Mozilla’s Lucas Rocha has revealed upcoming usability improvements coming to Firefox 23 for Android, featuring UI changes which resulted from an internal hackathon.
There appears to be a number of changes which Rocha says “will make a substantial difference in the experience of using Firefox on Android.” Noteworthy changes will come to the browser’s tabs, address bar and Reader Mode in Firefox’s Nightly build over the next few days.
For tabs, Mozilla has added an updated tabs icon (shown below), a new animation for when tabs are added or removed and a subtle parallax effect when you open and close the tabs panel.
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As for the address bar, Rocha shares that users “now have the option to show URLs instead of page titles.” Additionally the reader and stop buttons have resized “hit areas,” which will help users avoid accidentally tapping other buttons by mistake. Rocha called this “a long overdue issue.”
Lastly, the Firefox for Android Reader Mode will get serif fonts, “doorhanger” notifications are now more polished and text selection handles “have a more consistent style.” Whether or not you’re a fan on Firefox, these are clearly important changes — however subtle — which will ultimately serve to improve the overall user experience.
Image credit: Thinkstock
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