1410302 - about:preferences doesn't scroll with PgUp, PgDn, Up, Down, Home, and End keys

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect, P3)

Description

[alex_mayorga]

Steps:

- Load about:preferences
- Press PgDn key in the keyboard

Result:
Nothing happens.

Expected result:
The page scrolls down.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:58.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/58.0 ID:20171019100107

Comment 1

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

Can we change how the autofocus of the search box works? Instead of focusing it by default, we could focus the search box on the first printable character (excluding Space so Space would still scroll the page)?

Comment 2

[Ricky Chien [:rickychien] (inactive)]

I'm not sure about "first printable character", could you give me more details?

Comment 3

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

This is what I was thinking of, http://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/d30462037ffea383e74c42542c820cf65b2b144e/browser/base/content/abouthome/aboutHome.js#64-90

Comment 5

[Ricky Chien [:rickychien] (inactive)]

I'm still unclear about "focus the search box on first printable character". 

I suppose that you're suggesting to drop the focusing on searchbox by default and focus on body / a scrollable content to make it panel to be scrollable when entering Preferences. If so, we'd probably ask Tina / Helen first for getting their opinions since the current behavior is by design.

Comment 6

[Ricky Chien [:rickychien] (inactive)]

IIRC, the last conversation with designers is that they want to emphasize the search feature. In order to bring search ahead, searchbox will be focused by default to make sure user can explore or get noticed more easily. We believe that using search would be more accessible than other ways to look for things.

Set default focus on searchbox definitely lose the keyboard control of Preferences page (unable to use PgUp/PgDn). But the benefit of search might be useful than keyboard navigation.

P.S. Chrome's settings also focus on searchbox when page load as well. This could be reasonable for them since they believe search is a powerful feature in such complicated content.

Comment 7

[Ricky Chien [:rickychien] (inactive)]

After offline discussion with UX, they're thinking that comment 3's suggestion is too implicit and easily overlooked by normal users. As comment 6 mentioned, UX team would like to promote search feature to user, becoming the page entry for finding and exploring content. 

Although we're unable to scroll by PgUp & PgDn after page load, people can still press "tab" once to change focused element, and then PgUp & PgDn scroll will work as usual.

This feature is by design, so I'm going to set it as resolve wontfix. Thanks:)

Comment 8

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

Coming back to this bug, it feels that the wrong decision was made here. I think we are expecting too much from users to expect them to press Tab to change the focused element and then scroll the page.

Comment 10

[biziclop]

Focusing to the search bar by default is not the problem, the problem is that you can't unset the focus, not even by clicking outside or even selecting some passive text.
It is an absolutely nightmarish ux that something is always stuck to your "hand", as if it were covered with already-used chewing gum.
By tabbing outside the search bar, I usually get landed on a radio button, and if I try navigate with Up/Down, it instantly changes it, without knowing what the previous value was, and there is no undo. You may be not even aware of the fact that you changed anything, you just see that scrolling just doesn't work.

Not everybody wants/likes/can scroll with mouse/touchpad/whatever, there are people who prefer using, or can only use keyboard. Think of various disabilities.
(Maybe the UX team should be more diversified or should consult with actually crippled people?)

Suggestions for solutions:

Like https://duckduckgo.com/
Search bar is focused by default, click outside and scroll happily with keyboard afterwards.

Like https://www.quora.com/ (requires registration)
Search bar is focused by default, but you can still use Up/Down/PgUp/PgDn/Space/Shift-Space/etc. to navigate.
You can also click outside to remove focus from the search bar.

Comment 11

[Ambrose Li]

I agree wholeheartedly with comment 10. I don’t even have a real disability, but on Linux I’m disabled by my laptop’s bad trackpad driver and I have to use mousekeys (I can’t figure out how to use Linux’s screen reader or else I’d use it too). Many UI decisions in Firefox (this is just one example) are disabling mousekey users.

Also, I’d argue that search is not even a usable UI for the preferences page. You explore an unknown page with unknown content with PgUp and PḡDn. No one uses search if you have no idea what might be there.

Comment 12

[MarjaE]

Agreed. Searching isn't an option for users who (a) are trying to find out which accessibility preferences are available, or (b) get migraines from flashing. Scrolling isn't an option if we either (c) can't scroll, or (d) get migraines from having scrolling and non-scrolling elements near the middle of the screen at the same time.