1146401 - [UX] Design Spike - Define opportunities for multi-login support in tabs (containers concept)

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: General, defect, P3)

Description

[Ash Grigas]

Develop research plan and define around containers concept. Identify design opportunities for ongoing platform work to better support user needs of managing and switching profiles within the browser.

Comment 1

[Bram Pitoyo [:bram]]

Completed:
* Initial product definition
* Initial design (has been in the works since late 2014)
* User research of AllAccounts add-on (thanks to Aislinn)
* Identify different user stories:
  * Privacy-focused: private session
  * Convenience-focused: accounts switcher
  * Security-focused: not sure what this will be

Privacy story, next steps:
* Help implement feature. An intern might come in, or a staff might be hired to work on it.

Convenience story, next steps:
* Outline user scenarios
* Design and prototype user switching solution where each account can open side by side in a new window/tab

Security story, next steps:
* Outline user scenarios
* Define feature requirements based on scenarios
* Decide on what the product could be

Comment 2

[Bram Pitoyo [:bram]]

Completed:
* Design and prototype user switching solution (a modded add-on) where each account can open side by side in a new window/tab
  * We now know that user prefered each account to open in a new tab
  * We took notes of user’s biggest pain points:
    * Add-on requires user to sign out before they start using it
    * Even though the wrong credential was entered, the add-on still added it to the list
  * We took other notes, too:
    * Add-on didn’t work with Google (YouTube, Gmail, etc.) which most people used
    * The switcher is visually too subtle; the down arrow (show all matching URL) was often a misclicked target
    * Consider the ability switch back and forth between accounts in one click, instead of clicking the switcher menu first
    * etc.

Next steps:
* Solve usability issue: user needs to log out first in order to start using the switcher
  * Either detect whether user is currently logged in or not (if logged in, add credential to switcher)
  * Or, clear cookies so user is automatically logged out
* Solve usability issue: user doesn’t want credential to be added if login fails
* User test add-on with usability issues fixed
* Keep in mind visual design issues, but shelve them for the next round of test

Comment 3

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

so after using these for a while here are my caveats :

* In linux when you don't have many tabs open, you don't have the tab list context menu so I need use the menu :(
* the plus icon to open a new tab should let me know what kind of tab I want to open after I've started more than one tab type
* open links from outside the app is annoying because it doesn't know where I've used my creds and opens in standard tabs ...

also would be nice to know where to send feedback , I'm pretty sure this bug is not the right place.

Comment 4

[Jonathan Kingston [:jkt] he/him]

Sorry for the late reply just seen this (need info'd you to make sure you get a notice).
I'm pretty sure this is public Ludovic: https://groups.google.com/a/mozilla.com/forum/#!forum/containers feedback can be posted there :)

1.
 - if you use customise under the main firefox menu you can add the container (drawer icon) to your toolbar
 - Long pressing on the add tab button now gives the same menu (this is only in nightly)
 - alt+f opens the file menu which down arrow and right arrow gets the containers you can view too
 - I think there will be a shortcut for the longpress soon (looking through bugs now to find it)
2. This always defaults to no container which I think is probably the safest
3. Agreed however we couldn't auto jump straight into the right container as that might leak privacy info / allow xss again.

Bram:
- was there an account switcher design? Could you send it me/attach please :)

Comment 5

[Bram Pitoyo [:bram]]

(In reply to Jonathan Kingston [:jkt] from comment #4)
> was there an account switcher design? Could you send it me/attach please :)

There sure is! I’ve not only designed a profile manager, but also the way that a profile may work alongside multiple containers:
https://mozilla.invisionapp.com/share/NS7QSJGXR

In the past, I’ve designed a standalone profile manager, too:
http://mozilla.invisionapp.com/share/8J5NTOFFG

Comment 6

[Jonathan Kingston [:jkt] he/him]

Do we have another bug for the profile switcher, it looks like this is complete but it's also open ended too. Should we raise a new bug for follow up work if there isn't a bug and there is tasks to be completed?

Going to close this for now, reopen if you think it's better managed here.

Comment 7

[Bram Pitoyo [:bram]]

Yes. This bug is not very specific. Let’s close it for now.