1591511 - New search icon next to URL bar feels out of place, has conflicting affordance

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1591509

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Description

[Florens Verschelde :fvsch]

Attachment: toolbar-controls-proximity-patterns.png

I'm going to argue that with the current implementation of the permanent search icon from bug 1589836, as it stands in Nightly (20191025095546), comes with a few perception or affordance issues.

I suspect Firefox UX has some thoughts and plans about this already, but as they don't seem to be public I'm basing this feedback strictly on what has landed in Nightly.

First, some anecdotal feedback from puzzled users:

• Personal: when I first saw this design in Nightly a few days back I was sure it was a bug.
• Puzzled or negative comments in the implementation bug:
  • https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1589836#c2
  • https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1589836#c3
  • https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1589836#c8
  • https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1589836#c11
• On Twitter:
  • https://twitter.com/brunnopleffken/status/1187742320042696704

My argument for why this change might be hard to parse for users: users might be trained by existing UI patterns in many apps to:

1. Identify an icon inside a text input box as a passive visual label.
2. Identify an icon in a toolbar as a standalone button.

With the current implementation, the Search button is too close to the URL bar to be quickly identified as a standalone button, but it's not following Pattern #1 or Pattern #3 (see attached) that could explain its relation to the URL bar. It ends up in a strange in-between state where it "just floats there".

If the design concept is to put an icon outside of the text field to draw user's attention and tell them "hey you can search here!", and when clicked we're like "Surprise! It was part of that text field all along! See, that's where you can search for stuff!" … maybe the design should go all-in and make the icon look like a standalone button, using the standard Photon toolbar spacing.

(And it might be worth investigating an option to hide it, if power users find that it's an unnecessary hint that wastes space for them.)

Comment 1

[Marco Bonardo [:mak]]

Too many issues in a single report, this is not trackable nor actionable. The current design is a work in progress, most of these bugs are already tracked, some is fixed.
Modulo the already filed bugs, this is not different from bug 1591509.