Bugzilla

Btw, I've noticed there's another layer to this as well. It would be reasonable for a user to see Accel+click as being a kind of functional alias for middle click. On macOS I think in many cases they yield the same behavior, and elsewhere in Firefox they do as well — including in the urlbar and searchbar. At least with respect to links, urlbar results, and searchbar results, Accel+click does the same thing as middle click. So if middle click does something we often expect Accel+click to do the same.

Similarly, with respect to links, urlbar results, and searchbar results (and a huge number of form elements in Firefox, and probably the majority of GUI controls in history), Enter does the same thing as left click. So there's a vastly stronger semantic relationship between Accel+click and Accel+Enter than there is between Accel+click and Alt+Enter. In other words,

1. Middle click should open a result in a new tab, because that's what it does with links and most users are really used to that I expect.
2. If middle click opens a result in a new tab, then Accel+click should (and does).
3. If unmodified Enter and unmodified click do the same thing, then...
4. Accel+Enter should do the same thing as Accel+click.
5. Therefore, Accel+Enter should open a result in a new tab.

And in comparison, Alt just doesn't seem to have any relation to any of this. It's probably the last modifier I'd expect to open a new tab.

So the present situation creates a usability problem because it requires the user to think. They're probably expecting Accel+Enter to do the same thing as Accel+click. And then when they see that it doesn't, they're investing time, either in looking up the shortcuts (and they won't find mouse shortcuts on a SUMO page afaik) or in blind trial & error.

Even after having worked with it for a while and somewhat gotten used to it, I feel an increased sense of cognitive load when trying to use the keyboard shortcuts. I know consciously that Alt+Enter is the shortcut, but I can't shake my ingrained expectation that Enter and click do the same thing. I involuntarily conflate them. So almost every time I use it in testing, I wind up accidentally using the wrong command. Takes me a couple tries.

Which is a big problem if you're using this shortcut to avoid navigating away from your current page. Maybe you have important form information entered and you need to search something. If you type into the address bar and hit Ctrl+Enter, expecting it to open a new tab, you may have just lost all your form data. With such a high risk, it makes sense why I almost never use these shortcuts, opting instead for Ctrl+T => type => Enter.

That doesn't seem like an optimal new user experience either, so I believe the ideal solution here _is_ to change the default behavior. Not only should the modifier be the same for mouse & keyboard events, but that modifier should be Accel, hands down. Which means canonization has to be tied to some other key, and it seems like Alt is the best option for that. I think that might surprise some users who got used to the inconsistency, but idk how many people use canonization.

Btw, I've noticed there's another layer to this as well. It would be reasonable for a user to see Accel+click as being a kind of functional alias for middle click. On macOS I think in many cases they yield the same behavior, and elsewhere in Firefox they do as well — including in the urlbar and searchbar. At least with respect to links, urlbar results, and searchbar results, Accel+click does the same thing as middle click. So if middle click does something, we often expect Accel+click to do the same.

Similarly, with respect to links, urlbar results, and searchbar results (and a huge number of form elements in Firefox, and probably the majority of GUI controls in history), Enter does the same thing as left click. So there's a vastly stronger semantic relationship between Accel+click and Accel+Enter than there is between Accel+click and Alt+Enter. In other words,

1. Middle click should open a result in a new tab, because that's what it does with links and most users are really used to that I expect.
2. If middle click opens a result in a new tab, then Accel+click should (and does).
3. If unmodified Enter and unmodified click do the same thing, then...
4. Accel+Enter should do the same thing as Accel+click.
5. Therefore, Accel+Enter should open a result in a new tab.

And in comparison, Alt just doesn't seem to have any relation to any of this. It's probably the last modifier I'd expect to open a new tab.

So the present situation creates a usability problem because it requires the user to think. They're probably expecting Accel+Enter to do the same thing as Accel+click. And then when they see that it doesn't, they're investing time, either in looking up the shortcuts (and they won't find mouse shortcuts on a SUMO page afaik) or in blind trial & error.

Even after having worked with it for a while and somewhat gotten used to it, I feel an increased sense of cognitive load when trying to use the keyboard shortcuts. I know consciously that Alt+Enter is the shortcut, but I can't shake my ingrained expectation that Enter and click do the same thing. I involuntarily conflate them. So almost every time I use it in testing, I wind up accidentally using the wrong command. Takes me a couple tries.

Which is a big problem if you're using this shortcut to avoid navigating away from your current page. Maybe you have important form information entered and you need to search something. If you type into the address bar and hit Ctrl+Enter, expecting it to open a new tab, you may have just lost all your form data. With such a high risk, it makes sense why I almost never use these shortcuts, opting instead for Ctrl+T => type => Enter.

That doesn't seem like an optimal new user experience either, so I believe the ideal solution here _is_ to change the default behavior. Not only should the modifier be the same for mouse & keyboard events, but that modifier should be Accel, hands down. Which means canonization has to be tied to some other key, and it seems like Alt is the best option for that. I think that might surprise some users who got used to the inconsistency, but idk how many people use canonization.

