Closed Bug 1103315 Opened 10 years ago Closed 9 years ago

[UX] hard to differentiate multiple engines with the same icon with only a tooltip

Categories

(Firefox :: Search, defect)

34 Branch
defect
Not set
major
Points:
5

Tracking

()

RESOLVED FIXED
Iteration:
38.3 - 23 Feb
Tracking Status
firefox33 --- unaffected
firefox34 + wontfix
firefox35 - affected
firefox36 - affected
firefox-esr31 --- unaffected

People

(Reporter: alice0775, Assigned: agrigas)

References

(Blocks 1 open bug)

Details

(Keywords: regression, useless-UI, Whiteboard: [ux])

Attachments

(3 files)

Attached image screenshot
Because most of the search engine icon is the same, 
I cannot be identified what is search engine because engine icon without description.


Although the tool tip is displayed only in the mouse-over, there is no feedback If you choose the search engine on the keyboard.
Severity: normal → blocker
Keywords: regression
OS: Windows 7 → All
This doesn't look like a release blocker to me. Let's fix this in a later release.
Summary: Cannot be identified what is search engine because engine icon without description → search engines should have tooltiptext to differentiate multiple engines with the same icon
Aleksej pointed out that I misread comment 0.

Having multiple engines with the same icon is an edge case (definitely having as many as in that screenshot is an edge case), so I think the tooltip is "good enough" for the vast majority of users. Bug 1102909 might further mitigate this by letting you specify the order. I think this is WONTFIX.
Summary: search engines should have tooltiptext to differentiate multiple engines with the same icon → hard to differentiate multiple engines with the same icon with only a tooltip
As Alice0775 said, there is no feedback if you choose the search engine on the keyboard.

I can agree it's an edge case (I get it with Wikipedias an Wiktionaries, but I rarely use the field for them), as long as bookmark keywords are supported.
A site providing different OpenSearch plugins with the same icon: bug 1101792.
Severity: blocker → major
Hardware: x86_64 → All
Above the grid with the oneoff-things, there's the string "Search xyz with:".

Why not show the name of the selected engine next to that string?
If the search box is somewhat narrow, the name of the search engine would need it's own line. Otherwise we'd just end up with "Wikip...", and miss the crucial end: "(en)" or "(fr)".
No longer blocks: fx34
(In reply to :Gavin Sharp [email: gavin@gavinsharp.com] from comment #2)
> 
> Having multiple engines with the same icon is an edge case

Gavin, are you sure about that? Than I might be one of the only non-native English speakers who has e.g. two wikipedia versions installed in the list, the English one and the German one. Currently I differentiate them (quicker than with the tooltip) via the icon size as one is - lucky me - a little bigger.

Before ddg had the nice region switcher I also had one ddg/de and one ddg/int(en-us) installed.
(In reply to Albert Scheiner [:alberts] from comment #8)
> > Having multiple engines with the same icon is an edge case
> 
> Gavin, are you sure about that?

Yes. Just having additional OpenSearch engines installed at all is an edge case, given the relative discoverability of that functionality (though that discoverability has been improved in Firefox 34).
Engines with the same placeholder icon are also hard to distinguish.
Based on comment 2, this is not a release tracking issue.
Depends on: 1119987
I strongly disagree with Gavin, this is clearly a regression from a user perspective.
How much of a corner case is it to have multilingual users who have a few language versions of Wikipedia + Wiktionary search in the search bar? Just by having two same favicons in the new search engine grid is "not good enough" anymore IMO.
I don't think you're disagreeing with me - I didn't claim this wasn't a user regression from a user perspective, I just pointed out that the vast majority of our users won't be affected by this.

Do you have a suggestion for how we might address this problem within the constraints of the new UI? I couldn't think of an easy one off-hand.
My skepticism to this new UI comes from the lack of options (no way to set search engine UI back to the old list view). Improvements withing the new grid UI seem hard for this case, since many users will probably prefer icon + text rather than eg. user selected icons (too much work). 

