1196513 - New feature idea: sticky notes for my web pages

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Vladan Djeric (:vladan)]

Basic idea:

Sometimes when I visit a site, I need to write down a reminder for myself for the next time I visit a site. I'd like to be able to attach a "sticky note" to a site. 

Maybe call it "Web Notes"? It makes the web more personal.

Examples of things I'd like to write down in a sticky note:

- instructions on how to do something on the site (how to generate a report in Workday)
- a reminder to do something on next visit (transfer money from savings account to checking)
- some info about the subject being discussed on a forum, e.g. background info on a Bugzilla bug, or a summary of key points in a lengthy article I'll want to revisit
- a reminder of the email address I use to log into the site if our Password Manager can't find the username/password fields
- links to related sites that I usually visit after this one (for example I often go from Elance.com to Bill.com or workday.com)

This just needs to be an editable text area accessible from the UI, associated with a page. 

For bonus points, the sticky notes should linkify URLs I type and get Sync'd across my devices. 

The basic functionality could be easily extended. We could even make it possible to add anchors to parts of the page so that users can easily jump to specifc points in a lengthy document via the sticky note (legal docs, technical RFCs, books, blog posts, etc).

Comment 1

[Vladan Djeric (:vladan)]

This features seems like it could fit neatly into Task Continuity and would integrate nicely with Firefox Accounts.

Is this feature already being worked on? If not, do you think it has potential for mass appeal?

Comment 2

[Vladan Djeric (:vladan)]

Similar existing ideas http://venturebeat.com/2008/12/10/webnotes-launches-online-annotation-service-amid-heavy-competition/

I think annotating text in the page is too complex and the UI in the screenshot looks too heavy

Comment 3

[Chris Karlof [:ckarlof]]

> This features seems like it could fit neatly into Task Continuity and would integrate nicely with Firefox Accounts.

Yes, we could build a new backend to store these integrated with FxA, either via a standalone service or a new Sync backend.

> Is this feature already being worked on? If not, do you think it has potential for mass appeal?

It's not clear. My initial thought is that this is a power user feature and might fall under the new feature fallacy: http://andrewchen.co/the-next-feature-fallacy-the-fallacy-that-the-next-new-feature-will-suddenly-make-people-use-your-product/.

It may not be a good ROI because it doesn't affect the default user experience unless the user takes advantage of it. We need to teach users how to do something new in this case, and historically that can be challenging. 

It also seems like a good candidate for an add-on. We allow add-ons to sync small amounts of data via Sync, but we could explore making that richer if there was sufficient demand.

Comment 4

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

Hey Vladan, did you ever try out one of the add-one in that space that we talked about?

Comment 5

[Vladan Djeric (:vladan)]

I tried 2 or 3, none of them were quite what I wanted