Open Bug 1579148 Opened 5 years ago Updated 4 months ago

Update support articles to warn that default behavior of new profiles removes accessibility customisations; might contain migraine triggers

Categories

(support.mozilla.org :: General, defect)

defect

Tracking

(firefox-esr91 wontfix, firefox95 wontfix, firefox96 wontfix, firefox97 wontfix)

Tracking Status
firefox-esr91 --- wontfix
firefox95 --- wontfix
firefox96 --- wontfix
firefox97 --- wontfix

People

(Reporter: erwinm, Unassigned)

References

(Regression)

Details

(Keywords: access, regression)

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.14; rv:56.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/56.0 Waterfox/56.2.13

Steps to reproduce:

In response to a needinfo request, I created a new profile and tried to test a bug in that profile. I got a severe migraine, and nausea, and cannot complete the test.

Actual results:

Profile manager is itself a migraine trigger due to "sheet" animation (a common problem on Mac apps, not sure if it occurs in other Firefox versions).

New profiles are also a migraine trigger, because they restore default Firefox behavior such as:

  • The tab throbber.

  • Smooth scrolling.

  • The blinking cursors.

  • Depending on the site they can also restore animated gifs, animated pngs, etc.

  • They lack any user-installed accessibility fixes.

Expected results:

I should have declined the needinfo request, because of the risks.

The Profile Manager instructions here should discuss the risks. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles?

Unsafe requests such as restart with add-ons disabled, new profile, and Nightly should not be standard requests.

Component: General → Untriaged
Product: bugzilla.mozilla.org → Firefox
Version: Production → unspecified

Thank you for filing this. I'm looping in our a11y team on it.

Component: Untriaged → Disability Access
Type: defect → enhancement
Summary: Please do not ask people to test with a fresh profile → Default behavior of new profiles contain migraine triggers

Reporter mentions issues with new profiles which is a thing we often ask reporters.

Users who have motion sensitivity risk migraines when restarting with a new profile.

Please be aware of this and consider alternative when asking bug reporters for information.

In the meantime I've asked the a11y team to investigate.

Flags: needinfo?(tmaity)
Flags: needinfo?(Virtual)

Unfortunately, safe mode and new-profile are often a required step into investigating some of the reported issues, due to the fact that before asking for more complicated scenarios, we need to exclude any profile corruption / profile customization / extensions interaction. Also, there are cases in which we don't want to touch the user_profile with test data.

Additionally to the above, please note that starting with 67, Firefox default behavior is that for each new install path, there is going to be a new profile. So, even asking verification on a different channel or a different install will trigger a new profile. (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/dedicated-profiles-firefox-installation#w_what-changes-are-we-making-to-profiles-in-firefox-67)

I do believe that comment 0 is unfortunate and while we appreciate all the support in reproducing, fixing and verifying bugs, for certain don't impose on our contributors. Therefore, all in all, I see no functionality or a11y issue with new profiles/new dedicated profiles, other than that by design, they contain no user customization - only the default values, which might lead to a bad experience in some cases. In these cases, my expectation would be that the NI to be politely turned down.

Flags: needinfo?(tmaity)

I'm not Mozilla employee and I'm not part of a11y team. I'm just simple volunteer. After testing Mozilla Firefox with default settings for over half year, I can confirm what MarjaE experiences. In my case, with my morbid and unhealthy eyes, it's caused mainly by usage by Mozilla Firefox blurry grayscale antialiasing in text fonts, instead of sharp subpixel antialiasing in text fonts in some places. In some other cases, there is flashing/flickering/blinking on white in some wide and large areas. Not to mention that requesting feature to disable some of these issues are nearly Sisyphean labors, and in most cases will results as WONTFIX, because no and EOT, or bug will be inactive for months and years, and in end forgotten into oblivion. Sadly, new "eye candy" features have higher priority than regression they caused.

Flags: needinfo?(Virtual)
Severity: normal → critical
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Keywords: access
OS: Unspecified → All
QA Contact: Virtual
Hardware: Unspecified → All
Version: unspecified → other

Blocked by bug 710372 which enables smooth painscrolling by default.

Type: enhancement → defect

There is a Mac setting which stops sheet animations.

In the Terminal, defaults write -g NSAutomaticWindowAnimationsEnabled -bool false

That doesn't address the other issues, but it should be a workaround for the profile manager.

See Also: → 1687503

Regressed sometime before FF 0.6, jusdging by comments here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=204268

Apparently there was a deliberate decision to enable smooth scrolling by default. This not only injures people trying to set of Firefox, it injures people with neuro issues who try to test bugs in Firefox.

Regressed by: 198964

Set release status flags based on info from the regressing bug 198964

Has Regression Range: --- → yes

In the process of migrating remaining bugs to the new severity system, the severity for this bug cannot be automatically determined. Please retriage this bug using the new severity system.

Severity: critical → --

I think S2 makes sense, because it is a high impact bug for those of us affected, and it affects testing.

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:asa, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Flags: needinfo?(asa)

With the system prefers-reduced-motion setting, smooth scrolls are now disabled.

See Also: → 1725474

Redirect a needinfo that is pending on an inactive user to the triage owner.
:ayeddi, since the bug doesn't have a severity set, could you please set the severity or close the bug?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Flags: needinfo?(asa) → needinfo?(ayeddi)

I think it makes sense to update any support articles we have about safe mode, creating new profiles, etc. to note that customisations, including any accessibility customisations that aren't set in the operating system, will be lost.

Beyond that, now that the tab throbber and smooth scrolling are correctly disabled when the OS reduced motion setting is enabled, and given that there is an OS setting which Firefox respects to disable sheet animations, are there other items which need to be addressed here specifically for creating a new profile?

Flags: needinfo?(ayeddi) → needinfo?(erwinm)

Image animation, bug 1864581.

Flags: needinfo?(erwinm)

Okay. Since we have a specific bug to handle that, let's deal with that there and scope this one to the support article updates.

Summary: Default behavior of new profiles contain migraine triggers → Update support articles to warn that default behavior of new profiles removes accessibility customisations; might contain migraine triggers

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:Jamie, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Flags: needinfo?(jteh)

Moving the ticket to the SuDo product to update the documentation on the website.

Component: Disability Access → General
Flags: needinfo?(jteh)
Product: Firefox → support.mozilla.org
Version: other → unspecified
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