Full episode transcript below
Geoff and Guy return to talk about web browsers without even once saying "surfing the web" (so of course it had to be squeezed into the episode title). From checking emails to watching videos and purchasing products, we use these ubiquitous tools multiple times a day, so we thought they deserved a deeper look and a moment to consider why we aren’t readily seeing if a different one would better meet our needs.
Highlights include:
💡 What do we miss out on by being complacent with what we're used to using?
💡 Should we be more exploratory with our everyday tools?
💡 What's the easiest way to try out a new browser?
💡 How can the digital products and services we make be improved by us trying out a different browser for a week?
Originally recorded on 2 Jan 2022.
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Episode Transcript
Geoff Wilson [00:00:05] Welcome to another episode of the Everyday Experiences Podcast, where we uncover potential design improvements in the world around us by exploring one frustrating experience at a time. I'm your host and Chief Observer, Geoff Wilson, based out of Auckland and joining me again today is my good friend, Guy Thompson, a curious industry observing Kiwi based in Melbourne.
Guy Thompson [00:00:24] Thanks, Geoff. I like my job title is actually Strategic Initiatives Manager, but I guess that includes a lot of curiosity and stuff as well. So we're pretty close.
Geoff Wilson [00:00:33] And also I can never memorise what it is. Strategic? I already forgot, strategic something or other. So we go with a random title every time you're on. In today's episode we're unpacking a different kind of experience, but specifically we're wondering, well, what do we miss out on by being comfortable and complacent with what we're used to using, right? The things that we use every single day, whether it's a can opener or something on our laptop. Should we be more exploratory with our tools? So what might we be missing out on? And what happens then when we actually haven't sought out change, but change gets made to us? Somebody does change their product and then, should we embrace it or should we run away? What do you do? So that's what we wanted to get into today. But, how are we going to ground this?
Guy Thompson [00:01:16] The tricky part about this is that human beings are creatures of habit. We find something that we enjoy using and we do. We use it in a certain way, the way that we drive a car, the way that we stack stuff on the refrigerator, like whatever we do, we tend to find a system in a way of doing something and we kind of stick to it. Now, often in the world we are, this changes that happen that are kind of thrust upon us where they change the layout of a store that we like walking around. Or there's a there's a physical product and they've removed a button. You know, we use mobile phones and different devices where they've changed things or remove things and you can plug your headphones in anymore. There's all these different examples of where those things changed and the real world. But those real world changes in tact and slower. And I thought it would be really great to talk about today, a tool that we use every day that has changed massively over the last 10 or 20 years. And that's your web browser, right? You using it for work, using it for information gathering research, using it a different way every day across lots of different devices. And we tend to, I think, play within the same browser that we've used for a long time just because we persist. And so I thought it'd be great to inspect this and kind of like I thought it'd be great to look at this topic from the point of view of why do we use a browser in a certain way all the time? What do we prefer about it and why are we not trying different things? Are we really sticking to our habits because we're comfortable? And what happens when they change something in that browser and we're annoyed with it? I thought it could be interesting to look at that.
Geoff Wilson [00:02:38] I think the first thing that comes to mind right from the get go is, well, I started imagining the people who just use whatever the default is, whether they're in a work context or personal context, they just go, This is what's on my phone. I'm using this, you know, and if you haven't refreshed the device in a very long time, especially, you know, a PC where it's like your phone a lot of times now, if you get a new device, you can basically back up and restore everything that you had. So if you got a browser six years ago with three models ago in your phone, you might still be using the exact same one today because you've just gone quick. Restore done. You didn't need to actually search or consider. I should try something new, whereas again, like if you get a car, if your car dies, it's this new chance to go well. It's been six years since I've done it. What now should I be looking for? There's a whole new conversation, both browsers. I think the biggest thing that comes to me is a browser is not the end experience, right? It's not the thing that people are going out of their way to get. I mean, they will potentially, but it's not. They're not getting a browser going. Yeah, I've got a browser now. It's well, I've got a browser now so that I can do a thing. There's something I want to actually do with it.
Guy Thompson [00:03:41] Yeah, it's kind of to a certain extent, the anonymity is a little bit like a vehicle that browsers is a vehicle that allows you to go somewhere to drive the internet, to go visit places, right? So it really is like a vehicle. It has those basic features you're looking for. It does have safety features included in terms of protecting you and pop up windows and all these different things. It's predicting information and it's getting you where you want to go quickly and safely. But each one of these different browsers does have a different way of doing things, and sometimes when those changes happen, that it can be quite jarring. So let's talk about like the first part of this experience, which is what we're usually using web browsers for and probably certainly for the last 20 or 30 years of web browsers being around, it was really about information gathering first, and we do that in terms of news updates from different social media networks. We were kind of using these web browsers to go and find information. And once you've found that information, you're either making notes, you're writing something down, you copy and pasting something or you're opening another tab so you can find some more information. So what happens when you're going through that information gathering process? Do you end up with just way too many tabs open? What's it like for you?
