If Firefox has a killer feature for hardcore web users*, it’s middle-clicking to get a new tab. On one hand, it’s a performance booster: if I see a link in the middle of a page that I’d like to visit, I middle-click it, sending it to the background, and when I’m done with the page (even a few seconds later), the clicked link is already loaded. This takes load time from 1-5 seconds down to actually, literally, nothing, and with nothing fancy on the optimization or network end: just a small change in my workflow.
On the other hand, though, it’s about much more than optimization. Sending middle clicked links to the background is a new paradigm in browsing: if a page offers, say, three links you’d like to click, you used to have to either a.) click the first, remember that you wanted to click back, and do so for each link, or b.) load each link in a new browser window, which I suppose some of you probably do. Tabbed browsing offers a huge advantage: clicking links on things you might only be curious in, and sending them to the background, you can review them without interrupting what you’re doing, and queue up several paths of exploration simultaneously.
I only bring this up because I hear that Firefox is changing the way tabs are closed: instead of one “close this tab” X in the upper right, there will be one on each individual tab. I don’t want to rush to judgement (particularly if this is an option, and it can be turned off), but I can’t imagine anything more disruptive to my way of working with Firefox. Flock had this, and I couldn’t even stand it long enough to see if the other features were worth my time (although, probably, they weren’t). When my attention tells me “okay, I’m done with this page”, there’s nothing more satifying than sending it away with a click of the X and seeing what else I’ve got queued under that tab. With Flock, my attention told me “okay, time to close this page” and then I had to determine which of the nine X icons I needed to click to get what I wanted.
Putting an X on every tab means that it’s back to me to determine what’s open and how to close it. It’s a tiny bit more burdensome to open a tab now, since there’s a tiny brain tax I have to pay to finish it off. The tab I’m on is suddenly something I have to keep track of, instead of something I can ignore. (Tab position is occasionally important to me, if I accidentally have two tabs open, and I’m trying to Alt-Tab between them, and I realize I have to Ctrl-Tab, and I give up and start indicating my choices with clicks. Otherwise, I’m not paying a lot of attention to the tab set I have open.)
It’s not that I don’t understand the usability problems posed by the single X. It doesn’t really indicate what it’s going to do when it’s clicked, and it’s certainly easy (before you “get it”) to close the browser, killing 10 tabs when you only meant to close one. But presenting 10 X icons for 10 tabs does not simplify the choices a novice user has to make to get handy with tabs. It’s intimidating.
How will I handle it if it’s the default in the next Firefox, and I can’t turn it off? I might adapt by using fewer tabs, or moving my tabs around so I’m more frequently wanting to click in a consistent spot (hmm, I’ll be reading this tab for a while, better move it all the way left so it’s ready for closing when I’m done)… at the same time, there is probably a keyboard shortcut for “close the tab I am currently looking at”, and that might suit my needs, as well.
For the time being… ugh. I wish they wouldn’t change it.
* The most important innovation of Firefox is probably the plugin architecture: any number of things are well done in Firefox, but if they aren’t, someone’s probably written code that snaps in, automatically, and does it better. And note that I only consider tabbed browsing a killer feature for information / interaction junkies like myself: I truly think about 80% of IE users don’t need anything more than IE.
