1785056 - Cannot change/clear focus with mouse click on document body

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect, P3)

Description

[garrona]

Steps to reproduce:

I just witnessed a pretty bad user experience with the settings UI because in contrast to what is standard in UI design, you cannot change the scroll focus with a mouse click there.

Example:
We have two columns in the settings, the left one with the headings, the right one with the content. By default scroll focus for keyboard up/down is on the headings in the left column.
Now we all know how to change scroll focus on websites or pretty much anywhere in applications and the OS: Mouse-click the panel you want to be scrollable, so mouse-click the right panel with the settings.

Problem: Firefox does not change the scroll focus when clicking somewhere in the empty space of the panel, thus keyboard scrolling stays on the left column, which leads to not only breaking fundamental UI design rules, but also confused users who lack the technical knowledge (as I have just witnessed and had to explain what to do).

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Core::Panning and Zooming' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 2

[:Gijs (away/busy until Mar 10)]

What exactly do you mean by "keyboard scrolling"? What OS are you testing on? And are you sure focus isn't just in the search textbox at the top, so arrow keys / space are going into that box instead of scrolling the page? Unless you have a very very not-tall browser window, the left column with "headings" as you describe them, shouldn't scroll at all.

Comment 3

[garrona]

(In reply to :Gijs (he/him) from comment #2)

What exactly do you mean by "keyboard scrolling"? What OS are you testing on? And are you sure focus isn't just in the search textbox at the top, so arrow keys / space are going into that box instead of scrolling the page? Unless you have a very very not-tall browser window, the left column with "headings" as you describe them, shouldn't scroll at all.

Keyboard scrolling: Using the arrow keys to scroll a website.
This is important for people that do not have a scrollwheel and cannot use a touchpad properly (age & disability).
On Windows the focus is in the search textbox. The problem I discovered was on Xubuntu when helping a person via AnyDesk/Teamviewer. And in this case the default focus seems to have been on the left column with the headings (General/Home/Search/Privacy&Security/...). I cannot confirm this right now, because I don't have access to the PC, but this is what I wrote in my OP.

The focus being in the search textbox (on Windows) is ok. The problem is, that you cannot change focus by clicking in the "content panel" below it, like a user would expect it to be, because this is the normal behavior pretty much everywhere else.

This is important, because there is no way to scroll this panel with the keyboard and people with disabilities (eyesight & hand movement) cannot just grab a tiny scrollbar or have a mousewheel. They need to click somewhere in the panel, make it the focus and then scroll with arrow keys.

Comment 4

[Ina Popescu, Desktop QA]

Attachment: arrows navigation in Settings.mp4

Comment 5

[Ina Popescu, Desktop QA]

I've managed to reproduce this on the latest versions Nightly 106.0a1 and Firefox 104.0.2 on Windows 10 x64. I've attached also a video with this issue. Thanks.

Comment 6

[Sam Foster [:sfoster] (he/him)]

I'm not able to reproduce this. I'm able to move focus and scroll and down either left or right pane by clicking or via keyboard. I'm going to close as WORKSFORME, but feel free to re-open if I'm missing some STR.