Geoff Wilson [00:04:49] Yeah, I mean, I literally had a to do list item. I'm a man of To-Do list, and one of them recently was go through my phone's browser tabs and start clearing them out because I use it. As you know, there is bookmarks, but I've realised for me, I use bookwork now these are my go to short. So from my browser. But then when I have like a tab that I want an article that popped up that I want to see or a video I want to watch, I just leave this open on my phone now as tabs like I just don't close them. And hopefully when if my browser crashes or I restart my phone or whatever it is. Hopefully they're still there. When I restarted that, I didn't just lose it because I just leave them there as reminders to myself, Oh, I should really check this out some day. So that's that's definitely how I'm using the tabs version of it nowadays.
Guy Thompson [00:05:32] But the thing that happens with having that many tabs open is that the browser that you're using, we usually show you page thumbnails of those windows. And I find on mobile, you very quickly run out of space to see how many they are. You're not going to scroll up. And I know that I'm on Chrome. You're little the number that shows you how many browser tabs open and changes to a smiley face once you get to the 90 minute text. And I've only ever seen the smiley face because I've got more than 99 tabs open permanently. I feel like five.
Geoff Wilson [00:05:59] So when you're like a lot of like, yeah, it's Wi-Fi is a lot right now. But yeah,
Guy Thompson [00:06:03] and I did this the other day with an iPad, and I think there's one way that you do it. I think you switch to the thumbnail view and see that I had three hundred and twenty six tabs like three hundred twenty six.
Geoff Wilson [00:06:13] Yes. No, you're never. You're never finding anything that's like, you're having fun. You put all this stuff in boxes, you put up in your attic and you're never going to get see that it just sits there unaccounted for.
Guy Thompson [00:06:23] Exactly. And it's there for so long that then you can see like the thumbnail and just scrolling through now and I can see the thumbnail of what that web page look like at the time. But the problem is, if you if you tap back into that page, it refreshes. And so if it's a new story that's changed location or it's a website that doesn't even exist anymore, it's gone. So but I know what you mean, like you've got an opening to say like, Wow, I really want to read that article or I really want to have a look at that site again. This is a really useful thing. But yeah, I'm not going to store them as a bookmark because again, you fill up that list of bookmarks. And I find now that list of bookmarks is really your most recently used site and the browser you're using. I'm using Chrome tends to show me what those most recently used sites are when I open the new tab. It's kind of like automatically propagating that little kind of bookmark bar at the bottom for you based on regularly used websites. And I find that works. I'm usually only visiting probably about six of them at once. As you said about having those five different tabs. That's pretty much what you're using.
Geoff Wilson [00:07:19] Yeah. And on that note, I just realised there is that third level, which might be what you're referring to. There's bookmarks I've saved. There's tabs I have open, though to remember. And just as you noted of, you know, the browser being smart enough and following you enough, there's when I click a new tab on my phone and open up like a new Google thing. I don't even know what to call them because they're not bookmarks I've saved. But like my own personal websites on there, because that's the way I access my on site is I don't actually type it in and I don't click a bookmark. I know that if I click New Tab, I can click my little icon here that shows up along with some other random web pages. And that'll take me straight to because it's always there. I don't know what governs it, but I guess it's just all an average exactly that.
Guy Thompson [00:07:56] That's just like you're regularly used sites, right? And it sort of propagates that little list and on usually on a mobile phone, you probably got four of those. And then below that, you've got bookmarks, reading list, recent tabs, history. I notice below that you've got the Discover thing. I hate to turn it off because every time I'd open a new tab, I would then tap on one of the Discover Things and I'd be off on some tangent with some horrible news story I didn't even want to look at. And again, like, I think so many apps have that now where if you go to use the search function, the search function is so small, but the discovery is so massive. Every time I try to type something into Instagram, I'm immediately distracted by the gigantic screen and I just started looking at I'm like, That's not what I went there for, and in half an hour, you're later. You're like, I was actually trying to like typing someone's name and see what they're up to. Did they have a good holidays or something just picked on Instagram or TikTok or whatever? And you know, these apps are designed to pull your time and write like, This is fun. I mean, that's what
Geoff Wilson [00:08:51] we get to do with my wife from this year. She'll go like, Hey, can you look up the timing of the restaurant when it opens and open it? And you're right, the Discovery tab is like, Hello, does this bubble show come look at them like, Oh, I love them. And then an hour later, did you put reservations? Nope.
