Fire your UI-designers

[WereCatf]

My Firefox just updated to 157 and my eyeballs were assaulted by one of the most hideous UI-designs I've seen lately, what with a ghastly gradient from left to right in the toolbar and tabs now being super-rounded pills that can only fit half as much text in them as previously.

Who even comes up with these ideas? How does any of this improve usability? Less text and more wasted space is not an improvement and an ugly gradient that doesn't look like any other application is just distracting. Sure, fine, give the users the opti...oh, wait, the option has already been there for a long time now! But now the option to not use a gradient is apparently completely gone unless you hop into about:config -- every single theme I tried is now a gradient!

Where are the days when UI-designers actually cared about improving usability instead of reducing usability in exchange for flash?

[Mittens]

Total agreement, this is terrible Nova is fine as an optional thing or for beta testers who wanted it, but forcing it on everyone else is horrid. Mozilla is taking design decision cues and feature direction from piscorpDiscord now it seems and tearing up all their credibility and appeal that made them successful.

[SquibbleZombie]

One of Firefox's main selling points is that we, the consumers, have the ability to choose, so not giving us the option is criminal. I really want to like Firefox, and while it's still better than Google, this is just awful. Why change the design when we already love it? Why not allow us the option to revert? Would it really be too much work to simply allow both options?

[kelimuttu]

Hi everyone,

A quick moderation reminder: critical feedback about Firefox is welcome. However, please keep the discussion focused on the design, how it affects your experience, and what you’d like to see improved.

Calls for personal attacks on the people behind the work don’t align with our Community Participation Guidelines. Please help keep this discussion respectful and useful by focusing on the substance.

Thank you!

[mangak]

The new UI look is terrible. Rounded corners are so rounded that tab names are 2 letters long now. You can't even change the skin of the browser because it doesn't allow changing "roundness," only colors. What is the point? What is the point of a hamburger menu that only adds more clicks to something that didn't need them before? Absolute incompetence of developers.

[BiMS]

> and what you’d like to see improved.

Just give us the option to select from an assortment of UIs used throughout the years.

I would still be on the Classic V4 UI from ~2011 if I was given the option to still use it.

[Pheidippides]

I don’t like the new design either. But please be fair to the people who worked on it.

• The fact that you don’t like it does not mean it is objectively bad.

• Just because people who dislike it are expressing their discontent loudly does not mean they are the majority.
• And, by the way, you can easily change the appearance by using a theme. So there’s no need to be overly dramatic about it.

Let’s try to identify objective reasons why the new design does not fulfill its purpose.

[epistrophy42]

The world is going mad, Firefox too...

[del32exe]

Registered just to express my dissatisfaction with new UI and no option to change it back. Literally chrome devs behaviour

[SquibbleZombie]

I have to send this again, because it didn't show up despite passing review. In short, Moderator Kelimuttu, is Firefox going to listen to us at all or give us options? If not, this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back for me and probably others.

[balliewnd]

I agree that the new UI look is terrible.  At least they could make it easy to go back to the old look or even have the new look opt-in instead of opt-out.

There is a way to change it, but you have to go into the advanced settings

Type "about:config" in the address bar and hit enter to open the advanced configuration items.

After dismissing the warning, search for "nova"

Then toggle the option "browser.nova.enabled" to "false"

The browser will instantly revert back to the old UI style.

I am not sure how long this will work, but it does for now...

[balliewnd]

I agree that the new UI look is terrible.  At least they could make it easy to go back to the old look or even have the new look opt-in instead of opt-out.

There is a way to change it back, but you have to go into the advanced configuration. The option is not available in any of the normal settings pages.

Type "about:config" in the address bar and hit enter to open the advanced configuration.

After dismissing the warning, search for "nova"

Then toggle the option "browser.nova.enabled" to "false"

The browser will instantly revert back to the old UI style.

I am not sure how long this will work, but it does for now...

[Swizzle3131]

NGL i preferred the way firefox looked before everything got round,the everything round trend is kinda lame...

the old UI looked clean and modern enough so... there was no reason to touch UI at all.

Please either revert back, or let users choose how the browser looks.

[ellisonch]

My tabs are too small now width-wise.  There seems to be a lot of wasted space.  I wound up setting it to "touch" settings, which gives slightly more horizontal space, so i can see a few more characters on tab names, but now the tabs are too tall.

This change sacrifices usability for "prettiness".  I'm not interested in prettiness.

[err2reroor]

about:config

browser.nova.enabled = false

YES WERE BACK AT THE OLD GUI AGAIN

[err2reroor]

about:config

browser.nova.enabled = false