Fundamentals are invisible. Features are controversial. One of the few common complaints against Microsoft Edge is that “It’s bloated– there’s too much stuff in it!” A big philosophical question for designers of popular software concerns whether the product should include features that might not be useful for everyone or even a majority of users. ThereContinue reading ““Batteries-Included” vs “Bloated””
Category Archives: design
Smarter Defaults by Paying Attention
As a part of every page load, browsers have to make dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of decisions of varying levels of importance: should a particular API be available? Should a resource load be permitted? Should script be allowed to run? Should video be allowed to start playing automatically? Should cookies or credentials be sentContinue reading “Smarter Defaults by Paying Attention”
Web “Sessions” in Private Mode
I’ve written about Private Browsing Mode a lot previously, and I’ve written a bit about the behavior of “Session restore” previously, but one topic I haven’t covered is how “Sessions” work while in Private mode. Session Sharing Historically, one of the top-reported Private Mode issues was that users unexpectedly found that opening a new PrivateContinue reading “Web “Sessions” in Private Mode”
Avoiding Unexpected Navigation
For over twenty years, browsers broadly supported two features that were often convenient but sometimes accidentally invoked, leading to data loss. The first feature was that hitting backspace would send the user back one page in their navigation history. (Dec 2022 Update: I’ve been using this feature for 25 years or so now and onlyContinue reading “Avoiding Unexpected Navigation”
Web-to-App Communication: App Protocols
Note: This post is part of a series about Web-to-App Communication techniques.Last updated: June 4, 2025 Just over eight years ago, I wrote my last blog post about App Protocols, a class of URI schemes that typically1 open another program on your computer instead of returning data to the web browser. A valid scheme name isContinue reading “Web-to-App Communication: App Protocols”
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