UX

As internet usage and computers are now a natural, integrated part of our lives, we take if for granted the myriad of clicks and sites we visit to perform even simple tasks. Rather than using normal language commands, we interact with websites, email clients, social networks, and even mapping applications the same way. We copy and paste, send links, and type specialized commands or truncated keywords to do almost everything.

Mozilla wants to connect our online lives with our natural language usage with a new platform called Ubiquity. A Mozilla Labs release, Ubiquity is already attracting a lot of attention from users. Mozilla explains the experiment this way:

The overall goals of Ubiquity are to explore how best to:

• Empower users to control the web browser with language-based instructions. (With search, users type what they want to find. With Ubiquity, they type what they want to do.)
• Enable on-demand, user-generated mashups with existing open Web APIs. (In other words, allowing everyone–not just Web developers–to remix the Web so it fits their needs, no matter what page they are on, or what they are doing.)
• Use Trust networks and social constructs to balance security with ease of extensibility.
• Extend the browser functionality easily.

The concept of adapting mashup technology to everyday tasks is a fascinating idea. It could eliminate the need for links, copying and pasting, and even sending text emails. The example Mozilla gives is of sending an email to a friend to invite them to a new restaurant. You could include the address, reviews, a menu, and even a map within the body of an email, without having to simply link to them.

Ubiquity is being tested as an add-on to Firefox 3 browser, Mozilla’s most successful project. It is fully open source and free, so any developers can access the original code and customize it for various usages. Ubiquity 0.1 allows users to insert maps anywhere, translate on-page, search many content and portal sites, add items to Digg and update twitter, get weather reports, and many more. Users will be able to type commands in a bar similar to the address bar on a search engine, but instead of typing keywords you can type commands. The platform also lets users “teach” it new commands through a subscription service. A tutorial is available to teach new users how Ubiquity will function.

With Mozilla as a leader, other applications will start to follow this trend towards creating natural, language-based interfaces. We may even see voice commands become integrated into our internet browsers, letting our speech fulfill the same function as our fingers and keyboards do now. As with all Mozilla Labs projects, Ubiquity is free and ready to be tweaked and customized for any user. As one user raves about Ubiquity on Mozilla’s blog, “Nice work, I hope there’s enough developer interest in this to bring this to the top of the popular plug-ins!”

By Haley January Eckels