Archive for August, 2010

Add-ons Manager UI Update

I’ve posted quite a few mockups on this blog of Firefox’s redesigned add-ons manager’s features and interactions. What I haven’t shown are screenshots of how the manager will actually look in Firefox 4.0. The following are designs, based on Stephen Horlander’s work on the new Firefox theme, of the add-ons manager in OSX and Windows 7.  The icons are still placeholders, but the rest of the design is pretty near finalized.

In the image below, you’ll see three windows for each operating system.  The first row shows list view, where a short summary of each add-on and its description are shown.  Buttons allow the user to disable an add-on or launch its preferences.  Clicking “More” takes the user to detail view.

The second row shows detail view, where the user sees more information about a single add-on.  The full description is displayed as well as a contribution box if the add-on’s author chooses.

Finally, appearance view shows installed themes and backgrounds (previously personas).  Since these add-ons are primarily visual, the interface gives a large preview of each item and does not display a description.

Dave Townsend and Blair McBride have been working hard on implementing these visual changes as well as the slew of under-the-hood improvements that are making the add-ons manager faster and more stable.  To see how it’s coming along, try running a nightly build in your operating system of choice.  Hope you like it!

LinkedIn Accidentally Sends Private Email to Group List

A few minutes ago, I got a message from LinkedIn via the Bay-Area-UX list, a group I’m a member of.  The message is clearly not intended for me, but is a private discussion between a recruiter and a job applicant.  It potentially went out to every member of the Bay-Area-UX list.

I clicked “View/reply to this message” in order to notify the sender that his email had been mis-sent,  and I saw the following error:

This is a serious problem from a site which prides itself on security and privacy.  Hopefully this is a one-off error and not a common occurrence.  The conversation I received is clearly about a startup whose business is still under wraps.  All it takes is one mistake like this to ruin a business model and potentially the success of a fledgling startup.