1961242 - Move profile name before tab name in window title for better screen readerability

Status: NEW

(Toolkit :: Startup and Profile System, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Jared Hirsch [:jhirsch] (he/him) (Needinfo please)]

a11y user testing indicates a strong desire to put the profile name before the tab name in chrome windows, so that screen reader users can have the profile name announced first, to make profile switching easier.

We should discuss with the DOM team whether there are blockers to making this change.

Comment 1

[Jared Hirsch [:jhirsch] (he/him) (Needinfo please)]

:emilio, are there any hard blockers to rearranging the window title in this way?

Comment 2

[Emilio Cobos Álvarez [:emilio]]

Is there any change here to any DOM code or core code at all? I don't think so but I might be misunderstanding comment 0?

I don't think there should be any issue changing the shape of the window title (other than maybe some users relying on the current format or something).

Comment 3

[Jared Hirsch [:jhirsch] (he/him) (Needinfo please)]

I thought there might have been some reasons we wouldn't want to put the profile name in front of the window name, glad to know that's not the case.

Comment 4

[Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me)]

@jhirsch, can you clarify what is expected here? Testing with 144.0a1 (2025-09-04), I see the profile name ("MoCo") before the tab name when a new window is created with only a single blank about:newtab loaded. When a second about:newtab is loaded, the ordering is switched. I think it will add unnecessary complexity if we change the order of the profile name when on privileged ("chrome") pages, unless I'm misunderstanding the request. If we always put the profile name first, even when on non-privileged pages such as the bugzilla page in the screenshot, then it will give higher prominence to what is likely less valuable information 90% of the time.

Comment 5

[Jared Wein [:jaws] (please needinfo? me)]

Attachment: image.png

Comment 6

[Jared Hirsch [:jhirsch] (he/him) (Needinfo please)]

Sure, this is a followup from bug 1919600 to move the profile name ahead of the tab/window title to help screen reader users quickly distinguish which window belongs to which profile. I'm not sure why the order is inverted on privileged pages, but we really just want it in front of the window title if the user has multiple profiles.