Guy Thompson [00:09:06] It knows what your most delicious distraction is, right? So it's like this. It's this super volume inside your phone. It's like, I can steal your time. And so like, you know, making sure you turn those things off, this is a challenge, but it's really rewarding. The thing I find fascinating now is I turned off the the tracking and in Chrome, and I just get all sorts of really bizarre ads. Now it's so much fun to just see all this crazy clothing, websites and strange devices and sort of things. But I can not even in the demographic of the thing that I just advertising to me, it's completely random to see who's buying these ads that are not targeted to anyone. It's just completely random. But they're using like different tracking information they can get on you. But nothing about your personality, just like based on your proximity of where you were during the week, and they'll kind of try to make a guess of what to sell you. So that experience of being tracked through browser. We know that's changed. And of course, with iOS, there's all these different changes now in terms of price. So that's, I think, a really great change that's happened where the experience is a little bit more, you know, personally customised, you can focus a bit more. But I think the thing around information gathering that is a challenge is because on a mobile device, you don't have a lot of screen real estate. You can very quickly have too many tabs, open too many pages and it's a little bit easy to get lost, I think, on the desktop. I think it's some far more manageable experience for me. If I just happen to suddenly have a dozen tabs open and I just run out of time or copy and paste all of the web addresses for those tabs, put it in like an email list for like, Oh, just read this later and then you kind of and that little period of deep work where you doing a whole bunch of research or a whole bunch of pages out and I don't want to lose this. I kind of store it in a way that's harder to do on your phone because there aren't kind of had both hands in a mouse and a and a spare document over. It's much more manual to do that. So I feel like sometimes that information gathering process on your phone is challenging because it's not as easy to copy and paste and create and note. I feel like the desktop research experience for gathering information is one that works a lot better for me.
Geoff Wilson [00:11:07] Yeah. And on that note of, you know, using between devices, especially if you start researching on one or the other, there is the ecosystem to consider. So because I do use Chrome on my desktop and phone and I'm logged in and it's all linked if I open a page on one, I can go to like the history tab or whatever on the desktop and guess, Oh, here's a page. You have it up on your phone so I can just pick up where I left off and switch it. And so it's really good to have that. You know that sinking the save passwords. And so what if I save a password on one that's saved on the other? But then it also creates a lot of headache, too, because I've got more than a few emails, let's say, for different purposes, different reasons. But then trying to switch between them is not necessarily the best because you've got to like, you can't just open up a tab and go, Oh, I want to use a different Google profile in this tab because you already signed into you're there. You've got to open up like a new session. That's this other thing. And it have two windows and you can't share bookmarks. You can't share, you know, your passwords between it. You can't share this. And that's I have repopulating both of them. So when I think of browsers, I get back to that same issue. Then if like, yes, I've got all these different accounts for different things, but I just want one place that just everything can open up in it.
Guy Thompson [00:12:17] It's a good point because I think there is a real usability challenge around the way browsers currently work, because there's a bit of a legacy issue here around the way they work than being very accessible and easy for people to use who don't necessarily use them all the time as much as we do. So you probably describe as as sort of power users that we are working all day long. We've got browser tabs open. It's part of what we do for work. There's tools that we use that only work inside the browser we're using with mail. We're using, you know, drive storage. There's all these different things that using a web browser for as as a toolset, but those toolkits do relate to different kinds of work that we do. So they kind of attach to different accounts. And I don't know quite yet if if the browser really supports that because I literally did this yesterday. I was looking at YouTube for some tips on how do I manage all of these different profiles within within Chrome specifically. And once I went through that process, I realised I was actually doing it the right way, but it wasn't any easier. There was no actual tips to make it any easier because all I have to do is have this whole session window open with lots of tabs. And then when I'm not using, I minimise it. And just before we jumped into this podcast, I'm like, Oh, I'd probably want to like free up a little bit more memory. I want to make sure that computers are running as fast as possible.
Geoff Wilson [00:13:32] I'll close 350 tabs down to three forty nine tabs and get rid of a few
Guy Thompson [00:13:38] and something like closing all these sessions down, going well. I just hope that all those windows are there when I go back into that session. There wasn't really a way for me to kind of exit out of that session as easily as possible. I'm guessing by just click in that little red kind of, you know, window closed button that those tabs are going to be there when I go back. So I feel like I'm trying to keep myself a bit more organised where I only have that one window and the tabs that relate to that particular profile. But I feel like you've got to kind of go back down to zero occasionally, just close them all because it's too easy just to get lost and kind of leave your computer on with just fifty six tabs open and 12 windows and you're like, Wow, this is just a bit much. And it's just it's easy to get overwhelmed, right? Because you've got so much stuff staring at you when you know when you want to get stuff done and be efficient, you're going to have like two or three tabs open that I've got something to do being really specific, I'm going to get some work done.
Geoff Wilson [00:14:27] This goes back to that original question of what are we missing anything? You know, maybe some of the browsers actually solve this, that I just have no idea that I'm complaining about multiple Google Chrome tabs. And so the one thing I need is I do need something to be sync between all my devices because that's how that's that's my ecosystem currently is. I if I if I spill a glass of wine to water from my last name, yes, it sucks money wise, but I don't actually lose anything because everything is so backed up that I just get a new laptop in every Chrome thing. Is there every Google Drive thing is there. It's all sink together, so I'm not actually losing anything stored anymore, but then I've got those other. Trains of different profiles, different logins, different passwords, settings and stuff, or, you know, work blocking, you know, the sinking features for stuff. So at work, you can't have the access to the same helpful bookmarks that you might have at home and in the guise of efficiency and security. From my point of view, but we're not going to get it. Let's look at that part, right?