Btw, I've noticed there's another layer to this as well. It would be reasonable for a user to see Accel+click as being a kind of functional alias for middle click. On macOS I think in many cases they yield the same behavior, and elsewhere in Firefox they do as well — including in the urlbar and searchbar. At least with respect to links, urlbar results, and searchbar results, Accel+click does the same thing as middle click. So if middle click does something, we often expect Accel+click to do the same.

Similarly, with respect to links, urlbar results, and searchbar results (and a huge number of form elements in Firefox, and probably the majority of GUI controls in history), Enter does the same thing as left click. So there's a vastly stronger semantic relationship between Accel+click and Accel+Enter than there is between Accel+click and Alt+Enter. In other words,

1. Middle click should open a result in a new tab, because that's what it does with links and most users are really used to that I expect.
2. If middle click opens a result in a new tab, then Accel+click should (and does).
3. If unmodified Enter and unmodified click do the same thing, then...
4. Accel+Enter should do the same thing as Accel+click.
5. Therefore, Accel+Enter should open a result in a new tab.

And in comparison, Alt just doesn't seem to have any relation to any of this. It's probably the last modifier I'd expect to open a new tab.

So the present situation creates a usability problem because it requires the user to think. They're probably expecting Accel+Enter to do the same thing as Accel+click. And then when they see that it doesn't, they're either giving up (and just opening a new tab via Ctrl+T) or they're investing time: either in looking up the shortcuts (and they won't find mouse shortcuts on a SUMO page afaik) or in blind trial & error.

Even after having worked with it for a while and somewhat gotten used to it, I feel an increased sense of cognitive load when trying to use the keyboard shortcuts. I know consciously that Alt+Enter is the shortcut, but I can't shake my ingrained expectation that Enter and click do the same thing. I involuntarily conflate them. So almost every time I use it in testing, I wind up accidentally using the wrong command. Takes me a couple tries.

Which is a big problem if you're using this shortcut to avoid navigating away from your current page. Maybe you have important form information entered and you need to search something. If you type into the address bar and hit Ctrl+Enter, expecting it to open a new tab, you may have just lost all your form data. With such a high risk, it makes sense why I almost never use these shortcuts, opting instead for Ctrl+T => type => Enter.

That doesn't seem like an optimal new user experience either, so I believe the ideal solution here _is_ to change the default behavior. Not only should the modifier be the same for mouse & keyboard events, but that modifier should be Accel, hands down. Which means canonization has to be tied to some other key, and it seems like Alt is the best option for that. I think that might surprise some users who got used to the inconsistency, but idk how many people use canonization.

Btw, I've noticed there's another layer to this as well. It would be reasonable for a user to see Accel+click as being a kind of functional alias for middle click. On macOS I think in many cases they yield the same behavior, and elsewhere in Firefox they do as well — including in the urlbar and searchbar. At least with respect to links, urlbar results, and searchbar results, Accel+click does the same thing as middle click. So if middle click does something, we often expect Accel+click to do the same.

Similarly, with respect to links, urlbar results, and searchbar results (and a huge number of form elements in Firefox, and probably the majority of GUI controls in history), Enter does the same thing as left click. So there's a vastly stronger semantic relationship between Accel+click and Accel+Enter than there is between Accel+click and Alt+Enter. In other words,

1. Middle click should open a result in a new tab, because that's what it does with links and most users are really used to that I expect.
2. If middle click opens a result in a new tab, then Accel+click should (and does).
3. If unmodified Enter and unmodified click do the same thing, then...
4. Accel+Enter should do the same thing as Accel+click.
5. Therefore, Accel+Enter should open a result in a new tab.

And in comparison, Alt just doesn't seem to have any relation to any of this. It's probably the last modifier I'd expect to open a new tab.

So the present situation creates a usability problem because it requires the user to think. They're probably expecting Accel+Enter to do the same thing as Accel+click. And then when they see that it doesn't, they're either giving up (and just opening a new tab via Ctrl+T) or they're investing time: either in looking up the shortcuts (and they won't find mouse shortcuts on a SUMO page afaik) or in blind trial & error.

Even after having worked with it for a while and somewhat gotten used to it, I feel an increased sense of cognitive load when trying to use the keyboard shortcuts. I know consciously that Alt+Enter is the shortcut, but I can't shake my ingrained expectation that Enter and click do the same thing. I involuntarily conflate them. So almost every time I use it in testing, I wind up accidentally using the wrong command. Takes me a couple tries.

Which is a big problem if you're using this shortcut to avoid navigating away from your current page. Maybe you have important form information entered in the active page, and you need to search something. If you type into the address bar and hit Ctrl+Enter, expecting it to open a new tab, you may have just lost all your form data. With such a high risk, it makes sense why I almost never use these shortcuts, opting instead for Ctrl+T => type => Enter.

That doesn't seem like an optimal new user experience either, so I believe the ideal solution here _is_ to change the default behavior. Not only should the modifier be the same for mouse & keyboard events, but that modifier should be Accel, hands down. Which means canonization has to be tied to some other key, and it seems like Alt is the best option for that. I think that might surprise some users who got used to the inconsistency, but idk how many people use canonization.