1109615 - option to change default search is non-obvious

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Search, defect)

Description

[Ben Kelly [:bkelly, not reviewing]]

I'm seeing reports from smart, technical people who think they cannot change the default search from yahoo to something else.  For example:

https://twitter.com/rockbot/status/542469323043127296

I think this is largely because the option to change the default moved off the favicon dropdown to being buried in the options panel.  It would be nice if we could make the option to change the default search provider more obvious.

Comment 1

[Dave Townsend [:mossop]]

What are your thoughts here Philipp?

Comment 2

[(Currently slow to respond) Philipp Sackl [:phlsa] (Firefox UX) please use needinfo]

If we don't consider prior knowledge, the new position for changing the default is way more discoverable (it's a setting, so it's in settings). It's also more consistent with most other browsers.
Since most users don't have that prior knowledge, the problem only applies to a portion of users. We've also had reports in the past about people changing their default unwittingly and then abandoning the search box because it was suddenly the »ebay box« or something like that.

Since it is much more likely that the group with prior knowledge finds the pref pane than the second group discovering that they can change back their search engine, we shouldn't go back to the old behavior.

That said, it is an ongoing priority to make searching more flexible without the need to change the default.