1031109 - Consider moving reload button to toolbar

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: Theme and Visual Design, defect)

Description

[:Margaret Leibovic]

At I/O, I encouraged someone to try out Firefox, and his first piece of feedback was that he really missed having the reload button in the urlbar. Given that the reload button is by far the most popular button in the UI, I think we should consider making it accessible with one click.

What do you guys think?

Comment 1

[Ian Barlow (:ibarlow)]

I've always been open to this idea. And heck, telemetry confirms that people are clicking the crap out of that button. 

To be clear, I don't think moving UI around is the only answer to this problem --  we should also be digging deeper and looking at the root of the refresh issue, and how we can make it so people feel less of a need to refresh so often, whether it's making the progress bar get stuck less, or finding a way to make our network management better, or whatever.

But the fact is, years of browsing the web has mashed this concept of "when in doubt, refresh" into our collective brains. We can optimize to try to reduce that need, but perhaps we can also make that path of instinct a little more straightforward, too. 

Now, before we proceed (if we decide to), we do need to think through what happens to the rest of the URL bar when we plunk a refresh icon in the end of it. Specifically, Pageactions and Reader Mode. I think we've always felt these interactions could use more refinement, or at least a clearer expression of purpose to our users. Anthony has already started scratching the surface of this with his ideas in bug 1011712. 

Perhaps this is an opportunity to look at that more deeply. If we were to move away from the icon-in-the-urlbar approach, how else might we reveal features or actions that relate specifically to the kind of page you are on right now?

Comment 2

[Anthony Lam (:antlam) Find me, @antlam on Slack!]

I've definitely been considering this as a part of both the Tablet refresh and the bug that Ian mentioned. It came across to me as a feature that was pretty dominant (as Ian pointed out, telemetry showed us that too). 

I'll definitely keep this inter/action in the back of my head for future bugs.

Comment 3

[Lucas Rocha (:lucasr)]

FWIW, I'd love to see ideas around uncluttering the URL bar i.e. moving the dynamic actions (reader & other page actions) somewhere else.

Comment 4

[BMO Automation]

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