Discovering new ways to do old things!
Anders Apr 28th
What’s the deal with all these new fantastic browsers and browser plug-ins? Are they all riding the “Mozilla wave” and hoping for their 15 minutes of fame?
My first thought was: YES! But then I tried a few of them out and discovered that some of them actually hold GREAT and USEFUL features!
In general I do not like features for the sake of features only. They are in general geek pleasuring inventions.
But take a look at Browster. It’s fantastic, absolutely fantastic! This feature is useful and eases my navigation. Not every day I come across that in a feature.
When I read blogs, or follow the discussions through various forums and need to see comments or the sub threads of a post, I simply use this feature to preview and scan if there is anything of interest to study more in detail. Without the evil “back and forth navigation” where everything on the pages is reloaded over and over again.
Check out the “How it works guide” here or go straight for the download of this really useful navigation feature.
With this new discovery I can leave the office for the day, and re-explore the www browsing this weekend.
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Hmm! - Looks like it doesn’t work with Internet Explorer 7. I had no luck with it using almost 2 minutes trying to figure out the problem.
I’ve used it for a couple of days now, and I’m not swept off my feet but it does have its moments.
When using it with search results I find my self clicking the links instead of using the Browster preview. Apparently I scan the text on search results faster than it takes for Browster to load previews for all the search results. But that depends on your internet connection I guess.
I find it quite useful when reading blogs. Blog post links can be pointing all over the place, so it’s pretty nifty to be able to see if you want to follow a specific link or not. In this situation load times is not that intrusive, since previews is most likely done loading while you read the post contents.
But what I find most interesting and maybe even a bit scaring, is the impact this type of interaction, navigation, or what ever you want to call it, will have on website design and marketing. All rules of engagement are nullified - your site will be shown cropped from the left, from the right, and from the bottom depending on the viewers Browster enabled browser. That makes it difficult to determine where to place attention grabbers, and pretty much eliminates the use of design principles such as the golden section etc.
Normally you have at least a few seconds to evoke your visitor’s curiosity and get them to continue browsing your website. After all, they did click the referring link to get to you and are probably inclined to at least scan your web page before leaving. With Browster users, or what might follow that is similar, you have no more time than it takes to move your cursor away from a 10 by 10 pixel square. I smell quite the challenge for copywriters and designers alike.
It’s good for your Pay Per Click ads though, since you wont have to pay for visitors who would just leave after a few seconds. I wonder what the PPC vendors think of that.