1098450 - UX improvements for private browsing

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox OS Graveyard :: Gaia::System::Browser Chrome, defect)

Description

[Kevin Grandon :kgrandon]

Currently we change the color of the statusbar when in a private browser. We may want to change this color or implement some other kind of indicator.

This bug is mainly about the statusbar color, ways that we can improve the experience during a private browsing session, and the experience of the private browser tab in the OS (task manager for example).

Ux wanted here.

Comment 1

[[:fabrice] Fabrice Desré]

Maybe add this icon in the status bar?
https://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/themes/linux/privatebrowsing-mask.png?force=1

Comment 2

[Kevin Grandon :kgrandon]

Thanks for the asset link. I think adding that icon *somewhere* is a good idea. It might be too much with an additional indicator though.

Another thing we were thinking about is that we could change the icon of the menu trigger when inside of a private browser. We may not want to have both the statusbar icon and the context menu icon change though.

Looking around there's a few more existing assets in the codebase:

Plain mask: https://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/themes/linux/privatebrowsing-mask.png
Mask /w backdrop: https://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/themes/osx/privatebrowsing-mask.png
Dark mask: https://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/themes/shared/mask.png
Fancy mask: https://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/mobile/android/themes/core/images/privatebrowsing-mask.png
Mask /w solid bg: https://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/themes/windows/privatebrowsing-mask-tabstrip.png

Comment 3

[Ben Francis [:benfrancis]]

What happens when a page author sets a theme colour meta tag? How can the user differentiate private from non-private browsing windows in the task manager if any page can set this colour?

I feel this feature was landed prematurely without a properly thought through UX spec.

Comment 4

[Kevin Grandon :kgrandon]

(In reply to Ben Francis [:benfrancis] from comment #3)
> What happens when a page author sets a theme colour meta tag? How can the
> user differentiate private from non-private browsing windows in the task
> manager if any page can set this colour?

I did a quick test and currently theme color overrides the private browsing color. This is probably not ideal, so perhaps we don't allow theme color for private browsing tabs, or we add some icon instead of the color.


> I feel this feature was landed prematurely without a properly thought
> through UX spec.

I agree with you, but this is the only way we would've seen some Private Browsing in 2.2, and is an overall positive IMO. Now we have several weeks to iterate and dogfood with it. If it doesn't meet product or UX acceptance by the end of 2.2, we'll hide it behind a setting which is trivial to do so.

Comment 5

[Francis Djabri [:djabber]]

Initial IxD spec available at: https://mozilla.box.com/s/fhlmfa4xyooqpwaaaczc

Eric, could you post your visual specs here please?

Comment 6

[Eric Pang [:epang] UX]

(In reply to Francis Djabri [:djabber] from comment #5)
> Initial IxD spec available at: https://mozilla.box.com/s/fhlmfa4xyooqpwaaaczc
> 
> Eric, could you post your visual specs here please?

I've added the initial visual spec to box here:
https://mozilla.box.com/s/fanxlaw7ilhm0walsod6hy4ps47v9eh3

Comment 7

[Kevin Grandon :kgrandon]

All initial desired UI has been implemented, closing this bug for now. There will likely be some polish work in the future, but we don't need to keep this bug around for that.