Have we gotten to a point where using mainstream browsers is far harder than using Pale Moon?

[Eduardo Lucas]

I mean, this is a serious thread. I have a younger friend (i'm 27, he is 18) who uses Opera GX. We usually do discord calls where we study together things we like and he usually shows me his Opera GX stored preferences and bookmarks and everything. This almost always exposes me to feelings of disbelief, amazement and horror by four things:

- How is he actually able to use something like this for web browsing effectively?:



- How do you get to know what does what with icons everywhere, context menus, screens, everything, which look like ultra-barebones graffiti, hieroglyphs, ideograms or cuneiforms?

- Isn't this kind of thing far, far harder to use for serious web productivity than a sane, serious UI desktop design which focuses on the desktop era conventions than something which cannot decide if its a tablet, smartphone or desktop UI?

- Why this thing creates another whole pseudo-operating system UI inside a chromium base and looks like it has its own life, while holding features which far surpass chrome or firefox in complexity but meanwhile completely leaves the scope of a web browser?




I'm trying to convince him to use basilisk with the photon theme, for most of the websites and leave Opera GX for things he cannot run, as he needs RAM, but this is being a time-consuming task, as he wasn't born in the desktop-only era and doesn't understand even barely why current interfaces aren't comparable to browser interfaces from the firefox 3x/IE10/Presto Opera era. It will be tough.

[FranklinDM]

I'm trying to convince him to use basilisk with the photon theme

On a side note, you can also suggest the The Good 'ol Sidebar extension to mimic Opera GX's sidebar behavior.

[Moonchild]

The issue is that interfaces with glyphs that aren't clearly indicating what they do are not intuitive. Non-intuitive interfaces can be used but require people to have previous knowledge of the elements and their presentation. I.e. it relies on memory rather than logic.

[Eduardo Lucas]

On a side note, you can also suggest the The Good 'ol Sidebar extension to mimic Opera GX's sidebar behavior.

Thanks. I've shown him a screenshot of basilisk + photon theme + bar addon to make it more appealing.

The issue is that interfaces with glyphs that aren't clearly indicating what they do are not intuitive. Non-intuitive interfaces can be used but require people to have previous knowledge of the elements and their presentation. I.e. it relies on memory rather than logic.

Wouldn't that complicate demanding and complex activities if you have always to depend on memory for knowing what does what? If elements lack clear indication of what they do, they would also lack obvious indication of how their functions would be appropriate or suggestive of use in a usual browsing task or in integrating into someone's workflow.

I would suppose it would also make the user subject to the company. If they decide to change the UI because it perceives it needs to be changed (not necessarily for making it better) it would sabotage the user because he would be depending on his memory to remember functions and not on logic and would take him not time (if not impossible) to do certain things again with the new elements or interface aspects. I was never impacted by any of these problems when i used chrome in its older days due to not having a job and studying at the time, so i have no idea on how seriously this would impact someone who depends on this kind of software design.

[Moonchild]

Wouldn't that complicate demanding and complex activities if you have always to depend on memory for knowing what does what? If elements lack clear indication of what they do, they would also lack obvious indication of how their functions would be appropriate or suggestive of use in a usual browsing task or in integrating into someone's workflow.

Absolutely. Intuitive interfaces > non-intuitive interfaces.
The only reason a company might want a non-intuitive interface is if they want to bind users into their fixed workflow or if they actually have an advantage from needing to teach people how to use the software (e.g. if they also sell courses).

[Mæstro]

- How is he actually able to use something like this for web browsing effectively?

This is why:

he wasn't born in the desktop-only era and doesn't understand even barely why current interfaces aren't comparable to browser interfaces from the firefox 3x/IE10/Presto Opera era.

They have never encountered refined browser design: it is like expecting a Visigothic goldsmith to know oriental working technic from centuries before him, to say nothing of him knowing why it is better than his own. Something like this happens between me and my friends born this century when they simply cannot understand why I despise flat design (when the interest is cosmetic, not functional).

[Eduardo Lucas]

They have never encountered refined browser design: it is like expecting a Visigothic goldsmith to know oriental working technic from centuries before him, to say nothing of him knowing why it is better than his own. Something like this happens between me and my friends born this century when they simply cannot understand why I despise flat design (when the interest is cosmetic, not functional).

I would sincerely love to have the ability of showing people the blast furnace while they only use bronze now. (i loved the metalworking analogy you used)