Parsons The New School for Design | Margaret Moser and Lien TranFirefox: History Sphere

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Problem: User wants to locate a page in browser history based on her recollection of a page or pages that she visited on the way to the desired page. Current history features do not allow the user to use this kind of information directly.

Objective: Enable the user to reconstruct the path she took to the desired page using her recollection of the pages she visited on the way.

Solution: Allow the user to search for the page she does remember using the existing text search. When the page is identifi ed, present it in a visual context together with pages visited before and after. Allow the user to traverse the visual representation to reconstruct her path to the desired page.

To Begin: Click on History < History Sphere menu option in Firefox (or use the keyboard shortcut).

Parsons The New School for Design | Margaret Moser and Lien TranFirefox: History Sphere

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History Sphere popup window appears. Enter search string, example: gdc

Parsons The New School for Design | Margaret Moser and Lien TranFirefox: History Sphere

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Relevant webpages dynamically populate based on string entered.

Parsons The New School for Design | Margaret Moser and Lien TranFirefox: History Sphere

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Click on the arrow to the left of a website title to view the dates/times this website was visited.

Parsons The New School for Design | Margaret Moser and Lien TranFirefox: History Sphere

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This expands to show the list of dates/times when a particular webpage was visited.

Parsons The New School for Design | Margaret Moser and Lien TranFirefox: History Sphere

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Click one of the dates visited.

Parsons The New School for Design | Margaret Moser and Lien TranFirefox: History Sphere

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The history sphere appears showing the browsing history for the selected browsing session.

Parsons The New School for Design | Margaret Moser and Lien TranFirefox: History Sphere

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The history sphere’s focus (highlighted with a blue box) is on the webpage from which the browsing session was selected up top.

Parsons The New School for Design | Margaret Moser and Lien TranFirefox: History Sphere

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The items in the top ring share the same source site for the selected browsing period. Up to five child webpages appear with text telling you how many total pages were accessed from the selected source site.

source site (parent)

total number of child webpages for a particular source site (including the five displayed)

Parsons The New School for Design | Margaret Moser and Lien TranFirefox: History Sphere

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The user can use the left and right arrows on the keyboard to scroll through the children pages.

Parsons The New School for Design | Margaret Moser and Lien TranFirefox: History Sphere

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The user can use the up arrow on keyboard to change the source site to the child page currently highlighted. The top results will change to show the new source site’s child webpages. The user can use the down arrow to change the source site to the current source site’s parent. The current source site then becomes a child page and the history sphere’s focus (highlighted with a blue box).

source site (parent)