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<h1 id="browser-history-sucks">Browser History Sucks</h1>
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<p>2019-04-20</p>
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<p><em>Have you ever needed to step back through your browser history</em> to find a particular site or product? Do you remember that experience being good? Most likely not.</p>
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<p>Much like printers, the design of browser history interfaces hasn&#8217;t changed in years. This would be fine if these UIs had been well thought out and optimized for an easy user experience - but they weren&#8217;t.</p>
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<p>Browser history views rely on the user&#8217;s own memory for more in-depth searches. This defeats the whole purpose of having a robust, documented history. The browser should be doing this heavy-lifting.</p>
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<h2 id="what-browsers-get-wrong">What browsers get wrong</h2>
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<p>Modern browsers give the general public too much credit when it comes to memory (I don&#8217;t mean this as an insult!). To assume users remember the URL or site name when browsing random pages is short-sighted. I find myself asking these types of questions when jumping back into my view history far too often:</p>
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<ul>
<li>&#8220;That article had <em>something</em> to do with CSS&#8230;&#8221;</li>
<li>&#8220;I remember seeing a beautifully designed site a month ago but have no clue what the URL was&#8230;&#8221;</li>
<li>&#8220;My browser crashed and I can&#8217;t recall that [example website] I had pinned in my tab for weeks&#8230;&#8221;</li>
</ul>
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<p>For reference, let&#8217;s take a look at the current Chrome (73) history view:</p>
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<p><img src="/public/images/browser-history-01.webp" alt="Default Chrome History" /></p>
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<p>As you may have noticed - this UI is lackluster at best. An oversimplified search field in the header is the only means of filtering items.</p>
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<h2 id="why-not-use-extensions">Why not use extensions?</h2>
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<p>I know using browser extensions or tagging favorites can alleviate some of these issues. This is great, but why not simplify everything by having these features <em>inside</em> the history view? If an extension can add these features, why not have those extras built-in?</p>
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<h2 id="two-subtle-improvements">Two subtle improvements</h2>
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<p>A little goes a long way. With just two small changes, we can drastically increase the history view&#8217;s UX.</p>
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<p>We start by adding a date picker. Users open the new calendar icon to filter by days, months or years before searching. Seems trivial, but this saves the headache of filtering through all saved history.</p>
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<p><img src="/public/images/browser-history-02.webp" alt="Chrome History with date picker" /></p>
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<p>The second small functional change we can make is including extra subcategories. These new options allow users to focus their searches based on:</p>
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<ul>
<li>Session length</li>
<li>Number of return visits</li>
<li>Last restored tabs</li>
</ul>
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<h3 id="session-length">Session length</h3>
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<p><img src="/public/images/browser-history-03.webp" alt="Chrome History by session length" /></p>
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<p>Allow users to display their history filtered by session duration. This helps when searching for an stagnant page or pinned site during a user&#8217;s long session. An example default would allow filtering by:</p>
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<ul>
<li>longest to shortest</li>
<li>shortest to longest</li>
<li>pinned tabs</li>
</ul>
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<h3 id="return-visits">Return visits</h3>
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<p><img src="/public/images/browser-history-04.webp" alt="Chrome History by return visits" /></p>
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<p>When users make repeat visits to a site or web app, the browser should keep a record of return sessions. This allows the user to refine their search by many or singular visits.</p>
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<h3 id="last-restored-tabs">Last restored tabs</h3>
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<p><img src="/public/images/browser-history-05.webp" alt="Chrome History by restored tabs" /></p>
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<p>A basic concept, but the ability for users to view all previous instances of restored tabs is helpful. This would fix most edge cases not covered by the other two categories.</p>
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<h2 id="far-from-perfect">Far from perfect</h2>
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<p>The Chrome (or any browser for that matter) browser history view is simplistic to a fault. The current UI is prone to human error, since it makes assumptions and relies heavily on user memory.</p>
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<p>These are simple fixes that attempt to boost the basic UX of the history view. Are these concepts absolutely perfect? Not at all. Is it at least an improvement? I believe it is. When products decrease the effort required of it&#8217;s users, I see that as a positive.</p>
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