1377317 - Increase size of new tab tiles

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: New Tab Page, defect)

Description

[Marco Castelluccio [:marco]]

The new tab tiles got really small, they are not as useful as before (I can't distinguish the thumbnails as well as before).

Comment 1

[[e-mail]]

Since the new tab (compact mode) tile size is following activity-stream's style, let's pass the question to activity-stream team's UX.

Aaron, how do you think about the tab tile size?

Comment 2

[[e-mail]]

We'll back out to the origin new tab in bug 1379860 so this won't affect onboarding. But the issue will still occur in activity-stream.

Comment 3

[Aaron Benson]

(In reply to Marco Castelluccio [:marco] from comment #0)
> The new tab tiles got really small, they are not as useful as before (I
> can't distinguish the thumbnails as well as before).

Can you include a screenshot of what you're seeing?

Comment 4

[Marco Castelluccio [:marco]]

Attachment: screen.png

Comment 5

[Oriol Brufau [:Oriol]]

Attachment: comparison.png

I have even more empty space than Marco, but the thumbnails are so tiny that most titles don't fit and the images only show a small portion which is not enough to recognize the page.

Comment 6

[Vlad Bacia-Mociran [:VladB]]

In the screenshots from comment 4 and comment 5 is the compact New Tab and normal New tab (not Activity Stream). This is related to bug 1369287 and bug 1379860. 

Activity Stream is not yet preffed ON by default in Nightly. Activity Stream can be preffed ON in Nightly from about:config and setting "browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.enabled" to true.

Comment 7

[Aaron Benson]

Yep, what Vlad said (thanks Vlad)! 

And thanks for the screenshots, that helped to clarify things.

Comment 8

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

The two screenshots aren't useful, because they show the default tiles that weren't updated for the compact layout (yet).

To properly evaluate this bug, you'll have to use a profile with history where auto-generated tiles are displayed. And like I said in bug 1369287 comment 19, I do agree they are too small.

Comment 9

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to Vlad Bacia-Mociran [:VladB], Desktop Engineering QA from comment #6)
> Activity Stream is not yet preffed ON by default in Nightly. Activity Stream
> can be preffed ON in Nightly from about:config and setting
> "browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.enabled" to true.

And note that activity stream tiles (both thumbnail and label) are even smaller than with about:newtab's compact layout.

Comment 10

[Marco Castelluccio [:marco]]

Attachment: screen with used profile

Comment 11

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

Design feedback is that the activity stream top sites should be showing high-res icons instead of screenshots/thumbnails in the common case, so users don't need to rely on trying to see the details of small images or text. They'll keep this on their radar as those high-res icons are implemented.

Comment 13

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

Also that there is other content that will be shown on the new tab page not just top sites.

Comment 14

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to Ed Lee :Mardak from comment #11)
> Design feedback is that the activity stream top sites should be showing
> high-res icons instead of screenshots/thumbnails in the common case

What exactly is the common case supposed to be? Out of my twelve tiles, seven are niche enough that I'm pretty sure we won't ship high-res icons for them. Am I this weird? :/

Comment 15

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

Sorry. I should have said "will be showing" as in the high res icons aren't implemented yet. It was blocked on bug 1374898. For Beta/Release 56 (where activity stream is off by default except beta users via shield), only high res icons for the default sites will be included https://github.com/mozilla/activity-stream/issues/2944

I believe targeting 57, there will be the high-res icons functionality added.

Comment 16

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to Ed Lee :Mardak from comment #15)
> Sorry. I should have said "will be showing" as in the high res icons aren't
> implemented yet.

I understood as much. I guess my question is, what's the solution for the millions of sites we won't have high-res icons for in 57? Stuff like public.etherpad-mozilla.org and www.ostsaechsische-sparkasse-dresden.de, just to name two examples from my current top sites. Are we going to keep using screenshots for these? This would bring us back to square one as far as this bug is concerned. Or are we going to use the domain name's first letter? This would in a way solve this bug (but make bug 1384052 more pressing since the first letter alone certainly won't be enough to identify tiles.)

Comment 17

[Aaron Benson]

Attachment: Top Site w/ supplementary favicon

Top Sites that don't have a high res icon will get a screenshot and supplementary (smaller) favicon in the corner.

Comment 18

[Oriol Brufau [:Oriol]]

(In reply to Ed Lee :Mardak from comment #13)
> Also that there is other content that will be shown on the new tab page not
> just top sites.

Oh yeah, you made the tiles so tiny just to have enough space to add huge stupid ads "recommended" by this useless thingie called Pocket. A typical click-bait article, something about bikes in New York which does not affect me because I live in Europe, and something about a singer I don't care about. Thanks, but I prefer my tiles.

Comment 19

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

(In reply to Oriol [:Oriol] from comment #18)
> bikes in New York which does not affect me because I live in Europe
Specifically to that, the recommendations should also be geo-targeted now instead of only by locale, so the section will probably go away for you. https://github.com/mozilla/activity-stream/issues/3004

There's a separate bug 1383004 to allow for increasing the number of sites as opposed to the size of them of this bug.

Comment 20

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

Design says they're staying 96x96