1427911 - Remove "Close Tab" Option from the "Page Action Menu" for the iPad

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox for iOS :: Menu and Toolbar, enhancement)

Description

[bbell]

Attachment: Page Action Menu

The Page Action Menu on mobile and desktop is for operations done with the web-resource the user is using. The management of tabs is a browser level operation, and there are established places in the browser for doing that. The Inclusion of tab management in the Page Action Menu muddies the structure of the application.

If the goal is to make closing a tab on the iPhone as easy as it is on iPad or Desktop, then there are other ways to do this, that don't inject needless UI in a place that shows on the already correct iPad, and Desktop. In other words, if we want to enhance the iPhone's tabs management UI let's do that only on the iPhone, and not in a way that makes the iPad worse. Arguably the fix has already landed with the inclusion of "Close Tab" in the long press menu found on the tabs icon at the bottom of the screen.  

Also, menu space is a precious resource that needs considered management. As the application matures more options will need to find homes, and redundancies culled. Close Tabs, in the Page Action Menu, is an apparent redundancy.

Comment 1

[bbell]

Attachment: ••• is not always around

As an addendum, the Page Action Menu (PAM) is a subpar place for tab management in another critical way. Since the PAM is dedicated to sharing and saving the site a user is visiting, the Menu is not always even presented all the time.  It's not shown on a New Tab. A user that is used to the PAM as the go-to place to Close a Tab will be disorientated.

Comment 2

[James Hugman [:jhugman] [@jhugman]]

> If the goal is to make closing a tab on the iPhone as easy as it is on iPad or Desktop, then there are other ways to do this, that don't inject needless UI in a place that shows on the already correct iPad, and Desktop.

The goal is to make closing the current tab tractable. The previous iteration of closing the current tab was to hit the tab tray, hunt for the small version of the tab that I was on, then either swipe or hunt and peck for the tiny X. Prior to the photon rework, the current tab wasn't highlighted, making the task even harder.

Personally, the long press on tab tray button is a fine place to put the menu, but *every* Firefox for iOS user who I show long press menus is surprised that it's there. At best, these things are short cuts for exotic things that are difficult to do otherwise; at worst: they are a dumping ground for features that we haven't got better UX for. Closing the current tab is not an exotic thing to do. This is not suitable for non-power-users.

As you point out: the PAM menu item _is_ redundant in the iPad case. We should remove it for the iPad case.

I am reluctant to make the closing the current tab harder than two taps for non-power-users on the iPhone, without something as good to replace it.

Comment 3

[Farhan Patel [:farhan]]

I like the idea of removing it from iPad that makes a lot of sense. 

I get where Bryan is coming from though, This is one of the problems we had with the old menu. It was never clear what would be in the menu. You'd always have to tap it and hope the thing you were looking for was inside. 

I also agree that the long press menus are hard to find however I dont think there is anything we can do to make that better. But it still takes 2 taps to close a tab if you use the tabs tray. And the trab tray animates right to your current tab so it makes it easy to know which tab to close. 

If we want to preserve a strict separation of menus which we worked so hard to build in Photon I think we should remove it.

Comment 4

[bbell]

Attachment: close example

My concern with mixing contextual options together is that it makes it hard for the user to understand and predict what they will find in the menus. The PAM can pretty quickly devolve into a junk drawer in the eyes of the user. 

Closing a tab is also one of those features that's not tremendously important to day to day operations and is arguably a power user feature since the more common use case is to simply recycle the tab you're looking at to perform the next operation. I'm hard-pressed to think of why we would want to promote this as a need to do interaction for the general user since the only advantage closing a tab provides the user is to clear out and reset the (long press) Back menu, or to clean up after opening tabs in the background, which is also a long press power user operation. This leads me to the conclusion that the long press on tabs to close tab option is good enough for now.

In the near future there are other ways to address this. for instance we have a plan to augment the keyboard with the Microphone, clipboard preview, and to move the QR reader there. This would provide room for showing an (X) where the QR code reader is now. This would match more closely with the structure iPad and the Desktop have regarding how tabs are closed and would be in plain sight for the user.

Comment 5

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

(In reply to bbell from comment #0)

> The Page Action Menu on mobile and desktop is for operations done with the
> web-resource the user is using. The management of tabs is a browser level
> operation, and there are established places in the browser for doing that.

Speaking as a user, that's not my understanding.

I understand the PAM to be "this tab" and the browser menu to be "everything else". That's why "Send Tab to Device" is in the PAM, and "Enable Night Mode" is in main settings.

The PAM is, notably, not just about the current web resource, otherwise "Request Desktop Site" wouldn't be sticky -- it's more scoped to the current tab than the current page.

As a counterpoint, then: "close this tab" is very much an action a user expects to be associated with the current tab, so the current position does make sense.

That said, I understand where you're coming from, and I'm also concerned about junk drawers. At present the main menu has four navigation/tab management options: Top Sites/Bookmarks/Reading List/History, which navigate the current tab. Close Tab could reasonably live there, too.

Comment 6

[James Hugman [:jhugman] [@jhugman]]

> Closing a tab […] is arguably a power user feature

This might be self-fulfilling. We have multiple options to open new tabs, but no easy-to-find granular close mechanism. The tab tray has a method, but there leaves the choice of what tab to select is left to the user. See Bug 1343231 for example.

Close tab doesn't just have the property of clearing a history, but also selecting what the user sees next.

Comment 7

[Robin Andersen [:tecgirl]]

IIRC, the request for Close Tab came from directly from our users, thus prompting us to add it to the menu. I don’t think the PAM is becoming a junk drawer for adding it, it is most definitely a Page Action therefore would not belong in the Menu. I do agree with dropping it from iPad. I don’t agree that it’s redundant because it’s in the longpress options, for two reasons; 1) discoverability of the long press option and 2) it’s not such a bad thing to have particular redundancies, it gives the user more of a chance to incorporate the patterns once they learn them. Seeing how this is a browser, closing a tab seems to be something that many users wish to do – without going to the Tab Tray. 

As I’ve previously mentioned, this is also something that is going back and forth based on opinion, and I would very much like to see discoverability in our user research.

Comment 8

[James Hugman [:jhugman] [@jhugman]]

Attachment: Link to Github pull-request: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/firefox-ios/pull/3576

Comment 9

[James Hugman [:jhugman] [@jhugman]]

Merged into master.