1221236 - Bookmarks Sync UX for phone

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox OS Graveyard :: Sync, defect)

Description

[Fernando Jiménez Moreno [:ferjm]]

We are already able to import bookmarks data from other clients and we already have an UI to show these bookmarks on a FxOS TV. However, we still need to work on the UI for the phone. How can we show the list of imported bookmarks on a FxOS phone?

Comment 1

[Mark Liang(:mark_liang)]

Some quick ideas about bookmarks for the phone:

1. Maybe under the menu there's a "bookmarks" option where you can tap and see a list of webpages you bookmarked.

2. Could be similar to Firefox Browser in Android, when you tap the address bar, not only the keyboard shows up, but also a list of bookmarks show up in the center.

Mark

Comment 2

[Fernando Jiménez Moreno [:ferjm]]

Thank you Mark.

(In reply to Mark Liang(:mark_liang) from comment #1)
> Some quick ideas about bookmarks for the phone:
> 
> 1. Maybe under the menu there's a "bookmarks" option where you can tap and
> see a list of webpages you bookmarked.

Which menu are you referring to?

> 
> 2. Could be similar to Firefox Browser in Android, when you tap the address
> bar, not only the keyboard shows up, but also a list of bookmarks show up in
> the center.
> 

I need to double check, but I think this is already the case. Since we are adding the bookmarks directly to the bookmarks_store datastore, we probably show the bookmarks as result of search suggestions.

Comment 3

[Mark Liang(:mark_liang)]

(In reply to Fernando Jiménez Moreno [:ferjm] from comment #2)
> Thank you Mark.
> 
> (In reply to Mark Liang(:mark_liang) from comment #1)
> > Some quick ideas about bookmarks for the phone:
> > 
> > 1. Maybe under the menu there's a "bookmarks" option where you can tap and
> > see a list of webpages you bookmarked.
> 
> Which menu are you referring to?
> 

I mean the one with options such as "New window", "New private window"..."Share".
Bookmarks could be one of them.

> > 
> > 2. Could be similar to Firefox Browser in Android, when you tap the address
> > bar, not only the keyboard shows up, but also a list of bookmarks show up in
> > the center.
> > 
> 
> I need to double check, but I think this is already the case. Since we are
> adding the bookmarks directly to the bookmarks_store datastore, we probably
> show the bookmarks as result of search suggestions.

Comment 4

[Fernando Jiménez Moreno [:ferjm]]

Ok, I see. That could be an option.

The thing is that with "Pin the Web" we lost the concept of bookmarks. Now we are not able to create new bookmarks from FxOS phones, just to pin sites or pages. Reintroducing the concept of bookmark in the Browser might not play well with the consistency of "Pin the Web".

Ben, Peter, you are very familiar with "Pin the Web", what do you think? How should we show synchronized bookmarks on FxOS phones (note that we may have thousand of them imported from Desktop and/or Android)? Should we consider pinned sites and pages as bookmarks?

Comment 5

[Ben Francis [:benfrancis]]

Hi Fernando,

* Pinned pages are equivalent to bookmarks
* Pinned sites are more like pinned tabs (used to be called app tabs)

Pinned pages are represented as cards on the homescreen (which also uses a screenshot of the page). In 2.6 we will be building on pinned pages to allow you to pin other more specialised types of content with additional metadata to generate a richer card representation on the homescreen, for example:
* Pinned article - article title and description + a key image from the article
* Pinned video - Title and thumbnail of the video
* Pinned song - Track title, artist name + cover art
* Pinned contact - contact details + photo + possibly buttons for associated actions like "call"
* Pinned event - event details + possibly buttons for associated actions like "RSVP"

So, it would be possible to synchronise pinned pages with bookmarks, but bookmarks synced from Firefox to Firefox OS would be missing the additional metadata we use to generate cards and so could look ugly in comparison. There's also the issue that the current simple MVP design for pinned pages is just one long list with no method of organisation, so that wouldn't scale well to hundreds of bookmarks synced with desktop.

Before we seriously consider synchronising desktop bookmarks with pinned pages in Firefox OS I think we need to work on a better way for organising pinned content on the device, which is something UX are working on during the 2.6 timeframe and beyond into Alopex.