Imagine if bookmarks (icon + text) would be exchanged for favicon only, how much easier would navigating your bookmarks become?
Flags: qe-verify-
Flags: firefox-backlog+
Summary: hard to differentiate multiple engines with the same icon with only a tooltip → [UX] hard to differentiate multiple engines with the same icon with only a tooltip
Whiteboard: [ux]
Assignee: nobody → agrigas
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Iteration: --- → 38.2 - 9 Feb
Points: --- → 5
Prototype here:
http://invis.io/CQ26LL3TA
See invision prototype as well
Attachment #8561483 - Flags: ui-review?(shorlander)
(In reply to agrigas from comment #17)
> Created attachment 8561483 [details]
> Hover/arrow icon focus provides readout of provider name
> 
> See invision prototype as well

What if there are 2 similar engines with names that don't fit into the header ?

Take Wikipedia (en-US) and Wikipedia (DE), they will both be shown as Wikiped... if they don't fit in the popup (if we use ellipsis overflowing). So Wikipedia (en-US) won't really be distinguishable from Wikipedia (DE). This is a very common use-case of having 2 engines with the same icon.
(In reply to Tim Nguyen [:ntim] from comment #18)
> (In reply to agrigas from comment #17)
> > Created attachment 8561483 [details]
> > Hover/arrow icon focus provides readout of provider name
> > 
> > See invision prototype as well
> 
> What if there are 2 similar engines with names that don't fit into the
> header ?
> 
> Take Wikipedia (en-US) and Wikipedia (DE), they will both be shown as
> Wikiped... if they don't fit in the popup (if we use ellipsis overflowing).
> So Wikipedia (en-US) won't really be distinguishable from Wikipedia (DE).
> This is a very common use-case of having 2 engines with the same icon.

It would look like this:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1cr1ksbm7pgcqh6/Screenshot%202015-02-09%2013.36.43.png?dl=0

We always truncate search term to make sure provider name fits. The search term is always shown above so truncating seems ok to me.
Comment on attachment 8561483 [details]
Hover/arrow icon focus provides readout of provider name

Looks good. In bug 1106054 we set a min-width. We could look into making it wider.
Attachment #8561483 - Flags: ui-review?(shorlander) → ui-review+
(In reply to agrigas from comment #19)
> (In reply to Tim Nguyen [:ntim] from comment #18)

> > What if there are 2 similar engines with names that don't fit into the
> > header ?
> > 
> > Take Wikipedia (en-US) and Wikipedia (DE), they will both be shown as
> > Wikiped... if they don't fit in the popup (if we use ellipsis overflowing).
> > So Wikipedia (en-US) won't really be distinguishable from Wikipedia (DE).
> > This is a very common use-case of having 2 engines with the same icon.
> 
> It would look like this:
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/1cr1ksbm7pgcqh6/Screenshot%202015-02-09%2013.36.43.
> png?dl=0

This is a mockup based on the appearance on Mac, where indeed it would likely be OK.

On Linux (or at least on Ubuntu) the default font size used in the search panel is significantly larger, so it's likely that the end of the provider name won't be visible.

That said, implementing what's proposed here would be easy technically, so we could just try it and see what happens.
OK - lets try it. Post a screencap and we'll adjust the design if needed...
Blocks: 1131636
I took screenshots with a reasonably large window on Ubuntu with default settings:
Here is the current UI: http://i.imgur.com/SWElarW.png
Here is what's proposed here: http://i.imgur.com/YKG8UrY.png

Note: "Wikipedia(de)" isn't a really long provider name. See the screenshots attached to bug 1113747 for a use case with significantly longer names.
Is there anyway on Ubuntu we can adjust the type size for the provider text? That does seem way larger then Window and Mac type...
Updated design based on text size issue. Only show Search provider name on hover/select with arrow key of provider icon.

Default (not selected) show current UI: 'Search xxx... on:'
Hover/arrow select show new UI: 'Search Wikipedia(en)'
Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 9 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
(In reply to agrigas from comment #24)
> Is there anyway on Ubuntu we can adjust the type size for the provider text?
> That does seem way larger then Window and Mac type...

We can make it smaller but it is relative to the system font size, which is quite large.
Iteration: 38.2 - 9 Feb → 38.3 - 23 Feb
Depends on: 1236498
Depends on: 361923
See Also: → 1590628
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