Firefox: Self-centered design?

On a recent episode of the Gillmor Gang podcast, guest Brendan Eich, Chief Technical Officer at the Mozilla Corporation, had this to say about the usability goals of the team behind the Firefox browser:

“Every step in interaction design, everything in the user interface that involves the user having to think about what to do next or use a gesture they know, we want to make simpler and smoother. We want to get rid of intermediate steps and codify common cliches in the appropriate gestures and metaphors.”

Traditionally, the open source community hasn’t been known for it’s focus on usability. So, it struck me when Brendan made this point.

Don’t get me wrong: the open source world has produced some wonderful things. But, for the most part, they are tools intended to be used by the people who created them — what Jeff Patton has so cleverly called FUBU (For Us, By Us) design:

“So, what’s my point? I have none – at least no big point. Just these observations: developers often design good software for developers: FUBU. Other often design pretty good software for their own use: FUBU. Doing so can lead one to the false sense of belief that design is easy – and you can do it for anyone, or anyone else can do it for themselves: self-centered design.”

Brendan and the bright folks on the Firefox/Mozilla team have their work cut out for them. With more than 20 million users, it will take real effort to understand what all those users currently know and expect.

It will be interesting to see how they tackle this challenge as they move past self-centered design.