Closed Bug 1065642 Opened 10 years ago Closed 7 years ago

Accessing recent browser history is harder than before

Categories

(Firefox OS Graveyard :: Gaia::Search, defect)

Other
Gonk (Firefox OS)
defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED WONTFIX

People

(Reporter: botond, Unassigned)

Details

Attachments

(1 file)

With the old Browser app, when I have a page loaded and then tap on the address bar, I got a page listing my recent browsing history. So accessing a page from my recent browsing history just required 2 taps - one on the address bar, and one on the page's entry in that list. With the new Browser app, tapping on the address bar brings up a blank search page. I have to type something for results to appear, and even then results from my browsing history are at the bottom, and other results (irrelevant to me when I want my browsing history) are on top. So accessing a page from my recent browseing history requires: - tapping the address bar - typing one or more characters related to the page I want - finding my page in the resulting search results list - this often requires scrolling past the irrelevant results - finally tapping on it. I found the old Browser app to be a better UX than the new one in this respect. Kevin suggests that it might be a better idea for tapping the address bar to bring up the same page that tapping the Browser icon on the homescreen brings up, which does have a list of pages from recent browsing history.
Francis - what do you think? Right now the initially focused state doesn't bring a lot of value to the user. Is there some alternate UI we could explore, or potentially just show the browser landing page?
Flags: needinfo?(fdjabri)
Component: Gaia::Browser → Gaia::Search
Thanks for the feedback. I agree that the current empty state of the search app needs changing, but whatever goes there should behave consistently whether it's accessed from the browser or from outside the browser. I think showing recent searches is a possibility, but we'll need to think it more holistically in relationship to our goals for the next release. One thing that does need fixing now however is the placement of the history results. The search app spec states that these should come after local home screen results and before Marketplace results.
Flags: needinfo?(fdjabri)
Right now, it seems as if search results sometimes appear after the e.me results, sometimes they're shown in the right position. Do you know why this is happening, Kevin?
Flags: needinfo?(kgrandon)
(In reply to Francis Djabri [:djabber] from comment #3) > Right now, it seems as if search results sometimes appear after the e.me > results, sometimes they're shown in the right position. Do you know why this > is happening, Kevin? This seems like a bug, but we have to be careful about how we solve it because it could make the search app perform very poorly. I've filed bug 1065781 for this.
Flags: needinfo?(kgrandon)
(In reply to Francis Djabri [:djabber] from comment #2) > Thanks for the feedback. I agree that the current empty state of the search > app needs changing, but whatever goes there should behave consistently > whether it's accessed from the browser or from outside the browser. I think > showing recent searches is a possibility, but we'll need to think it more > holistically in relationship to our goals for the next release. Francis, is there any update for this? I think it's a serious UX regression that the user has to go back to the Homescreen and then click on the Browser to see recent history.
Flags: needinfo?(fdjabri)
Hi Botond, The search UI has been modified to promote history results to a more prominent position - please see the latest Search spec at: https://mozilla.box.com/s/fhlmfa4xyooqpwaaaczc Other changes are unfortunately out-of-scope for 2.2. but I agree that this is an important issue - I'll discuss what can be done with the team in Portland next week. Keeping myself as ni to track this.
(In reply to Francis Djabri [:djabber] from comment #6) > The search UI has been modified to promote history results to a more > prominent position - please see the latest Search spec at: > https://mozilla.box.com/s/fhlmfa4xyooqpwaaaczc > > Other changes are unfortunately out-of-scope for 2.2. but I agree that this > is an important issue - I'll discuss what can be done with the team in > Portland next week. Keeping myself as ni to track this. My concrete suggestion is to show history without the user typing any characters in search. To be more clear: 1) No characters typed yet -> Show all history, sorted by frecency 2) User types 'B' -> Show history matching 'B' (among other search results), sorted by frecency 3) User types 'Bi' -> Show history matching 'Bi' (among other search results), sorted by frecency etc. The spec seems to cover (2) onwards, which is great. However, I think (1) is really important to have.
Hi Botond, I created a spec to make more use of the empty state, showing recent searches.
Flags: needinfo?(fdjabri)
(In reply to Francis Djabri [:djabber] from comment #8) > I created a spec to make more use of the empty state, showing recent > searches. This is definitely an improvement, thanks! However, I think it would be even better if we showed recent history items, not just recent searches, so that someone can get back to a recent page with just one click from that screen. Is there a possibility of doing that?
Firefox OS is not being worked on
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 7 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
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