1097620 - (ios) formalize 'send to device' terminology

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox for iOS :: General, defect)

Description

[Karen Rudnitski [:kar]]

This affects desktop as well as mobile. 'send to device' is likely not the most appropriate wording to describe the action of sending a tab from one Firefox screen to another as an explicit action.

We need to settle on appropriate terminology within the next week or so (ideally) so that our Portland milestone is achieved with better wording to describe this action. 

Looking to UX for some thoughts to put on the table based on their current thinking and grouping of 'share' and 'send' actions.

Comment 1

[Robin Andersen [:tecgirl]]

We are supporting two types of interactions in the share sheet: Sharing to the app and Sending to a device. On Android's share list, both are included and are "Add to BrowserName" and "Send Tab to Devices" — in the same list view. In iOS, these interactions are separated — but on the same Share Widget. I am for keeping "Send to Device" to keep parity with Android and Desktop (currently in Add-on form).

Comment 2

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

FWIW I've always thought "Send to" was enough... adding "device" seems too long/ jargon-y

Comment 3

[Stefan Arentz | :st3fan | ⏰ EST | he/him]

Attachment: Screen Shot 2014-11-12 at 7.05.59 PM.png

To give you an idea of what that would look like in the iOS Share Sheet, I have attached a screenshot. Note that the order of the actions is user configurable.

Comment 4

[Robin Andersen [:tecgirl]]

Thanks Anthony and Stefan. I am with Anthony, "Send to" may be enough. After all, if you can send to desktop, do users consider it to be a device? (it is, of course, but I am guessing 'Send to Device' began with the intention of sending to mobile devices only).

Comment 5

[Stefan Arentz | :st3fan | ⏰ EST | he/him]

I have mixed feelings about having two actions. I don't think it is bad per se, but I do think they could be all be under one Share Action. In the top row with a colorful icon.

It would be one less thing for a user to make a decision about. Am I going to send or add? Hmmm. What is the difference?
It would be one less thing to discover. (Initially those actions are not visible or even enabled I think, a user has to go to the last button, which is 'More...', and rearrange the firefox provided ones.

But maybe more important:

The top row actions, which are Share Extensions seem to be mostly about sharing the thing you are looking at with an *external* service or place in the cloud. While the bottom row, with Action Extensions, are mostly about things you do *locally* on the device. Like 'Copy' or 'Lookup in 1Password or 'Add to Home Screen'.

Note that there absolutely is confusion about this in general. Just look at the all the ToDo list apps: Omnifocus has a Share extension while Wunderlist and Things have Action Extensions. Apple is definitely not super clear about where to put what.

I have no clear opinion yet, just a gut feeling.

Comment 6

[Stefan Arentz | :st3fan | ⏰ EST | he/him]

Interesting read: Apple's HIG about app extensions:

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/userexperience/conceptual/mobilehig/AppExtensions.html

Comment 7

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

(In reply to Robin Andersen [:tecgirl] from comment #1)
> We are supporting two types of interactions in the share sheet: Sharing to
> the app and Sending to a device. On Android's share list, both are included
> and are "Add to BrowserName" and "Send Tab to Devices" — in the same list
> view. In iOS, these interactions are separated — but on the same Share
> Widget. I am for keeping "Send to Device" to keep parity with Android and
> Desktop (currently in Add-on form).

Just a point of clarification: We only support the "Add to <Nightly|Aurora|Firefox>" on Android these days. We used to support the "Send Tab to Devices" (and still do on Fx34 and Fx33). The only reason you see both is because we are in the transition period. You probably have Nightly and Release installed.

Point being: We only really show up once in the list on Android.

Since this seems like a OS integration issue, I think we should go with what feels right for the platform as a main priority. We should think about cross-platform consistency, but it might be secondary in this case.

Comment 8

[Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) (use needinfo?)]

(In reply to Stefan Arentz [:st3fan] from comment #3)
> Created attachment 8521830 [details]
> Screen Shot 2014-11-12 at 7.05.59 PM.png
> 
> To give you an idea of what that would look like in the iOS Share Sheet, I
> have attached a screenshot. Note that the order of the actions is user
> configurable.

The actions we are trying to support: Adding a bookmark, Add to Reading List and Send to Device

I find it interesting that bookmarks and reading list are already in the "actions" part of the sheet, presumably implemented by iOS itself. How concerned are we about user confusion? What can we do to help people understand which actions are Firefox-centric?

Comment 9

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

That confusion (what would "Add to reading list" mean in an Android share list?), combined with the various kinds of add/send operations we support, is why we opted for the ambiguous-but-suggestive "Add to Firefox".

