*Flick – Fitts’s Law and saccadic eye movements in tab switching*

Now we switch tabs more than ever before, especially with the advent of AI websites. ​Most people do it by clicking on tab bars.

But when you’re working and suddenly move your gaze to a distant tab bar, saccadic eye movements — specifically, those rapid visual shifts — are inevitable. Dr. Huberman from Stanford said when it happens, our brain loses the context, so extra energy is needed to regain it.

​The cognitive drain doesn’t stop there. Scanning through lists to find a specific tab further drains your PFC’s resources, which are finite. You’re spending your best brain fuel just on navigation, not on the work itself.

​Then comes the physical strain. According to Fitts’s Law, targeting a narrow, distant tab bar requires high-precision motor control. To achieve this, your hand must stabilize the cursor through isometric tension on micro-muscles. This constant “locking” of your muscles puts stress on your wrist and evokes chronic micro-stress in the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for fight-or-flight responses.

​There have been many attempts to solve this. All the tab managers, grid tabs. But nothing has solved these problems completely.

Also if you do ctrl + tab for tab switching you have to hit the keys till you get lucky and if you do the ctrl 1 2 3…. you have to keep track of where the things are.

so the chrome extension Flick is made to solve this inspired by the weapon wheel ui in games.

the Flick’s UI

How it works:

1. Call the panel with Alt + Q. in the pannel, the pannel appears at your cursor , and there’re 8 slots in 8 directions.

2. Flick: Push your mouse toward a slot — that’s a flick.

Empty slot: Flick to assign your current tab.

Occupied slot: Flick to switch to that tab instantly.

Assigned tab closed : Flick to reload it. Flick keeps the tab in the slot even if it’s gone.

Prev & Spaces: Dedicated slots to go back to your previous tab and switch between spaces.

and a space consist of their individual 8 slots. you can name them and change their colors.

Hold center : close all the tabs besides the tabs on current space.

​With Flick, because you call it right at your cursor, you don’t need to make any sudden eye movements just to switch your tabs. And because it’s directional muscle-memory-based, it doesn’t drain the PFC; instead, it uses our Basal Ganglia. Also, because you don’t need to aim at a narrow target and click, you are free from isometric tension.

Chrome web store link: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/hhckbflnbmodeboifkblngjdcgfagdjh?utm_source=item-share-cb