Guy Thompson [00:15:22] But I think you're right. Like, there's all these factors that there's all these factors that play into the usability and the challenge around around the browser because, you know, there's different things you want to do with it, right? So we've talked about the information gathering phase, which can be quite overwhelming because you end up with too many tabs open, you click a whole bunch of links, you get distracted, you go down the rabbit hole and you go, Wow, this is not what I wanted to do. I've actually got like a task to do. So for example, let's just talk about when you're actually performing a transaction like you're going online because our need to buy some tickets or I need to download something and you kind of like you've got a really specific thing you want to do. The first thing I almost always do is like open up a new window, just for that thing, because I know that I'm going to do something and it's probably gonna be a couple of tabs I might have to compare to my my email to see what the instructions were. I might want to have a map open so I can see what the venue is. I'm going to like tile those things together so I can get this piece of work done efficiently and not lose track of what I'm trying to do
Geoff Wilson [00:16:13] before we continue the story. There is also considering which browser are using your desktop or your phone, because I know for myself on a desktop you just have to open a new one, but on a phone, you might have that temporary browser window like I've got a Google search bar. If I click that it's not a browser browser, it's like a temporary one. So if I went to make a second search, it overwrites my my tab, my active search, if you will. And so in that sense, like you're saying, is that that consideration, if I'm going to go buy tickets, but I might have to research a few things, I need to actually go out of my way to open up the browser and open up new tabs so that I can keep different sessions, if you will, and different ones on my overwriting myself. So, I mean, that's slightly different there.
Guy Thompson [00:16:49] Exactly because I might not know the ticket provider, for example. So there's no guarantee that I'm going to go to the ticket provider I usually use for events or concerts or whatever, because the thing I'm looking for might not be this. I'm going to start off with a web search for the thing that I'm looking for and be like, Okay, cool, I might click on that first link. That's a promo on might deliver more research about the reviews for the location. The venue is an exhibition. Is it a concert? When you're in the moment, you feel like, you know everything about what's going on, you understand the offer, what the product is, the location, the venue, what the experience is going to be like. And you go through this whole process because you're in the marketing funnel, you're making that decision, you're ready to take action and you've made the transaction like an hour later. You'll be like, What did I just buy tickets to? What do I have to do? You know, that information's in your email and you have to read the instructions of, like, how do I actually find this restaurant? What eatery do I use for the sports arena? Where do I park the car? Like, there's all this extra information that comes after around the logistics of how to actually do this thing that I just paid money for. The intention right off the bat is to like, I need to go to get the ticket. I got to get in while the tickets are still available. And then after that, you like a workout. How to get there later? I've just got to get on and get a ticket.
Geoff Wilson [00:18:04] So I mean, just different browsers. Does that really matter at that point? So for information gathering, there's different ways to store profiles and all that. But for transactions other than making sure you open up maybe different ones, as we said, to to not lose it or our leisure session. But does the browser choice itself really matter then? Do we even need to be thinking about, Oh, well, my browser is insufficient and doing? I mean, I guess the transactions like credit cards, how they store credit cards are not. Maybe that's an important value for you in terms of which browser do you want to use? Maybe security and features like that can come into play, I guess.
Guy Thompson [00:18:35] Yeah, exactly. Because I think when you get to the end of that transaction process, you know, like, right, okay, I'm going through my normal Typekit providing the end of the reviews before. So if a high level of trust there and you kind of log in with the email and then it says you've got to update your password and you take your email and you go back and you're like, I'm still a student, like eight minutes to finish my transaction. And then you kind of come to that, the credit card page, and it's like, what's your level of trust with that browser? And General de Havilland had stored there during testing for the security code in verses is a very one off transaction on a platform or a site you've never used before, so it doesn't have any information. Do you let the browser and get that that credit card number or do you still fill it out manually yourself? I still feel more comfortable by not letting the browser store those credit card numbers, but then I find sometimes if it's a really high trust website, I'll then kind of click OK, and then I've accidentally click their a crime to store the credit card. Then I'm like, Oh, well, I'm done now. Chrome's got the information. It's it's in the air, but we know there's vulnerabilities around that. We know the security challenges around having it and you just kind of go through and like, delete them all and refresh them and change all those passwords. But you know, we never find time for that because it's not a priority. The priority was to get the tickets.
Geoff Wilson [00:19:44] Yeah. And actually, that reminds me in terms of password management, you know, I use a password manager so that again, once again, I can store stuff in a much more seamless way and I can search for a certain password for certain sign up. Take notes related to it like, Oh, I want to remember that here's my username in my email that I use for this, and here's my account number in one place that you know. Google Chrome password manager just doesn't do it's just a list of passwords. But then there are some issues that I can run into because Chrome, at least that's the one I'm most familiar with. It starts suggesting strong passwords now. But the problem is that I'm finding when it suggests the password for me, like cool, that does save me a few steps of a 16 digit password, but it doesn't give me the option to copy that brand new password to put it manually into my new password manager. So I have to kind of hope that by clicking Save or, you know, it's log in or sign up or whatever that some pages my password manager recognises it goes, Oh, I just saw you enter a new password field. Do you want to save that? But if it doesn't notice it, especially because Chrome gave it a new password, it's like a now. A new disconnect is supposed to be helpful, but actually is making things a little bit worse.
