The PC Report

We all remember the fuss that the European Union made about web browsers in Windows, first making Windows 7 go without a browser altogether (Windows 7 E), and then making Microsoft propose the “browser ballot screen.” Microsoft originally proposed the order of the browsers on the screen to go by market share, placing IE first. The EU rejected this idea, so Microsoft and the EU agreed on alphabetical order (see above image).

As you may have realised, Firefox isn’t in the second spot it used to be. Mozilla user experience designer Jenny Boriss, doesn’t like this layout at all, claiming there’s an unfair advantage towards Safari:

This ordering is about the worst option possible. Microsoft wrote in their proposal that ‘nothing in the design and implementation of the Ballot Screen and the presentation of competing web browsers will express a bias for a Microsoft web browser or any other web browser,’ but this is exactly what the current design does. Windows users presented with the current design will tend to make only two choices: IE because they are familiar with it, or Safari because it is the first item.

The disproportionate advantage to Safari is what really makes this design poor

Unfortunately her arguments are flawed (as you would expect). She says alphabetically ordered is biased, she then goes on to suggest a random order every time the browser ballot screen is opened – however she also criticises this too because you wouldn’t see which browsers are “preferred.” She then suggests that it should go back to the order of market share, but excluding IE from the ordering.

Problem with that suggestion is that you are then giving an unfair advantage to Firefox (by putting them first) and you are disadvantaging Internet Explorer (by excluding them). It’s even more unfair than having them in alphabetical order. In fact, if you take in to account having first ballot spot as an unfair advantage and biased, then there really is no way to stop the bias as there must be a first place.

I say keep the alphabetical order: it’s the least biased order that’s been proposed and should still be beneficial to browsers other than IE. Quit whining Jenny, your precious Firefox market share isn’t going anywhere just yet.