We have discussed turning the Places database of Firefox OS into a web service with an API that multiple form factors can access. For example, there could be a website or web app on desktop you can use to browse your pinned content so that you could pin an article on your mobile device and read it on your desktop for example.

I don't think it's obvious at the point that we just want to sync bookmarks with pinned pages. However, it could be that in Alopex we bring back the concept of "bookmarks" and this all changes, so who knows!

Comment 6

[Fernando Jiménez Moreno [:ferjm]]

Thanks for the prompt response Ben.

(In reply to Ben Francis [:benfrancis] from comment #5)
> So, it would be possible to synchronise pinned pages with bookmarks, but
> bookmarks synced from Firefox to Firefox OS would be missing the additional
> metadata we use to generate cards and so could look ugly in comparison.

Can't we still fetch the metadata from the bookmarked site?

We currently have an adapter that "translates" a bookmark record coming from Sync into a bookmark record that can be stored in the bookmarks_store that we have on FxOS, so we could add the logic to fetch the metadata from the bookmarks coming from Sync as part of this adapter.

> There's also the issue that the current simple MVP design for pinned pages
> is just one long list with no method of organisation, so that wouldn't scale
> well to hundreds of bookmarks synced with desktop.
> 

Even if we consider pinned pages as bookmarks, I wouldn't list synchronized bookmarks at the same level as the local pinned pages. As you said, that doesn't scale well. However, we could take an approach slightly similar to Android's one, which is currently showing a different folder with the bookmarks coming from other Sync clients. So the bookmarks coming from desktop are shown inside a "Desktop bookmarks" folder in the Android bookmarks menu. Maybe we could do something similar with homescreen collections, having a specific collection per Sync client (one for Desktop, one for Android, one for iOS). Because the list of bookmarks can be too big, it should probably be loaded dynamically, like we do (or use to do) with e.me results.

> Before we seriously consider synchronising desktop bookmarks with pinned
> pages in Firefox OS I think we need to work on a better way for organising
> pinned content on the device, which is something UX are working on during
> the 2.6 timeframe and beyond into Alopex.
> 
> We have discussed turning the Places database of Firefox OS into a web
> service with an API that multiple form factors can access. For example,
> there could be a website or web app on desktop you can use to browse your
> pinned content so that you could pin an article on your mobile device and
> read it on your desktop for example.
> 

Isn't the result of this the same as having you mobile history or bookmarks synchronized with Desktop?

Comment 7

[Peter Dolanjski [:pdol]]

I'm NI'ing Preeti who has been thinking about where to take data sync.

Comment 8

[psanketh]

Thanks Peter. 

Hi Ben, Fernando,

I believe the way users will use pin the web vs. bookmarks will vastly differ given that pin the web could be something like an idea board or a step into task continuity (boarding a train want to continue what i was reading etc.).
Given the extensive # of bookmarks a user may add w/o necessarily cluttering their interface, I don't think we can walk away from this feature altogether.

Additionally, pin the web is a very OS specific feature - yes? Desktop is not adopting this, which means w/o support for bookmarks opens us up to a very inconsistent experience from the user point of view. 

Thus, I'd actually suggest retaining the bookmarks functionality, and just within the browser. 

Regarding the UI - Mark - why would we use the hamburger menu available for new window etc. why not the one that shows "view bookmark sidebar" etc.?

thanks,
preeti

Comment 9

[Mark Liang(:mark_liang)]

(In reply to psanketh from comment #8)
> Thanks Peter. 
> 
> Hi Ben, Fernando,
> 
> I believe the way users will use pin the web vs. bookmarks will vastly
> differ given that pin the web could be something like an idea board or a
> step into task continuity (boarding a train want to continue what i was
> reading etc.).
> Given the extensive # of bookmarks a user may add w/o necessarily cluttering
> their interface, I don't think we can walk away from this feature altogether.
> 
> Additionally, pin the web is a very OS specific feature - yes? Desktop is
> not adopting this, which means w/o support for bookmarks opens us up to a
> very inconsistent experience from the user point of view. 
> 
> Thus, I'd actually suggest retaining the bookmarks functionality, and just
> within the browser. 
> 
> Regarding the UI - Mark - why would we use the hamburger menu available for
> new window etc. why not the one that shows "view bookmark sidebar" etc.?
> 

I can't seem to find the "view bookmark sidebar", can you show me a screenshot of it? thanks!

