1443054 - Notification of "Never remember history" = "always use private browsing" hidden by modal dialog

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Settings UI, enhancement)

Description

[Eduardo Trápani]

Attachment: Screen capture of text hidden by modal dialog

If a user sets "Never remember history" a pop is inmediatly shown asking to restart the browser and *underneath* the dialog the text changes to notify that the behaviour will be the same as always browsing privately.

It's too easy to miss because users don't expect a text to change underneath the dialog and all attention is directed to the modal popup dialog.

Comment 1

[Johann Hofmann [:johannh]]

That doesn't really sound like a (solvable) issue to me. The dialog will come up in the center of the screen. You can always scroll the text to a position where it's hidden by the dialog.

I also don't think we consider it mandatory for the user to read the description in order to make a decision on the dialog. They can still read it after the browser restarted ("Never remember history" is not a destructive action AFAIK).

Comment 2

[Eduardo Trápani]

(In reply to Johann Hofmann [:johannh] from comment #1)
> That doesn't really sound like a (solvable) issue to me. The dialog will
> come up in the center of the screen. You can always scroll the text to a
> position where it's hidden by the dialog.

But you have to know you're missing something in the first place. I had to read Bug 701246,comment 4 to discover that text was being changed underneath. I never saw it before that.

This is a user interface issue, I will reopen and reassign it to the right module.

As for a solution, the modal dialog could add the text to explain what the change is about to do. That is the expected place. It is really weird from an interface point of view to change the text you are not looking at anymore (even if it is not hidden, it is a background change) to explain what will happen when you click Restart on the modal dialog. I haven't seen that behaviour anywhere else in Firefox.

> I also don't think we consider it mandatory for the user to read the
> description in order to make a decision on the dialog. They can still read
> it after the browser restarted ("Never remember history" is not a
> destructive action AFAIK).

They could, but, again, that's not how the user interface should work. I see the options, select one and a modal dialog asks me to restart and I choose Restart. There is no reason to go back to the text that changed unless something is not right (and that leads to many reports like Bug 1404103)