLs involving numbers and automatically generated content, e.g. this blog ends in 'post-create.g?blogID=944926393326072880'). This could hopefully be overcome using intelligent programming.
- When a user wants to type a URL on a page that already has content, it would require an extra mouse click (This could surely be overcome by someone good at interface design, i.e. not me). Alternatively all users could learn to use 'CTRL + L' :).
- Some users would not accept this very readily, we saw this with the Awesome Bar.

I'm sure there are other positives and negatives, please feel free to comment. Please note that I am not necessarily talking about the near future, but I feel that eventually the interface will go this way and it would be good if we were first.

P.S. Just for anyone who is registered with Ubuntu Brainstorm, and haven't yet voted for this idea (but want to):

Thursday, May 8, 2008

"Oh no... Not again"

I Say Hello,
Once again I have returned the the irrational boredom that convinces me to write a new post. It has been a while since my last post, but don't worry, you haven't missed much.
I am in a state of stress once again. Tomorrow I must do a summative (actually counts towards something) pract report on a transistor amplifier circuit. I also have a Maths C (the hard one) assignment due next week which I have barely begun. So in all honesty I shouldn't be bored, because I should be working with no end in sight. That said, I just don't feel like working... and posts on useless blogs that I doubt anyone will ever read seems like a much better use of my time.
That's all I can think to say, essentially I just decided to write about how bored I am, even though I know that no-one cares (nor should they).
I Say: "So long and thanks for all the fish."

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

An inspiring first post...

I've decided, after months of having an empty blog, that I should finally post something. So here goes.
I am bored, on the far end scale of boredom. I'm also sore, for today we had our cross country, and, in my infinite wisdom (and fitness) I decided to run most of the darn thing. The result... an uninspiring 34th for me, it's not as if their were a large number of runners, or indeed any particularly skilled runners, so it seem that I just need to learn to run.
In other news I've finished the last of my exams, and handed in the last of my assignments and I've just realised how inane and boring this post has become. A sad product of my endless boredom. I have, however, started a mini-underground resistance against the computer administrator at school (when I say mini, I really mean just me with a large number of people thinking that I've completely lost the plot. The plan is, in case you want to hear, which I'm sure you don't in which case you're probably wondering why you are still reading, to create a small text file, titled "Mr insert name of administrator here Please read this", in which on every second line I have written a small (or large as the case may be) complaint about the school network, slow computers, slow Internet, blocked sites, no Linux, are the types of things I'm talking about there. On the other lines I have written "If you are looking at my screen... THE COMPUTERS ARE TERRIBLE... Please rectify the situation". I hope that next time he invades my privacy (which he seems to do on a regular basis) he will find this document, read it, and if I can get enough people to follow my lead he may get so frustrated that he could possibly (just a very slim chance of this) do his job for a change.
If you got this far, I am impressed with your ability to stay focused, thus I shall not torture you any longer.