1066738 - Delete Button Too Close To Scrollbar (Accessibility Problem)

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Thunderbird :: Message Reader UI, defect)

Description

[Harvey Wamboldt]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; rv:32.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/32.0
Build ID: 20140825202822

Steps to reproduce:

Attempting to use the scrollbar results in accidental clicking of Delete Button in Wide and Classic layout.


Actual results:

This often results in lost emails, since while scrolling you don't notice the email missing from the list.


Expected results:

The easiest work around would be to swap the Archive and Delete buttons.

Accidentally Archiving an email is recoverable. Deleted emails (after clearing Trash) can not be recovered.

This is a serious issue for the visually and/or coordination impaired.

Best Rgds,

-H-

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

presume you are talking about the message scrollbar?

Comment 2

[Harvey Wamboldt]

I'm referring to the scrollbar above the email Delete button. This is the scrollbar which scrolls through the list of messages in a folder. The problem occurs most often with users trying to click the scroll down button (with the downward pointing triangle) at the bottom of the scrollbar which is immediately above the Delete button (the button with the "Delete" label on it). These are not highly computer literate users. They are used to *only* using a scrollbar to scroll, which is why this is an issue in the first place.

Note that with some plugins (eg Enigmail) there may be a status line between the scrollbar and the Delete button. The problem occurs for users who don't see this status line. Best Rgds, -H-

BTW the large size of the main email action buttons is a real plus. The problem comes with the difficulty hitting small and narrow screen features such as the scrollbar. Most users are willing to put up with the small size of features, but accidentally deleting emails is a serious issue.

Comment 3

[Richard Marti (:Paenglab)]

We don't change the general layout because of this. This is the first report of such an issue after some years of existence of this buttons.

But this buttons are customizable by right-clicking on them and select "Customize...". Now you can rearrange them simply by dragging the elements how you like and exchange the Archive- with the Delete button or add spaces on the right of the Delete button. You could also remove all this buttons by moving them into the Customize window.

Does this fix your issue?

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

if this addon doesn't mess up accessibility, then another potential option is https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/compactheader which allows you to move the toolbar - you can put it on the right or left margin

Comment 5

[Harvey Wamboldt]

To Richard: Yes this solves the problem for the users I support. Thank you. I didn't realize that I could move buttons. This resolves the issue for me.

To All: I'd like to add that I suspect that there is a large group of users who secretly blame Thunderbird for losing their emails, and another group with vision and coordination problems who suffer silently blaming themselves. This second group in particular won't complain. Neither of these two groups are likely or even capable of moving buttons themselves and I'd be surprised if they would even understand the notion of customizing the UI. If someone doesn't move the button for them I expect them to suffer in silence or switch to another MUA. This is a shame because it's likely that this is hurting Thunderbird's reputation.

Again Thanx,
Best Rgds,
-H-

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Harvey Wamboldt from comment #5)
> To All: I'd like to add that I suspect that there is a large group of users
> who secretly blame Thunderbird for losing their emails, and another group
> with vision and coordination problems who suffer silently blaming
> themselves. ...
> If someone doesn't move the button for them I expect them to suffer in
> silence or switch to another MUA. This is a shame because it's likely that
> this is hurting Thunderbird's reputation.

I tend to agree with Richard, based on what we see in bugzilla and in support forums I really doubt this is the case. You can't exactly base decisions on a silent population of users.

That said, it might interesting to run a feedback test of accessibility users. But Harvey in this bug report we've only got you, so if you could attach a screen shot to the bug report perhaps it will show a problem that you're seeing that we don't.

Comment 7

[Harvey Wamboldt]

Attachment: Image showing proximity of scrollbar and Delete buttons

This image shows the close proximity of the button at the bottom of the scrollbar and the email Delete button. See comments section for additional discussion of this image.

Comment 8

[Harvey Wamboldt]

The attached image shows that there are only a few rows of pixels between the scroll-by-one scrollbar button (at the bottom of the message list scrollbar) and the Delete button. (The red arrow is pointing at the scroll-by-one button.)

To reiterate the problem my users are seeing (nothing new if you've read everything above): They attempt to click on the scroll-by-one button at the bottom of the scrollbar. They miss and click on the Delete button immediately below. This deletes an email from the list. They do not notice the deletion because they continue to click on the scrollbar button (they want to move the list several lines and since the successful clicks are moving the list the delete goes unnoticed). Some time later they look for the email which has now been deleted (moved to the Trash and possibly expunged). The email is missing. They now either blame Thunderbird for losing their email or assume they accidentally deleted it.

These are users with less than stellar vision or coordination.

Many users don't understand that if you click on the scrollbar between the slider and the scroll-by-one button the list moves by pages. You cannot explain this concept to them.

Many users don't understand you can use the arrow keys and page up/page down keys. They don't (and never will) understand the concept of current focus.

These are people who look at you blankly (or in horror) if you mention that they could report a bug.

It's easy to forget that there are a large number of these naive users who simply don't want to learn one more thing about computers. In fact many obstinately and actively resist learning anything about computers. They send and receive emails by rote. They don't understand what they are doing, they only know if they repeat a specific sequence of actions they can send and receive email. (Yes, these are people who are well suited to tablet apps [cough], except their coordination and poor vision makes that difficult.)

In fact, it's difficult to imagine what these users are like. Especially when you are surrounded by computer literate people all day. It's also difficult to understand just how many people are like this. Millions I think. They range from executives of small and medium businesses to trades people to stay-at-homes. These are people who panic if they accidentally press F11.

My specific problem has been solved as described above (thank you). I wrote this just to try to describe the problem I'm seeing in sufficient detail so that you don't misunderstand the problem.

This particular problem could be solved simply by moving the Delete button further from the scrollbar. What I've done for my users is swap the Archive and Delete buttons.

Thanx again,
Best Rgds,
-H-

Comment 9

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Harvey Wamboldt from comment #7)
> Created attachment 8489187 [details]
> Image showing proximity of scrollbar and Delete buttons
> 
> This image shows the close proximity of the button at the bottom of the
> scrollbar and the email Delete button. See comments section for additional
> discussion of this image.

Thanks. Now I see it.

1. precisely what types of diagnosis do these users with "coordination problems" have?
2. These are windows users?  How many do you support?
3. The way you describe this it sounds like at least half the problem is the size of the scroll arrow and scroll bar. Do you know that on windows the size can be increased for *all* windows??  see http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-desktop/how-to-adjust-the-width-of-the-scrollbar-in/b45bf22b-4882-45e1-9b3c-5051da0dc631

Comment 10

[Harvey Wamboldt]

1. The primary diagnosis is "family members" with arthritis and all that entails and the generally ham fingered. Some are elderly (these in particular won't complain). As for those I don't support (but know of) one (deceased) had MS. But the problem is very widespread. A few (at work) tried Thunderbird and went back to Outlook. Some were uncomfortable with trying something new. A couple lost emails. I can't identify what exactly caused the loss of their emails. Possibly they just wanted to go back to the familiar and needed an excuse.

2. These days I personally support less than a dozen.

3. Yes the size of the scrollbar is definitely an issue for those with coordination problems. However they are willing to put up with that. It's losing emails that is the more serious issue. No I didn't know that the scrollbar size could be adjusted. I may try that. For now I've moved the buttons. I've had serious issues in the past (with inaccessible controls) when I've tried customizing the UI. Perhaps it's time I tried it again.

Thank you for the suggestions and your time,
Best Rgds,
-H-

Comment 11

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

An optional confirmation for deleting messages (mail.warn_on_delete pref), also exposed in options UI, would probably also alleviate this problem.