1262777 - New location bar autocomplete dropdown is too big

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Description

[:Gijs (out for now; he/him)]

The new location bar stretches along the entire width of the window instead of matching the width of the location bar, which means it feels much too big. It mostly just ends up having lots of blank space on the right-hand side, especially on now-very-common widescreen laptops and/or desktop screens.

On top of that, it seems like the results are now 1 line each, but the height of the dropdown has gone from about ~ 280 to ~ 230px. I personally preferred the two lines each, but if we're going to have just 1 line, we should at least save some more vertical space. Part of this seems to be the (extra-high?) bar for search settings which wasn't there before, part of it seems to just be that the spacing for the results is wider than before.

Comment 1

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

You may want to discuss with shorlander, the current status is by design and incoming features like Activity Stream will benefit from the additional space.

We will also enlarge the popup vertically to show more results, so it will take a bit more space vertically.
The search settings area is nightly only and unpolished, it will be worked on.
We are still iterating on polish.

If there are technical reasons why the status quo doesn't work, apart from personal taste, please reopen explaining those and needinfo shorlander.

Comment 2

[Luís Miguel [:quicksaver] (not reading bugmail)]

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [::mak] from comment #1)
> incoming features like Activity Stream will benefit from the additional
> space.

(I just finished binge-reading the whole thing and was about to file this exact same bug). Perhaps I missed it in the original discussion. Wouldn't keeping the results on two lines help with this point as well? It's hard for me to say where the objectivity of that ends and my personal taste begins though...

Comment 3

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

(In reply to Luís Miguel [:quicksaver] from comment #2)
> Wouldn't
> keeping the results on two lines help with this point as well? It's hard for
> me to say where the objectivity of that ends and my personal taste begins
> though...

I can't comment on the UX merit of the new design, that's something you should discuss with UX themselves.
My opinion is that the new design is by far more modern, clean and closer to other browser vendors, that means the clash for users moving between browsers is reduced.

Going 1-line will allow us providing more contents in the same (or slightly more) space, that in the end will be a win for everyone. the 2 lines approach was just too vertical both for the kind of screens we have today, and for the goal of providing more useful information to the user.

Comment 4

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

Note this is a change that comes after years of 2 lines awesomebar. It won't be easy for anyone to adapt and that's something we hit multiple times when redesigning things.
What I usually do is to take at least one week of usage to be able to evaluate a bit more objectively where it may hurt my workflow for real. One day is a very short time to ponder a change.

Comment 5

[Luís Miguel [:quicksaver] (not reading bugmail)]

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [::mak] from comment #3)
> My opinion is that the new design is by far more modern, clean and closer to
> other browser vendors, that means the clash for users moving between
> browsers is reduced.

Agreed, I like it more than the previous style. :) (I still prefer my own dynamic style of showing only titles in one line and showing the url only on current/hovered items in a second line, which you broke and I now have to fix. *shakes fist*)

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [::mak] from comment #3)
> Going 1-line will allow us providing more contents in the same (or slightly
> more) space, that in the end will be a win for everyone. the 2 lines
> approach was just too vertical both for the kind of screens we have today,
> and for the goal of providing more useful information to the user.

That's what I wanted to clarify, the goal is to "show more items" then, rather than simply "show more info per item". That's a little... double-edged. On smaller screens, ýou actually lose information (cropped titles and urls). On larger screens the difference isn't all that great, as Gijs pointed out there can be far too much empty space still; especially for search suggestions which don't have an url, whose functionality the location bar is trending towards. This change seems to optimize only for the very middle case screen sizes in there.

Am I wrong? (Seriously asking.) Is this a question worth troubling UX with?

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [::mak] from comment #4)
> What I usually do is to take at least one week of usage to be able to
> evaluate a bit more objectively where it may hurt my workflow for real. One
> day is a very short time to ponder a change.

Agreed. Just bringing up a point I noticed that seems relevant here. ;)

Comment 6

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

(In reply to Luís Miguel [:quicksaver] from comment #5)
> That's what I wanted to clarify, the goal is to "show more items" then,
> rather than simply "show more info per item".

it's actually both.

> On larger screens the difference isn't all that great, as
> Gijs pointed out there can be far too much empty space still; especially for
> search suggestions which don't have an url, whose functionality the location
> bar is trending towards. This change seems to optimize only for the very
> middle case screen sizes in there.

I don't think it's a new problem.
Before we had all information packed to the left, while now it flows on a single line, taking on avg double the space. By enlarging the panel to the whole window on avg we enlarged it less than double. So potentially, we may now have less empty space.
If I take into account a modern 21:9 screen, I'd say the empty space situation was not really better before.

> Am I wrong? (Seriously asking.) Is this a question worth troubling UX with?

Nobody is wrong when gently pointing out their opinions.

Comment 8

[Luís Miguel [:quicksaver] (not reading bugmail)]

As Marco suggested elsewhere, this is probably not the most indicated place for discussions like these. I'll only just reply to this for the sake of completion:

(In reply to Marco Bonardo [::mak] from comment #6)
> By enlarging the panel to the
> whole window on avg we enlarged it less than double. So potentially, we may
> now have less empty space.
> If I take into account a modern 21:9 screen, I'd say the empty space
> situation was not really better before.

Spreading the information across the whole screen width by simply enlarging the panel (I realize it wasn't simply just enlarging the panel, hence the reduced response here), could potentially reduce accessibility to that information, which is an obvious backfire.