1385064 - Don't show the 'Recommended by Pocket' section to users if they have 'Search' and 'Top Sites' disabled

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: New Tab Page, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me)]

When we start shipping the 'Recommended by Pocket' section, we should hide it if the user has 'Search' and 'Top Sites' disabled. It's highly likely that these users don't want to be distracted and want a blank new tab.

Comment 1

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

In user testing, some did customize to hide top sites but do show recommendations.

The preference pane allows for turning off of each section including "recommended by pocket". Why do you suggest having additional logic to trigger on search+topsites hidden -> also hide pocket? (Instead of just letting the user turn off pocket as well with another click?)

Comment 2

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

Oh I could see this in the context of we previously didn't offer pocket in some locale and then turned it on. And in the meantime, the user had already disabled search and topsites (and potentially whatever other sections).

Comment 3

[Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me)]

(In reply to Ed Lee :Mardak from comment #2)
> Oh I could see this in the context of we previously didn't offer pocket in
> some locale and then turned it on. And in the meantime, the user had already
> disabled search and topsites (and potentially whatever other sections).

Yes, it is this context. The user has been using Firefox with a blank new tab. It would be wrong for us to add things to their newtab when they have already requested that it be blank.

Comment 4

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

There was some discussion about having a "show blank" type option that would override any individual section showing/not.

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/139451/27043160-d46dee2e-4f5e-11e7-8058-c20a582bb984.png

That issue got closed after user studies. See https://github.com/mozilla/activity-stream/issues/2683#issuecomment-308547074

I filed a separate issue for detecting a "blank" type intent.

Comment 5

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

Design has new tabb preferences moving to about:preferences in bug 1432589 where for both start and new tab pages can be customized to default / blank / custom / add-on