("Add" makes some amount of sense as an umbrella for "send" if you consider that the Firefox you're adding it to might be your desktop.)

Android also typically orders alphabetically, so "add" was much more attractive than "send" in every language I investigated.

Comment 10

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

(In reply to Robin Andersen [:tecgirl] from comment #4)
> Thanks Anthony and Stefan. I am with Anthony, "Send to" may be enough. After
> all, if you can send to desktop, do users consider it to be a device? (it
> is, of course, but I am guessing 'Send to Device' began with the intention
> of sending to mobile devices only).

Figured I'd reply with some history, here, 'cos I think I'm the only person who's still around from 2011!

Sending actually started desktop to desktop, but of course it was only called "Send Tab" -- no ambiguity.

When it came time to give it a name as an Android intent handler, we settled on "Send to device", for a number of reasons:

* No "tab", because the majority of interactions with this will be, e.g., sharing a link from Feedly, rather than sending a tab from a browser.

* "Send" rather than "add" or "share", because at the time this was only for sending tabs.

* "Device" because we couldn't assume desktop, laptop, or mobile -- you could be sending to your Android tablet, a Windows desktop, your work Android phone, whatever. There's also precedent here: Desktop shows "Tabs from other devices", and "device" is the term we use during various setup flows to talk about anything you might connect to your Firefox Account.

(We really need good vocabulary for "black mirror", don't we? I guess we could just wait five years and call everything a phone.)

* "Send to Firefox" was ruled out at this stage for two reasons: we couldn't assume what the destination was (Firefox, Nightly…), but more importantly "Send to Firefox" felt misleading -- "why can't I send this to my reading list?".

That's the point at which I filed the "Send to Firefox" bug, which evolved into "Add to Firefox" for reasons in Comment 9, amongst other things.

Comment 11

[Stefan Arentz | :st3fan | ⏰ EST | he/him]

Another thing I noticed is how Share Extensions are named. I have these on my iPhone:

Message
Mail
Twitter
Add to Firefox
Facebook
Instapaper
Pocket
Omnifocus
Evernote
Transmit

See how we are doing something different there?

All the other Share Extensions simply have the name of the application. The 'Share with...' is implicit in that list.

I'll try to find out if this is a requirement or not.

Comment 12

[Stefan Arentz | :st3fan | ⏰ EST | he/him]

(In reply to Mark Finkle (:mfinkle) from comment #8)
> I find it interesting that bookmarks and reading list are already in the
> "actions" part of the sheet, presumably implemented by iOS itself. How
> concerned are we about user confusion? What can we do to help people
> understand which actions are Firefox-centric?

Also, they cannot be removed from the list. You can move them to the end of the list, but you cannot, like with third-party actions, hide them if you do not use them.

Comment 13

[Karen Rudnitski [:kar]]

> Message
> Mail
> Twitter
> Add to Firefox
> Facebook
> Instapaper
> Pocket
> Omnifocus
> Evernote
> Transmit
> 
> See how we are doing something different there?

Although from both Richard's comment as well as this list, there seems to be a (not insane) idea to refer to this action as simply 'Firefox' or some iteration of, I fear that as a user, I would have no idea that I was sharing (adding) to my Firefox bookmarks, Firefox Reading list, or sending to another Firefox screen.

I think we have value in sending tabs (URLs) to disparate areas of Firefox and these are different actions a user can make. We're also different in that if you share with Pocket, you know what's happening to it; whereas if you share with Firefox, you don't know which bucket it will end up in. 

If we were to simply utilize the Sharing extension, maybe being more explicit would serve the purpose? ie Firefox Reader; Firefox Bookmarks; Firefox <device>?

BTW, I'm really loathe to perpetuate the 'device' nomenclature. It just doesn't feel right to refer to my desktop as a device. I think it works for phones & tablets, but not really for laptops & desktops. 

And in that sense, I personally lean to use 'Share' for adding to my Firefox bookmarks and reading list, but have another action for 'Send' that I can then distinguish with pushing data in real-time to another Firefox instance. I would also hope to have a list pop up with my Firefox instances connected to Firefox Accounts and simply use *those* friendly names to denote which instance I want to send it to.

Comment 14

[Robin Andersen [:tecgirl]]

Many of the above examples are for instances where there is only one action, so the product can get away with using the product name only. We are providing two, Add to Reading List/Bookmark *and* Sending a Tab. 

So it makes sense to use "Firefox" for the share extension, but "Send Tab" for the send extension.