1266243 - Consider removing "Back" button from overflow menu

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect, P2)

Description

[Anthony Lam (:antlam) Find me, @antlam on Slack!]

Most (if not all) Android devices come with an easily reachable "back" button. Do we really need one in our menu?

Removing it from our menu will give us more room in our menu, simplify the menu, and make it easier for ourselves when we want to add more items to the menu (like bug 1140048).

Looking for any sort of telemetry that might help inform our decision here either way.

Comment 1

[Anthony Lam (:antlam) Find me, @antlam on Slack!]

Attachment: prev_overflowmenu3.png

Here's a mock of what it could look like :)

Comment 2

[:Margaret Leibovic]

(In reply to Anthony Lam (:antlam) from comment #0)

> Looking for any sort of telemetry that might help inform our decision here
> either way.

There is an action.1,menu,back event you can look at for back presses from the menu.

However, I don't see a probe for the system back button, so it would be hard to compare.

Comment 3

[Anthony Lam (:antlam) Find me, @antlam on Slack!]

(In reply to :Margaret Leibovic from comment #2)
> (In reply to Anthony Lam (:antlam) from comment #0)
> 
> > Looking for any sort of telemetry that might help inform our decision here
> > either way.
> 
> There is an action.1,menu,back event you can look at for back presses from
> the menu.
> 
> However, I don't see a probe for the system back button, so it would be hard
> to compare.

Yeah, I didn't think we measured the hardware back button.  :)

Although...just thinking out loud here ...

But given that any content on the web must first be navigated "Back" once before a "Forward" can be performed, shouldn't there be a disproportionate amount of "Back" actions comparatively? So if our telemetry doesn't reflect this relationship, we could assume a lot of users are just using the hardware back button.

If we further couple this with the studies around designing for thumbs [1], we can see that our menu position (which is the pre-req for getting to our "Back" button in the first place) is not only an extra press, but also quite out of the way. 

From some brief observations around the office, I've also noticed that most users naturally reach for the omnipresent hardware back over our menu back.

[1] http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1927

Comment 4

[Paul [pwd]]

It's worth noting that some devices, like the LG G series, use the back button for split screen and thus we'd be depriving those uses access to back history.

Comment 5

[Anthony Lam (:antlam) Find me, @antlam on Slack!]

(In reply to Paul [pwd] from comment #4)
> It's worth noting that some devices, like the LG G series, use the back
> button for split screen and thus we'd be depriving those uses access to back
> history.

Sorry, I'm not too familiar with LG. But IIRC these phones do still have "back" buttons. IF not, how else do they return to the last view or exit/undo actions? We could leverage the same button.

Worst case scenario is we can still show it in the menu for these phones.

Comment 6

[:Margaret Leibovic]

(In reply to Anthony Lam (:antlam) from comment #5)

> Worst case scenario is we can still show it in the menu for these phones.

Be careful here, this assumes we have a robust way to determine whether or not this button is present. In our experience, hardware-specific logic can cause headaches.

I'd be interested to know what Chrome does for these devices, since Chrome doesn't have a back button in the menu.

Comment 7

[Wesley Huang [:wesley_huang] (EPM) (NI me)]

setting importance to P1 per inputs from Taipei UX folks

Comment 8

[Robert Pollak]

If FF 79 for Android, I see the back button now gone in the menu.
I miss it very much, because on my tablet the hardware back button is hard to find when it's dark.
(Also, it's now less easy to directly go back to an earlier point in browsing history.)

Comment 9

[Paul [pwd]]

(In reply to Robert Pollak from comment #8)

If FF 79 for Android, I see the back button now gone in the menu.
I miss it very much, because on my tablet the hardware back button is hard to find when it's dark.
(Also, it's now less easy to directly go back to an earlier point in browsing history.)

It's back in Firefox 80: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/android/80.0/releasenotes/

Comment 10

[BMO Automation]

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