When using a browser for a long time, you are going to have
multiple tabs opened at the same time. You even become unaware if you already
opened some websites, which means that you can have a lot of duplicate tabs that
take from the computer memory for nothing. In addition, it becomes more
required for you to feel safe that your tabs will be restored in case of
unexpected issues. Chrome has a lot of usability issues when it comes to the
session restore handling such as the non-existence of conformation dialog,
difficult-to-understand sessions restore, and unclear error clarification.
1. Requirement:
I experienced these issues when using Chrome 18.0.1025.142 m
2. Confirmation when closing browser
When you have many tabs on chrome, and it happened that you
accidently clicked on the close button for whatever reason, this will close the
chrome browser right away without any confirmation. This is too bad as this
will cause you to lose your login sessions at different websites, or current
activity. For example, if you are playing an on-line game, this means that you
are going to lose your current session because you accidently closed the
browser instead of maximizing it. For now, Chrome is able to provide a
confirmation dialog if there is a download in process which is good, however,
not sufficient. We still need to have confirmation dialog in all cases when closing
the browser.
2.1 Suggestions
Regardless the number of tabs or the current download
status, the users must be prompted if they want to close the browser or not.
And if there are some users prefer having different behavior. Then, this can be
provided as a preference. And it can include some variables such as the tabs
count and download status.
2. Restore session in reusable
When a user closes the browser, they expect that they will
be able to restore their previous sessions. Chrome provides this feature,
however it is too unusable that people do not even know that exist. First the
restore option is placed at the right corner in a very small font:
From a personal experience, I had not known about that
option before I searched for it. And also, I asked 5 people if they know if
chrome provides a restore option, but they mentioned to me that this is something
that they totally hate about chrome. This means that this option place is not
usable at all.
2.1 Suggestions
There are several suggestions regarding getting a solution
for this usability issue such as:
1- Session restore option must be presented very clear and must be shown
at the top or center of the welcome page, and also its font must be big enough
to be detected.
2- Another suggestion is to have the restore session option as it is, but
show a popup dialog coming from its place to mention to the users that this is
where they restore the session. It must be large enough that the eyes will
catch it very quickly.
3- One more suggestion is by having a “Do you know” tip that will make
that session restore as a first tip when the user is using the browser for the
first time.
As personal preference, I would prefer the second
suggestion, but we can make it more usable by having a “Do not show this next
times” checkbox, so the users will not need to see it every time.
3. No way to help the users to reduce the number of tabs
When using the browser for a long time, you may end up with
many tabs opened that can be even more 20 tabs. At some point, you become not
able to remember what websites you opened, and if you would like to open a
website, you will need to know which tab to go for, and thus you just decide to
enter this url directly in a new tab regardless it is a duplicate or not.
3.1 Suggestions
When you enter a URL and it happened to exist in your
browser, the browser should just simply take you to that URL directly.
Important to mention that having this nice usability
enhancement can lead us to a functionality issue For instance, a user wants to
open the same URL in two different tabs in case they want to do different
activities. Running two asynchronous operations at the same time for the same
website is an example. Thus, we have to make sure that there is a preference
for that in order to make sure to avoid this issue.
4. He's Dead, Jim!
When unexpected error happens, we get the following error
message in Chrome
This error handling causes us to lose the current tab or
restarting the browser, and if we did, we will face the other restore handling
issue. In addition, the error message will be more challenging for the
translation process. The statement “He’s Dead, Jim!” is the catchphrase of
“Leonard McCoy” character in Star Trek (Vaughan, 2001). I do not mind using it in
that context, but it will lead to difficulties on the translation process to
make sure that it will convey the same influence.
5. Conclusion
Chrome is a fast web browser and has its fans, and I am one
of them. However, the session restore is a major usability issue in the
browser, and they must work on fixing all of its related issues in order to
make sure that it meets all end-to-end users’ scenarios in term of usability.
6. References
Vaughan,
T. A. (2001). Star Trek and Sacred Ground: Explorations of Star Trek, Religion,
and American Culture (review). Journal of American Folklore, 114(454),
511-512. doi:10.1353/jaf.2001.0044
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