Guy Thompson [00:20:50] I think it's this topic we've looked at around discomfort versus comfort. We're comfortable, you know, internet credit card information now. A lot of people still aren't, and they refuse to, and they'll just go to the shop and buy like a like a MasterCard or a Visa pre-charge run from the supermarket. And just use that which is which is a great thing to do online, because then you know, you don't actually, you're not susceptible. So, you know, there's a limit on that particular card that you bought. So the challenge there is around how comfortable are you during those transactions and do you want your browser to store that? But when it comes to passwords, there's of course, a large school of thought around the usability for that and saying, Do we even need to have people remembering passwords? Shouldn't a browser just create the password for you? Have it stored and an encrypted piece of code in the browser, and it just uses that code when you happen to reach that website. If the codes are not working or you can't remember you, then go check your email. But then again, there's the question of vulnerability around your email account. And should you have all of your passwords there, you know? And do you then use multifactor authentication? Do you have to get a text message code every single time you go to a website and they do have to do like a facial record like this, all these different factors that play into how intense their security you should be. And of course, the advice would be make it absolutely as secure as possible. But we know that that's not necessarily convenient. We're creatures of habit. We want it to be easy. And we don't think the chances of us getting hacked or our identity getting stolen is going to be very high. So it's that trade-off between how secure do I need to be in each transaction? And is there some really high value transactions where I have to be extra careful? And these low value basic, easy everyday transactions can just go through and kind of like if there's a small problem with that one, I'm not massively at risk. It's a trade-off, right? It's a really challenging balance.
Geoff Wilson [00:22:34] So that's that same level of like, yeah, if I could just turn that stuff off, it'd be great because then I don't have to worry about it. But then, yeah, it's not secure. And then it's that it's like, Wow, I'm going to get a little bit political, but I can't help it. Like, "Well, I've never caught the virus, and so it must not be a problem." Like, Yeah, it's not a problem until you do. And then you realise, "Oh shit, I can't breathe anymore!" Or in this case, "I've had all my money stolen and everything else corrupted." So, yeah... I'm leaving that in there! Normally I edit these things out, but I'm making a statement here! Hahaha
Guy Thompson [00:23:03] Wait wait, has to do, you have to put explicit on it if you say shit, don't you?
Geoff Wilson [00:23:06] Yeah, I mean, I could. But, for 50 people listening, I don't care. I would love it if somebody got that upset because they listened to it and they were so in tune that they heard the one time I said and they flagged me for it. Hahaha
Guy Thompson [00:23:19] Okay, very good. So I think we're we're I know exactly what you mean. It doesn't matter until it matters, right? We think we're not going to be exposed to something. And then as soon as it, we experience it. We're like, Oh my God, we've become evangelists for like, you have to do this thing and this this this new way to protect yourself against the spying. And it's not until it happens that it becomes a reality for you, right? And so I think that's an interesting part about transactions and going through that process and the trust level involved for like credit cards and stuff. And that's certainly something we've seen evolve massively in the last, I think, 20 years, really. How and much more so in the last 10 where e-commerce has become so ingrained. And I think then the next stage after that that we've kind of moving on from is how much power you have with different tools that you can use inside a web browser, including ones that you actually subscribe to. We all use different tools that we might actually have a monthly subscription to. It's effectively a piece of software as a service that's running inside the browser and with different browsers, you can have a different experience with the way that Tor works. But I think it's really fascinating that that browser experience is now actually delivering something of value that you're actually subscribing to on a weekly or monthly basis. And this is everything from streaming videos, everything from Netflix to see everything from, you know, Dropbox different ways to store your files. We are using the web browser to access really powerful tools and software to design things like Canva. These tools are really complicated and have huge usability and user interface challenges around different browsers. Mobile What plugins does that user have? Is only JavaScript. You've got to have these things disabled. It's a really complicated design challenge to get that really, really intense toll working all the way through, like 3D games and metaverse platforms that happen inside a browser.
Geoff Wilson [00:25:03] Well, so do people actually choose a browser based on those things to try and use because I know I don't, but I'm just one person. But do people for this kind of tools you mentioned from Canva and others are people actually that you know of, you know, searching for a new browser that's better performing just to do that thing that they need to do.
