Mozilla Ubiquity project

I have been playing around with the new Ubiquity plugin for Firefox for a few hours and can already see the massive potential of this project.

I discovered this project after reading Jono DiCarlo’s blog post about linguistic UIs, in it he was discussing the difference between using a noun as a connection for a user and using a verb. Since a noun can only name an item it increases the level of abstraction for the user whereas a verb provides direct access to the action the user will be completing.

It is this point which the Ubiquity plugin excels in. The user simply types a command into the ubiquity box (which appears using a keyboard shortcut) and is then able to carry out the function they require directly and responsively within that box. So for a map type ‘Map (place name of choice)’ or ‘We’ for weather followed by your Zip or Postal code or even for email just type email then select from your list of contacts and fill in the message content (currently only working with gmail).

The beauty of this design is that for tasks that you carry out every day you no longer need to open multiple tabs or visit multiple sites, simply open your ubiquity box and gather the information you need. I believe the possibilities for this project are endless and will really improve the way in which we interact with the information the web contains especially on mobile devices where opening multiple pages gets a bit fiddly.

Well done Mozilla!