microformats UI
Jan 16, 2007, 04:21am EST
Been thinking a bit about microformats and browser integration. There have been a few extensions that provide identification and handlers for microformats, but I don’t really like the UI they provide. I’m a bit skeptical about the discoverabiliy of icons in the browser chrome. Icons in the URL bar are easy to miss unless you’re looking for them.
However, when I see text that looks like contact information, I want to point at it and copy it into my address book. When I see an event, I want to be able to copy it to my calendar. These are actions invoked on the content. So here’s an example of a UI that overlays microformat detection into the HTML content area.
Maybe icons that appear on hover isn’t the right UI either. [1] Maybe there should be a glow around the microformat like focused buttons in Safari/IE7. Maybe the cursor should change. I’m not sure, but I’d like to see some more sample UIs to play with.
[1] Remember the image toolbar in IE 6? It not a good thing when all the search results are about disabling it.
Matt at Jan 16, 2007, 08:47am EST
That looks great. Whenever I see that kind of data, I also highlight it, ctrl-c, open another window, ctrl-v (or middle click it), go back to the original page. You just cut out 4 steps.
Alex Faaborg at Jan 16, 2007, 02:09pm EST
>Are You Pondering What I’m Pondering?
yep :)
>but I’d like to see some more sample UIs to play with.
The UE team at Mozilla has been considering various approaches to in-page microformat detection, and I’ll be posting some of the conceptual mockups to my blog pretty soon.
-Alex Faaborg