Guy Thompson [00:25:22] I don't think it's so much around searching for a different platform that allows you to do it differently. It's more around. Is there a recommendation from that provider as to the particular browser that you should be using, right? And I think we see this challenge a lot around around Safari and Chrome and Firefox. At different times. There'll be different tools, which suddenly for some, you know, security update or patch reason. Suddenly Firefox is not available or Safari is not available yet, or Chrome was available up until this update. The incentive there is for the makers of different browsers to update them as quickly as possible and add features to them. So, you know, as many websites as possible work on them. But for these really complicated tools, without delivering a huge amount of code through the browser, it just might not have a massive user base yet where it's important for those updates to happen. And of course, sometimes the browser maker will change something that they kind of breaks the way that that website works, and then you've got to go in and disable something and you've got to have JavaScript turned off or turn it back on or install the latest version, whatever it is to get this thing working
Geoff Wilson [00:26:26] on the software world. Nightmares come to mind again of, you know, when you're in the in there in the room, planning your new release for the new version of the website or whatever. And there's all the debates. If it doesn't work on this browser in this browser and which version does it work on and you've got to like, it's that trade-off in testing, at least. Do we have enough time left in our, you know, our budget and scope before release to test out all of the different browsers, all of the different iterations of software versions and everything else with this latest version of the website? And then and then also that's the, you know, business decision of, well, how far back do we support? How many customers might we lose? Because depending on your target base, I mean, I'm going to make a stretch here. I'm going to guess that like, let's say it's Figma and against you UI design to the probably thinking the people are using our tool are going to be the kind of people who are up to date. They're using the most up-to-date version at all times, which means they probably have the most up-to-date browser they probably have auto updates on. So Chrome and Safari would want not just auto update without them having to do anything so they don't need to worry about it. Whereas again, like a bank, you might have that serious conversation of how many of our customers are using really ancient phones and devices and haven't updated their stolen Windows XP and things like that, right? You know, businesses that have never migrated to other things. How many of them do we have in? Is it? Should we make that decision on the new website or the new internet banking platform? A new whatever it is, only works on the latest and greatest browser. Sorry to everybody else. Let's provide you with some steps for how to use the new thing or how to upgrade your own browser. But at that point, you're kind of drawing a line in the sand and going, Sorry, you have to use it. But again, you know, games and stuff have long done that forever of, you know, you need the latest graphics card, you need the latest this and that. So the browser in some ways is no different.
Guy Thompson [00:28:11] There's two big factors in that and that point you just make. One is around common standards and how long we would take on a common standard for and the frustration around. At what point do you upgrade that standard and you migrate to the next standard? And the other side of that point is for those use, those that don't decide to update or are very slow at updating, and they auto automatically lift out of the capability to use that particular platform if they pop up for the reminder on the web browser doesn't work when you're attempting to log in and into any banking fixes, are you just going to need the latest version for this and people decide not to? How many potential customers do you lose that drop off? That doesn't matter if it's banking or, you know, e-commerce or software as a service. You've had a subscriber, a user, a customer who then suddenly doesn't want continue down that journey. How do you intervene to get in touch with them to take them along a journey? Do you see them an email? Call them up and say, Hey, we've noticed you haven't logged in for a while. Do you need a hand? Companies simply don't have enough time for people to reach out to do that based on the lifetime customer journey. Depends on what the product is to how valuable they are. But is Netflix going to give you a call because you haven't logged in for three months? You're busy.
Geoff Wilson [00:29:23] And so I think the last area of browsers that comes to mind in terms of at least a feature side that helps you determine the overall question again, should we keep using the one we have, should we try something different? We've touched on a little bit here and there of extensions. That's one of the other big powerhouses of browsers. It's not just security, not just password management, not just bookmarks, but extensions. And so, you know, how customisable is your experience for the power users in that case? I mean, I used to have extensions that were really customised, like different versions of YouTube downloaders and Vimeo downloaders and things like that when I used to make kind of clip shows. But I stopped doing that, so I stopped Mediante. So therefore I stopped needing to even have a browser store that had those kind of extensions on. I mean, what kind of interesting ones do you have?
Guy Thompson [00:30:05] It's a good point, because I've mainly been a crime user for a long time, but every time I want to be able to download a video or something, I'll need to then open Firefox to install an on state extension and use it. And every time I go back in, the extensions that I was using last time don't work. YouTube is constantly changing the code base to make sure that you can't download the content right or this copy protection, which is absolutely fair. But if you have something specific... It's absolutely fair.
Geoff Wilson [00:30:31] "It's absolutely fair, but I just don't want to do it!" I want what I want! Hahaha
Guy Thompson [00:30:33] Because, you know, if you're if you're creating a piece of content and it falls within fair use and you need to get a copy of that clip, you're going to have to be able to download it from YouTube. So good recovery. Those tools are there and we want to be able to customise the browser in a certain way. When you're doing those power, use the things. You might have to download the audio from a clip that's on a news site or something. And there's all these kind of workarounds that you can do because at the end of the day, if you can see it in your web browser, there will be a told you enable you to download that, send everything from not being able to right click on an image and tumbler that you can't download. You know all the copy protection that websites use. People are still creating those tools for it, but often those tools will still get shut down really, really quickly. So it's interesting to be able to mould and modify your browser, but you find it sort of impacts the performance and the usability of the machine effectively. So if we're going to use the car analogy, you know, sometimes you want something you drive that just works perfectly, which is going to be your chrome or your safari. But sometimes you want something you can kind of hack around with, and that's definitely the Firefox base.
Geoff Wilson [00:31:35] That's exactly what I've done. It's, you know, to stick with the car I used to have, you know that a little killer that I out and everything to because it wasn't that fast in this. I was trying to invest all of this time and money and energy to add stuff to it, to make it better in this case, like extensions on a browser. And then I was like, Just like, what the cost, you know, I just need something that it's no hassle. It just auto updates. It's got the basics. It's I could have used the software on it that I need to use. I can visit whatever sites I need to browse and I can record podcasts like this that we're doing. We're doing this in a browser. We're not doing a special song. Absolutely. Yeah. But in that case, I just needed a standard run of the mill thing in Chrome to me. Suffice for that, it just it's there. It's easy to use it. I don't really have that incentive to look because there's nothing there's no huge performance boost for my everyday kind of use that I'm looking to get as if I was searching for that hot car that had the Super 300 horsepower engine. I don't really have that use right now, but I guess if I did, perhaps I'd go for it. So what incentive do people have to actually look for something new like? Is there a reason why they shouldn't keep using that if it works for them today?