Mark


> thanks,
> preeti

Comment 10

[Mark Liang(:mark_liang)]

I agree with Preeti that bookmark and pin the web are very different use cases for the users, but we should definitely retain bookmark within browser app on Firefox OS phone to remain consistency. 

As for the UI I'll come up with some visual proposals this week so it will be easier to get the idea.

Comment 11

[Mark Liang(:mark_liang)]

(In reply to Mark Liang(:mark_liang) from comment #10)
> I agree with Preeti that bookmark and pin the web are very different use
> cases for the users, but we should definitely retain bookmark within browser
> app on Firefox OS phone to remain consistency. 
> 
> As for the UI I'll come up with some visual proposals this week so it will
> be easier to get the idea.

Bookmarks as a list view inside menu:
https://drive.google.com/a/mozilla.com/file/d/0BxxsmFUluI_SaTVMcE5SczVXTm8/view?usp=sharing

Bookmarks shown when users are searching: (list view and icon view)
https://drive.google.com/a/mozilla.com/file/d/0BxxsmFUluI_SZGpOR0o5X1ZFbjg/view?usp=sharing

Let me know if you have any thoughts, thanks!

Comment 12

[Peko Chen [:pekochen]]

Mark is dealing with this issue.

Comment 13

[Fernando Jiménez Moreno [:ferjm]]

Thank you Mark! Looks great.

I have a couple of comments/questions:

1. I am not sure, but I think maybe Preeti was asking why should we use the current hamburguer menu (the one with the three dots and the only one that we have on browser windows in FxOS) instead of adding a new menu specific for bookmarks like the one that we have in desktop (like this https://gyazo.com/1979bf0c148b7496cf27fa98b8aaa16c).

2. What about adding new bookmarks? How would the user create a new bookmark?

3. Should we show a star icon on the url bar if an url is already bookmarked?

Thank you!

Comment 14

[Ben Francis [:benfrancis]]

Pinned pages and bookmarks are largely the same thing. If we introduce bookmarks I think we should get rid of pinned pages (or rename them). Having both would create too much confusion.

In 2.6 we're working on folders for pinned sites/apps on the homescreen, we could implement a similar UI for pinned pages and have a folder for synced desktop bookmarks as Fernando suggested.

FWIW the reason pinned pages are not contained inside the "browser" is that you should be able to pin a page from any pinned site or app, not just the browser. Opening the browser to access your pinned contacts doesn't make a lot of sense. The reason there's no bookmarks menu in addition to the overflow menu is just a matter of real estate, we don't have the space. The original Pin the Web design used the site icon to pin content, but this real estate was taken over by the Control Centre so pinning got buried back in the overflow menu. In future UX are looking to remove items from the browser chrome, not add them.

In the new Alopex experience things may be a bit different as the whole phone is the browser (to an even further extent), there is no browser icon on the homescreen. In this design it may make more sense to call them bookmarks and have them accessible via a different UI, like the "awesomescreen" you see when you focus the search bar or create a new tab. Or at least use the star iconography rather than the pinning metaphor to make sync make a bit more sense.

Comment 15

[sjw]

(In reply to Mark Liang(:mark_liang) from comment #11)
> Bookmarks as a list view inside menu:
> https://drive.google.com/a/mozilla.com/file/d/0BxxsmFUluI_SaTVMcE5SczVXTm8/
> view?usp=sharing
> 
> Bookmarks shown when users are searching: (list view and icon view)
> https://drive.google.com/a/mozilla.com/file/d/0BxxsmFUluI_SZGpOR0o5X1ZFbjg/
> view?usp=sharing
> 
> Let me know if you have any thoughts, thanks!

I like the textual version, because users tend to have *a lot* of bookmarks and the big favicon waste to much space. The favicon could be shown instead of the bookmark star.

Is there also a spec for folders in the bookmark menu? I use a bunch of folders to sort my bookmarks on Desktop, it would be quite confusing without.

Comment 16

[BMO Automation]

Firefox OS is not being worked on