Browsers can have concept models just like cars, buildings and airplanes. That is the idea behind Aurora, a new “concept browser” from the Mozilla Foundation. Users are encouraged to offer new browser ideas; the concept is available in video visualizations. In the videos, Aurora envisions a variety of new interaction models that push the concepts of collaboration, context, and real-world interaction.

Weather data can be collected as a user-controllable object, dropped onto a screen where it shows a graph, and then dragged to a desktop. The basic thrust of this video is that two people are finding, exchanging and examining data as they might do with physical materials.

Another clip demonstrates a futuristic bookmark system. Bookmarks folders are represented by small page images in a row at the top of the page. All of the bookmarks within that folder descend in a column of small images when we click on the folder. Typing in a word allows the browser to suggest some related bookmarks. When we bookmark a page, the browser suggests the appropriate folder.

Nevertheless, the browser also has the intelligence to seek a page according to its workflow context. Therefore the user can type the day and time, and the browser will search the page the user was on at that moment.

For mobile browsers, the idea is to utilize more fully zoom able space. For instance, panning with our finger on a touch screen can go to the edge of the browser. The entire screen is taken up with content. However, by panning over, the user can see browser controls that might otherwise be hidden. This maximizes screen space for content.

The plus sign calls up a new tab. When we zoom out, we can see all browser tabbed windows as separate miniature screens that can then be stacked and reorganized as if they were open documents.

The Aurora videos were created by a San Francisco-based user experience consultancy, Adaptive Path. According to Mozilla, more videos will be released that “predict the future” of browsers.

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