Guy Thompson [00:32:39] I think it's about taking the macro view around the fact that we're creatures of habit, we creatures of comfort. We like doing things in a certain way as soon as we find a way that will. We like to do something. We don't really change that often. And when you come at this from a design point of view and you're thinking about the way that you design things around strategy, around usability, it is interesting and important to try different tools to see if you can achieve things in certain ways. Let's take a step back and actually just try and see what what are people doing in different ways that are innovative and interesting. And if you have a little play in a sandbox and try to just do one thing, go find some news, go buy some tickets, go check your bank balance on a different browser. You kind of see what the experience is like, and if it loads differently, it feels different in even what we've seen lately, with Safari putting the search bar at the bottom of the window. So it's easy to access on mobile. But then you know there's a tab there that you can collect and the settings to make it go back up to the top again if you don't want to do that. But then does that paradigm around having the search bar at the bottom become Joel? Do will you start seeing them on desktop where you have the search bar at the top and the bottom right? We have all these different things that we're very used to around the way that the tools work, but it's good to have a fresh look at them to see if they should change, and you can see it from a different point of view.
Geoff Wilson [00:33:52] And I think the search for the bottom was as one point a bit of weighty dimension the entire time. Oh, that was it's quite interesting because on a mobile phone it does make sense. Your thumb is at the bottom and that's why they put it there. It's easy to access and you access it frequently. So the most frequent things right there with an access we don't need to like reach out of your way. However, it again, this is breaking 30 years of browsing history and standardisation. And so there's always that topic we talk about in the design world of, you know, be consistent, but for the right reasons. And so you don't need to be blindly consistent just because every browser's always had the search bar at the top. They do have a good claim, cut out the bottom. Change that up. Do it for the right reasons. Break a trend on purpose with a good intention for it. Not just an arbitrary oh, the designer just felt like at the bottom was pretty dull for good reason. But what this reminded me then, is outside of those little changes like that, you know that. I mean, that is a point you could go, I really hate this bottom nav bar. I want to switch to a new browser that only just the top weight. That's one of those ways I mentioned the beginning where, you know, sometimes you didn't want to make the change, but a change was, you know, forced upon you. And now you have a choice. Do you want to stick with this or not?
Guy Thompson [00:35:01] It's it's a fascinating angle on that, because part of the challenge around that is that there's different features on Safire that work really, really well. And there's different features on Kahnawake really well. And as a user, I'm not quite sure which one to use for which thing at the moment and which kind of mechanic and style is really good for particular things because I'm kind of just using it the way that I prefer to use it and I've done for a long time. So changing out of that and having a look around to see how people using their different way, what is their approach like? Because part of this comes back down to fear. At the end of the day, we kind of have this an innate fear that things won't work the way that we want them to. I won't be able to complete a transaction. I want to lock in. Things will be difficult to find. So we sort of stick in the era that we're familiar with, but challenging ourselves to go outside of that area and experience something new. We might find that we actually prefer that era that actually works in a different way. That's really beneficial. Or we come back with new knowledge, say, Hey, you know what? The way that I was doing, it's really good. But I notice for this reason,
Geoff Wilson [00:36:00] I think the hardest thing about trying to change something new, though, you know what would hold me back is, again, that the mindset of, well, all of the extensions and plug ins and passwords I've got saved and credit cards I got saved and bookmarks I've got saved. Some of those I know how to migrate, you know, between one browser and another. And if anything changes or when you download a new browser, it offers, Hey, do you want to import your bookmarks from edge or whatever? But you know, it doesn't necessarily offer to do it for passwords and everything else. And so that that might be a limiting factor. But maybe those things exist today. Maybe there, maybe that already is there, and I would hope that there is like an easy switching kind of process of, Hey, we'll import all of your old stuff, try a new one. And if browsers haven't done that, maybe that's a consideration for them. Make an easy switch option.
Guy Thompson [00:36:44] Exactly. I think it's a possibility, but we I think we still see browsers in two areas, right? You have the browser that you're using every day as your daily driver. That includes everything that you're looking for, your passwords, your, you know, recently use websites every tab that you still have open from every install and backup you have. Or then you've got two different browsers that using for a specific reason, it may have increased security and may have a particular protocol that you can access sometime that some type of code that you're doing that requires additional plug in. It might be if you're if you're purchasing cryptocurrency or different things that require different plugins that might not be available on crime or safari. Does these additional power user features that different browsers will have that usually the casual everyday user won't need? And so it's obviously in the best interests of Apple and Google to make sure that their major flagship browsers are as sticky as possible. So adding these different features around, you know, remembering passwords and thinking of different ways to make it even more easy for to use kind of keeps people into that ecosystem. So I think that's the point that I kind of want to make around this, that to be aware that these providers will be will be doing certain things to really keep you inside their ecosystem of the way the browser works. And I think we can probably agree that Chrome's been extremely successful in doing that. But having a look at sight to see what these different browsers look like, how to use them in different ways, the different mechanics that might be interesting about them. I think for design it, it's really important to be able to do because if all you're trying to do is solve user experience and design challenges with your point of view, with the browser that you use every day, you will be missing out on the way that other people respond to different browsers that they happen to be tied to that they like for some reason. And it's like this tribal thing of like all these people use that browser or they these people use that one, and it's a totally different club. Just being aware of the way that they work, the way that they like using that tool helps you that that be a bit more open minded about usability in general.
