1584510 - Recommended by Pocket cards lose their “Saved to Pocket” status after a browser restart

Status: NEW

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

Description

[Andreea Cupsa [:acupsa], Experiments QA]

[Affected versions]:

• Firefox Release 69.0.1, Build ID: 20190917135527
• Firefox Beta 70.0b9, Build ID: 20190923154733
• Firefox Nightly 71.0a1, Build ID: 20190926213542

[Affected Platforms]:

• All Windows
• All Mac
• All Linux

[Prerequisites]:

• Have a new Firefox profile with the following preferences set:
  • browser.search.region to US
• Be logged in to Pocket.

[Steps to reproduce]:

1. Open the browser with the profile from the prerequisites.
2. Open a new tab.
3. Click the Context Menu button from a card from the Recommended by Pocket section.
4. Click on the Save to Pocket button.
5. Restart the browser.
6. Observe the story card previously saved to Pocket.

[Expected result]:

• The “Saved to Pocket” status is displayed at the bottom of the card.

[Actual result]:

• The card has no status displayed.

[Notes]:

• The “Save to Pocket” option is displayed in the context menu of the previously saved card instead of the “Archive to Pocket” and “Delete from Pocket” options.
• Attached a screen recording with the issue here.

Comment 1

[Jessilyn Davis]

Wolasi - Ux/UI guidance here?

Comment 2

[Jessilyn Davis]

This functionality is at parity with Activity Stream. New Tab page doesn't contain state outside of what the user has done in Pocket. Might be a security/privacy thing to pull in that info. TBD on if/when it's worth doing.

Activity Stream does have Highlights functionality from recent Pocket saves.

Marking this as P3 - TBD on when we're ready to think about this.

Comment 3

[Graham Perrin]

Attachment: Screenshot of about:newtab

This does seem defective, to me.

It feels:

• lossy
• wasteful (of space) and repetitive
• disorderly and unpredictable, when a previously unseen item appears in the midst of items that were either (a) seen and saved or (b) dismissed – in this shot, the only item that was genuinely new is dead centre of the nine items (at other times, new items seem to appear in a different order)
• inconsistent, when the lower part of about:newtab is in sync with e.g. actions that were performed elsewhere – shortly before this shot, the 'People Like You More …' page had been saved from https://app.getpocket.com/discover

I don't doubt the technical explanations for the Recommended section of the page losing its way, but from an end user perspective, it's like:

• "If the bottom part of the page can be in sync with the truth, then why not the middle part?"

IMHO it's very important to add finesse in areas such as this, if Mozilla is to maximise end user (and content provider) acceptance of funding alternatives that do not hinge upon advertising.

Thanks

Comment 4

[Jessilyn Davis]

Scott - can you look into this and make a recommendation/ask the question of Product/UX?

Comment 5

[Scott [:thecount] Downe]

Related: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1173827