Changing the search engine in an empty search box should not load the search engine's homepage
Categories
(Firefox :: Search, enhancement, P3)
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(Reporter: authentictech, Unassigned)
References
Details
(Whiteboard: [sng])
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:121.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/121.0
Steps to reproduce:
- Keep the search box empty.
- Change the search engine using the search engine selection button to any other search engine.
Actual results:
The browser loads the search engine's home page whether it be Google, IMDB, Amazon, or whatever other search engine has been installed by the user.
Expected results:
The home page should not load when changing the search engine in the search box.
The user is not choosing to load the actual home page of the search engine - they are choosing which search engine to use in the search box. If one considers a person not familiar with the browser (and thus saw the behavior before), this would not be the expected behavior of taking this action. There is no indication that the home page will load by taking this action, therefore it likely violates the "principle of least astonishment" (and perhaps other UX principles whereby software should not take an action without the user's consent or first informing the user before an action is taken to trigger the behavior).
The user may have reasons not to want to load the search engine home page but, whether or not they do, it was not a request the user made (which would be clicking a link or typing the home page address in the location box) but an action the browser is taking on behalf of the user without their authorization.
Furthermore, it is, I expect, a redundant action since the user is not going to use the homepage as they are using the search box. They have chosen to change the search engine in the search box because they are going to use the search box to search - in which case the page will change anyway to load the search results. If the user wanted to load the search engine homepage they would have typed the homepage address in the location bar.
The user may also only wish to change the search engine without using the search engine, in which case, loading the search engine's homepage is not wanted.
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Reporter | |
Comment 1•2 years ago
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If one considers a person not familiar with the browser (and thus saw the behavior before), this would not be the expected behavior of taking this action.
Should read "If one considers a person not familiar with the browser (and thus never saw the behavior before), this would not be the expected behavior of taking this action."
I appreciate this may seem trivial, but if a UX principle exists it should be followed, and it likely exists for a good reason. I don't believe loading the search engine's homepage is what the user wants or expects. It is, in fact, a useless behavior (since the search results page will load in the browser anyway after searching using the search box - the user's likely intention - in place of the homepage) and is, therefore, also a waste of machine and network resources (albeit little); thus it should be removed.
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Updated•2 years ago
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Comment 2•2 years ago
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We have recently planned to no longer open an empty search page when clicking one of the listed search engines.
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Updated•2 years ago
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Comment 3•1 year ago
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Please, tell me how to fix it in the Firefox source code? Unfortunately, Firefox is becoming less and less convenient, a sad fact. I don't want to use Firefox with this change (regression). What version can I roll back to now that doesn't have this UI/UX regression?
This is not a bug. That's the expected result.
The change makes the search bar much less convenient.
Please roll back the change.
(In reply to Mark Jones from comment #1)
If one considers a person not familiar with the browser (and thus saw the behavior before), this would not be the expected behavior of taking this action.
Should read "If one considers a person not familiar with the browser (and thus never saw the behavior before), this would not be the expected behavior of taking this action."
I appreciate this may seem trivial, but if a UX principle exists it should be followed, and it likely exists for a good reason. I don't believe loading the search engine's homepage is what the user wants or expects. It is, in fact, a useless behavior (since the search results page will load in the browser anyway after searching using the search box - the user's likely intention - in place of the homepage) and is, therefore, also a waste of machine and network resources (albeit little); thus it should be removed.
I disagree with this.
If one considers a person who is not familiar with the browser, they probably won’t even enable the independent search bar.
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Comment 6•1 year ago
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(In reply to jamie960 from comment #4)
This is not a bug. That's the expected result.
The change makes the search bar much less convenient.
Please roll back the change.
You have misunderstood this bug. This bug was about the page being changed unexpectedly when using the key commands to change the default search engine. It is/was not about changing the functionality of clicking/pressing enter on an empty search box. Please keep the discussion of that to the connect thread.
I'm going to mark this as works for me though, as the bug here is now fixed even in the case where the shift-enter on empty search bar is now available.
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