Geoff Wilson [00:38:37] I wouldn't really emphasise that point. You just said there. This is basically a call to all of the designers and product managers and developers. It's yes, you are used to using your things and your your environment. But remember, you are not the user. People will be using different things than you. They will be. Having different purposes, whether it's information gathering, as we talked about or transactions were gaming or designing online or some of the software, you know you need to watch people and understand how they use theirs. If you aren't going out and trying something new yourself, you're missing on all this other features and other ways to do things that might help your own product. So maybe you're not the browser designer, but you've got your own product online, your own service, online, your own website, or whatever it is. If you don't know that one browser offers this cool way to store passwords versus another or one browser offers an extension that the other one doesn't. You know, you can make your users more informed and have a better experience by understanding the different layers of the land and suggesting those things. I think that's a great point to end on. So at least for at least, you can call out for people designing products and services. You all should definitely be trying different browsers, no matter what, at least once or, you know, once a year, maybe to see what's the latest, greatest thing to know how to make your product stand out better. And as for the consumers, the people using all of those things, I guess the same still applies. Go try it once. See what you might be missing because you don't know what you don't know unless you actually try it. What's the easiest way you can think of to just try to get started with a new browser just to see what you're missing out on?
Guy Thompson [00:40:04] The challenge I was sick myself is just to try and do something simple, so it doesn't matter if I'm trying to learn a new piece of software or I'm trying a different browser or something else is go through the exercise of just trying to achieve something simple to go through the process of buying a ticket or looking up a location on on a different map on something that works in a different way. If you go through the process of just starting with those really simple tasks, you can kind of take away from that how the experience is different. Was it easier? Was it harder? What did you like about it? Because this is essentially what we ask users to do. When you're doing user research, we're observing them. We're saying what they do, flip that around on yourself and try to use tools in a different way and think about the way that you approach using a toll. What annoys you, what frustrates you, what your comfort level is because you're in the business of trying to get people to use things in a different way, and we might be presenting them with a better and more efficient, a well researched way to use it. They may still be uncomfortable with the transition and that that shock of the new. So the way that I think we can get better understanding what it feels like, it's to try for ourselves and then we can get better at, you know, packaging out how that transition looks to people to make it seamless as possible.
Geoff Wilson [00:41:12] And I think I have to because I don't want to become that old guy that has to ask kids and everybody like three year olds these days how to, "Hey son, how do you access my passwords because I can't find the setting?" Yeah. I don't want to be that. So I guess you're right, it's in my best interest to avoid that level of anxiety as well. Start trying things out.
Guy Thompson [00:41:31] Exactly. So that's the week of experimentation; we'll take back next week and see how many, how many browsers we've used.
Geoff Wilson [00:41:36] And I don't like to actually put an actual time limit. Otherwise, it's the whole, "Yeah, I'll do that thing. Yeah, yeah, it sounds like a great idea." And then one week later, "Have you done it?" No. A year later, "Have you done it?" No. OK. Maybe we'll actually set up podcast first task on this show of an assignment to actually try something different. Otherwise, will we actually do it? Probably not.
Guy Thompson [00:41:55] Absolutely. All right. So tune in for part two where we actually use some browsers and realise how old we are haha.
Geoff Wilson [00:42:01] Well with that folks, thank you for listening to this episode, and I hope you see the design of your everyday world in a new way, specifically the browsers that you maybe found this podcast on. To see examples of what we were talking about today and to keep this conversation going, you can find and follow us @EverydayExpPod or myself @geoffwilsonHCD. Please consider leaving us a rating and subscribing to the show on your favourite podcasting app and checking out some of our previous episodes. And as always, just remember, you don't have to have a fancy job title to start noticing and improving the everyday experiences wherever you work. Thanks. And we on the air again soon... Potentially with a different browser.
Post-credits bloopers
Guy Thompson [00:43:07] But the interesting thing... Sorry. I think there's two, there's two interesting ummm.. f**king, f**king interesting...
Geoff Wilson [00:43:14] You can say a few of them hahaha.
Guy Thompson [00:43:16] Umm it's a, it's interesting... F**k I have to note say "interesting"!
Geoff Wilson [00:43:19] Hahahaha
Guy Thompson [00:43:19] Hahaha. And then the other side of it, is a point that I've completely forgotten while I was talking hahaha. Where's my tabs? I have six hundred tabs open haha. Tabs, tab anxiety. Oh my god haha
