18746 - toolbar buttons not labeled

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(SeaMonkey :: General, defect, P3)

Description

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-5, no longer working on Mozilla)]

DESCRIPTION:  The buttons on the toolbar (back, forward, reload, and stop) are
not labeled.  While the meaning of these buttons *may* be clear to users who
have used web browsers before, it is unlikely, IMO, that their meaning will be
clear to new users.  They could just as easily be interpreted as scroll-left,
scroll-right, turn-page-upside-down, and exit.  (More likely, they'll be
interpreted as either "that's a funny looking decoration" or "I better not touch
that, it might do something bad.")  **There is no reason it should be clear to
novice users that the most used features of web browsers would be back, forward,
reload, and stop.**  There is a reason these buttons have been labeled by
default in many browsers

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:
 * load mozilla

ACTUAL RESULTS:
 <-      ->      ^\      X

EXPECTED RESULTS:
 <-      ->      ^\      X
Back  Forward  Reload  Stop

DOES NOT WORK CORRECTLY ON:
 * Linux, mozilla, 1999-11-11-08-M12

WORKS CORRECTLY ON (IIRC):
 * NCSA Mosaic 2.0a2, 2.0a4
 * Netscape 0.92
 * Netscape 1.0
 * Netscape 1.1
 * Netscape 2.x
 * Netscape 3.x
 * Netscape 4.x
 * MSIE 4.0
 * MSIE 5.0
 * Opera 3.5x, 3.60

Comment 1

[shuang (gone)]

I don't think the reason for this bug is valid. But I will let german to explain
it in depth since he made the design decision on this.

Comment 2

[german]

a) these buttons will have tooltips and a status explanantion
b) these buttons are so established by now that more text does not make them
more useful
c) most importantly, we have found the labes back, forward, reload and stop
often to be much more confusing for novice users that are not familiar with the
terminology
d) after the buttons have been tried once their meaning will become immediatedly
clear
e) we have worked hard to reduce the number of navigation buttons shown to only
four, in order to reduce clutter and let users focus on the most essential
things
f) there will be a space saving text only mode for these toolbars
g) you or anybody can create, use and publish new skins that of course can add
as many text labels as you want.
h) translations of these button labels to other languages are akward at best.

I hate to bring up other examples, but have you thought about why a palm device
does not have labels on their 4/5 buttons? Same reasons as some of the above!
Simplicity, Un-clutteredness and directness.

Comment 3

[german]

a) these buttons will have tooltips and a status explanantion
b) these buttons are so established by now that more text does not make them
more useful
c) most importantly, we have found the labes back, forward, reload and stop
often to be much more confusing for novice users that are not familiar with the
terminology
d) after the buttons have been tried once their meaning will become immediatedly
clear
e) we have worked hard to reduce the number of navigation buttons shown to only
four, in order to reduce clutter and let users focus on the most essential
things
f) there will be a space saving text only mode for these toolbars
g) you or anybody can create, use and publish new skins that of course can add
as many text labels as you want.
h) translations of these button labels to other languages are akward at best.

I hate to bring up other examples, but have you thought about why a palm device
does not have labels on their 4/5 buttons? Same reasons as some of the above!
Simplicity, Un-clutteredness and directness.

Comment 4

[Claudius Gayle]

marking VERIFIED

Comment 5

[leger]

Moving all UE/UI bugs to new component: User Interface: Design Feedback
UE/UI component will be deleted.

Comment 6

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

If this feature is VERIFIED WONTFIX, why are there prefs for it in the prefs 
dialog? ... Just wondering.

Comment 7

[Claudius Gayle]

if those prefs are in the prefs dialog then that is a bug too. It should be logged against prefs UI.

Comment 8

[shuang (gone)]

Yes it will be considered as a Prefs but. We do have a rough proposal on how the 
wording for this pref should be changed, but have to be finalized bit later. 

Comment 9

[german]

In addition we need to have a coupkle of titledbutton properties in place that
can be turned on off by javascript which will come online later after beta1.
Feel free to file a bug to take out the prefs for now until such time when this
functionality is enabled.