Firefox 157 Nova makes container tabs harder to identify for colour-blind users

[u/mr-brunes]

Since Firefox 157 introduced Nova, I’m finding container tabs much harder to distinguish.

With native vertical tabs, the prominent vertical container marker has been replaced by a thin horizontal line. The colours and icons also appear more subtle and less solid. As a colour-blind user, that makes it harder to tell at a glance which container I’m using.

This also happens on a PC without Tree Style Tab installed, so it isn’t specific to that extension.

Container identity matters when separating accounts and browsing contexts. I’d like to see:

• A supported option for a thicker, solid container marker.
• A visible container name or distinct symbol on each tab, so identification doesn’t depend on colour alone.
• Accessibility testing of selected and unselected tabs in both light and dark themes.

For now, setting browser.nova.enabled to false in about:config is a potential workaround, but it changes the broader interface and may not remain available.

Has anyone else, particularly other colour-blind users, found this harder to use? Have you found a supported way to improve the indicators while keeping Nova?

I requested an accessibility review in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2077901.
If you’re affected, please add your Firefox version, theme, and specific difficulties to the report, especially if they provide new information.

[u/LankyEmu9]

I made this post a couple of days ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1wvkw33/novas_changes_to_container_color_schemes_arent/

Seems like someone official is looking into it.

Thanks for requesting the accessibility review. I'm shocked that doing that isn't part of their development process.

u/rjacob-firefox do you know if there is no process to check accessibility before changes launch?

[u/mr-brunes → u/LankyEmu9]

Sorry I missed that post, I did look first - another one of those 'divided by a common language' issues!

[u/rjacob-firefox → u/LankyEmu9]

u/LankyEmu9 - Accessibility checks are part of the process in Firefox and the team cares a lot about making the product accessible. Thanks for raising this particular accessibility issue on the container designs...we're definitely looking into it.

Updating containers on vertical tabs is a priority for us, along with a few updates to themes. Stay tuned, and in the meantime please keep adding details to the bug so we can check the fixes against real setups.

[u/ssn-669]

Frankly everything is harder to read for this non-colorblind user. Right in the trash is the right place for this update.

[u/Cronus6 → u/ssn-669]

You can turn it off pretty easily. I did immediately.

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1wt9ig4/the_new_ux_design_nova_lands_in_firefox_today/pcsoeft/

[u/ssn-669 → u/Cronus6]

For now. They're planning to disable that option in the next month or two.

[u/Cronus6 → u/ssn-669]

I've seen people speculating that they will do that. I haven't seen anything from the devs saying they are though.

And if they do I'm sure some creative person will find another way to rid us of that fucking eyesore.

[u/ssn-669 → u/Cronus6]

There is a ticket in progress.

[u/dkh → u/ssn-669]

The browser UI shouldn't detract from the pages displayed. Currently Nova is like staring through a neon light. It is way too distracting.

[u/mozdeco]

I believe this is being worked on internally right now, stay tuned and thanks for reporting the bug. I'll make sure it gets routed correctly.

[u/mr-brunes → u/mozdeco]

Thanks for your help - good to hear. FWIW I noticed that Nova actually does label each container colour now with a tooltip - an improvement!

[u/ssn-669 → u/mozdeco]

Can you look internally into just disabling the whole thing lol

HARD botch on this one. No upside. Change for change's sake and all for the worse. 

[u/FriendlyKillerCroc → u/ssn-669]

They are going to revert the update because of whiny teenagers on Reddit. 

[u/Cry_Wolff → u/[deleted]]

You certainly sound like a very healthy and well adjusted individual.

[u/nendu367 → u/Cry_Wolff]

and you clearly don't understand sarcasm!

[u/elsjpq]

Break things that were fine and fix things that weren't broken. This is exactly what's wrong with change for the sake of change.

[u/RetPala → u/elsjpq]

"For you, the day your browser got shittier was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday"

-every UI person

[u/kitsumed]

I still belive the Nova Ui was not ready to be shipped and lacked proper testings. It introduced multiples issues, including accesibility ones.

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1wt9ig4/comment/pczrdg3/

[u/Gangbang_2k → u/kitsumed]

its called 'half-baked'

[u/Cronus6]

Well that doesn't sound very inclusive or whatever the cool word for it is these days. And we all know Firefox is all about those sorts of cool words...

[u/binaryriot]

I'm not colorblind, but most of the so called "modern" UIs are much harder to read. I often struggle too.

Then I boot up the emulation with an old AmigaOS 3.1 installation and the world is a better place. Makes you think where UI development has gone wrong in the last 30 years. Everyone to force their own "design" rather than use a common OS standard (which should be theme'able to the user's preference) is probably a big part of this story. Now rather than you instantly know what's a button or not a button you have to guess around in each app first.

In Firefox's tab bar you can't even tell the visual difference between a tab "button" and the URL input field "button". It's both just long rectangular thingies with large round corners. There's no visual distinction anymore about the function of the object at all.

[u/goreverminski → u/binaryriot]

AmigaOS 3 and MacOS 6 both were deceptively clean and simple to use - yet already very modern systems - that can still be networked and used for legitimate computing.

[u/WentThisWayInsteadOf → u/binaryriot]

I am blue/green colorblind and lots of the new UI designes really pushes the boundaries.

[u/binaryriot → u/WentThisWayInsteadOf]

I still have ColorOracle installed here which I always use on new designs of my own to see if the contrast between colours still works out. It's a small menubar app which (in theory) allows a non-colour-blind person to temporarily simulate the visual experience a colour-blind person would have. Deuteranopia (green deficiency), Protonopia (red deficiency), Tritanopia (blue deficiency), and Greyscale are supported. I do not know how close it gets to the real experience, of course.

https://colororacle.org/

Any accessibility is always hard to judge when you don't deal with the problem yourself.

[u/ShreeGrey]

I just updated and this update is piece of shit in terms of looks. Gladly it can be disabled, but i spent half an hour trying to figure out how firefox started to use Gnome theme on my kde setup =_=

[u/ShreeGrey → u/ShreeGrey]

also it was following my kde breeze dark theme now it lives it's own life.

[u/vBDKv]

I'm not color blind (I used to be a fighter pilot), but I also suffer from this issue. Who the hell thought it would be nice to place a purple icon on top of a website icon? Fire that fool ASAP.