1955469 - [Spike] Investigate suppressing the Windows set default guidance notification toast via messaging system action

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Messaging System, defect, P1)

Description

[C Gordon]

MSFT’s 1-click intervention is in progress and as a result we are seeing increasing default failure rates. Our guidance notification is critical to users who want to set Firefox as default but are inhibited by 1-click set to default failures. We would like to test out alternatives to the guidance notification such as including instructions in our message surface and the ability to open the windows setting from the message CTA rather than from a guidance notification. This would reduce the number of clicks for users who want to set Firefox as their default browser.

This spike can be linked to an upcoming guidance notification optimization test (Link: https://mozilla-hub.atlassian.net/browse/FXE-1293)

Comment 1

[Meg Viar [:mviar]]

I believe what you're proposing is already the default experience when 1-click set to default is disabled. When the SET_DEFAULT_BROWSER special message action is triggered, the Windows Apps > Default apps > Firefox settings page is automatically opened (currently the guidance notification is also shown).

Should the scope of this bug be to explore conditionally preventing the guidance notification from showing? And/or having targeting like oneClickDefaultEnabled to determine if we need to include guidance in the message or, if 1-click is enabled, show a simpler message without guidance?

Comment 2

[Meg Viar [:mviar]]

After discussion with Courtney, updating this bug to explore suppressing the guidance notification toast for setting default on Windows for select messaging system messages.

Comment 3

[Meg Viar [:mviar]]

For experimentation purposes, we already have the ability to turn off guidance notification globally. However, we may want to suppress the guidance notification for a single set default action from a message that includes built-in guidance.

_maybeShowSetDefaultGuidanceNotification checks the Nimbus feature variable "setDefaultGuidanceNotifications". This variable's fallback pref "browser.shell.setDefaultGuidanceNotifications" can also be set to false to prevent showing set default guidance notifications.

We can use set orderedExecution to true with a MULTI_ACTION that sets the guidance notification pref to false, then triggers set default, then sets the pref back to true:

                  "action": {
                    "type": "MULTI_ACTION",
                    "data": {
                      "orderedExecution": true,
                      "actions": [
                        {
                          "type": "SET_PREF",
                          "data": {
                            "pref": {
                              "name": "browser.shell.setDefaultGuidanceNotifications",
                              "value": false
                            }
                          }
                        },
                        {
                          "type": "SET_DEFAULT_BROWSER"
                        },
                        {
                          "type": "SET_PREF",
                          "data": {
                            "pref": {
                              "name": "browser.shell.setDefaultGuidanceNotifications",
                              "value": true
                            }
                          }
                        }
                      ]
                    }

Only one small on-train change is required: Add "browser.shell.setDefaultGuidanceNotifications" to list of allowed prefs for SET_PREF Special Message Action.

Comment 4

[Meg Viar [:mviar]]

@Courtney, see proposal above. If you'd like to experiment with this in 138, we could aim to uplift the attached patch (it's one-line and very low risk). Let me know what you think.

Comment 5

[Meg Viar [:mviar]]

Attachment: Bug 1955469 - Add Windows guidance notification pref to the SMA allowed prefs list

Comment 6

[Meg Viar [:mviar]]

(duplicate comment removed)

Comment 7

[C Gordon]

@meg, yes, uplifting to Fx138 would be great please. Thank you so much for the quick turnaround!

Comment 8

[Meg Viar [:mviar]]

Attachment: Bug 1955469 - Add Windows guidance notification pref to the SMA allowed prefs list

To facilitate suppressing the Windows set default guidance notification toast via messaging system action

Original Revision: https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/D244180

Comment 9

[Phabricator Automation]

beta Uplift Approval Request

• User impact if declined: With the rapid decline of 1-click set to default on Windows, we want to provide better guidance to users when offering the option to set default via Messaging System. Without this patch, we'll be unable to experiment with more intuitive guidance notifications in Fx138 delaying out ability to gain insight into which approaches are most effective.
• Code covered by automated testing: no
• Fix verified in Nightly: no
• Needs manual QE test: no
• Steps to reproduce for manual QE testing: n/a
• Risk associated with taking this patch: Low
• Explanation of risk level: This patch only adds a pref to the allowed list for special message actions. It does not change behavior for users, but rather allows us to alter this pref in future experiments.
• String changes made/needed: n/a
• Is Android affected?: no

Comment 10

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/c6e60ef15b49
Add Windows guidance notification pref to the SMA allowed prefs list r=omc-reviewers,negin

Comment 11

[Serban Stanca [:SerbanS]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/c6e60ef15b49

Comment 12

[Pulsebot]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/69b236ef0f4c