Forgive me if this is not the right place to leave this feedback, but I've found the updated icons and colors for containers to be less useful than the previous designs.
In my opinion, the design of the containers interface should be geared toward quick identification of the correct container that one wants to use. The previous design, shown in this screenshot from the containers Support page, accomplished this well by using mostly filled icons and bold colors very easy to differentiate from one another.
The new interface has changed in two main ways: the icons are now all outlines with shaded backgrounds, with no filled icons (they are also simplified, but I have no quarrel with that choice), and the colors are now much more similar to each other. This can be seen in the following screenshots from my own browser (personal info redacted), below. Notably, the new tab interface seems to use dark mode on my device regardless of Firefox's settings.
Interestingly, the "Always Open Site in Container" interface from the Multi-Account Containers extension seems to use a light theme regardless of system settings (I cannot recall if this was the case previously or not) and while it uses the new icons, it uses a different set of more bold.
I have a couple thoughts on the new design:
- Despite the statement in this thread that "The updated design brought bolder color choices to Firefox", these colors are clearly less bold than the previous colors. This makes them more difficult to differentiate from each other when attempting to select the correct container.
- The color-shaded circles behind each icon reduce the contrast between the icon and the background, making them less visually legible, particularly at a glance.
- The bolder colors of the Multi-Account Container extension's interface are much easier for me to differentiate than those of the other container interfaces. Among the light and dark themes of the other interfaces, the light theme colors are easier to differentiate than the dark theme colors due to higher contrast even with the reduced contrast of the shaded circles.
- Though outlined icons have been in the tech graphics trend for some time, I would argue that in this use, filled icons would be a better choice. If the goal of these icons is for users to quickly differentiate their containers by color and shape, filled icons will give a stronger sense of both to the user, allowing them to more quickly determine their intended container.
- The icons in the new tab interface are not sized the same as the icons in the container settings compared to their shaded circles. This makes the icons in the new tab interface appear somewhat sloppy.
- I have yet to do an analysis comparing the performance of the previous color palette to the new color palette in terms of their color blindness accessibility. Though, I suspect that both palettes would not perform well, I'm certain the new palette would perform worse given that my own non-color blind vision is having increased difficulty differentiating them.
Overall, these are my recommendations for improving readability and ease-of-use:
- Remove the shaded circles behind icons.
- Choose a color palette that a) contrasts more strongly with the background, b) contrasts more strongly with each other, and c) performs better for people with color vision issues.
- Switch to filled, rather than outlined icons.
- Fix the different interfaces not following light/dark themes and unify the colors across built-in containers and the extension (if these bugs are actually my own errors, please let me know).
- Nice to have (even from before this update): More color choices and more icons, yay!
In my opinion, the updated design of the container icons and colors seems to put form ahead of function to the detriment of the user.
ok so now even the right click menu for tabs is a fu cking migraine trigger for me. Even switching to light theme won't fix it. I can't use firefox anymore, it's no longer safe to use. Fu ck every single person at mozilla responsible for this s hit, your actions are reprehensible, your hostility towards disabled people is blatantly fu cking apparent and absolutely abhorrent.
