Closed Bug 243740 Opened 22 years ago Closed 19 years ago

Provide access to the usability studies that led to Bug 203960, so that Replace Tabs as default can be re-evaluated

Categories

(mozilla.org :: Governance, task)

Product:
mozilla.org
Component:
Governance
Type:
task
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
minor

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED WONTFIX

People

(Reporter: bugzillamozilla, Assigned: zak)

References

Details

Bug 203960 ("Make bookmark groups conditionally replace existing tabs instead of appending") was initiated with the following premise: "From a usability study we've learned that users find it confusing that bookmark groups open in additional tabs instead of replacing the existing set of tabs." Despite numerous requests, these usability studies were never attached, linked or even named. It is time to re-evaluate this proven dataloss inducing default. This bugs asks for two things: 1. That the so called studies will be brought forth for public evaluation. 2. That, if indeed Replace Tabs isn't based on solid research, it will be backed out from Mozilla or at least won't be the default setting. I'm cc'ing others who requested access to the studies and were ignored. Prog.
I agree with this bug report/question ! Nevertheless, the pref/UI, which was added later, to change this new default behaviour is enough (if not best) for my usage.
Severity: normal → minor
Depends on: 203960
You should also consider ccing someone who can maybe get access to the studies (which are most likely owned by AOL and would require AOL's permission to release).
Usability studies are very tricky to get right. A story: Many years ago, I owned a videogame system called the 3DO. It was one of the first high-end CD-based systems with built-in memory for saving games. I had quite a few games (this was back when I had more time), and in most of them I had my place saved so I could pick up where I left off. Well, one day I got a game called, "The Horde". It was a really fun game, and I played it for several days. Everything was just peachy until I went to play a different game, and my saved game didn't load. Huh. I tried another, and another, and I found they were all gone. I called the company that made The Horde (EA, I believe) to chew them out over deleting all my saved games. The person with whom I spoke was quite upfront about that fact that, yes, the game did do this. In fact, he was quite taken aback that I was angry. He explained to me that they had done usability studies on The Horde, and they had concluded that users enjoyed having more free memory on their machines so they could save more of their games -- so they helped us users out by automatically deleting all games from the 3DO system on startup! Their study was valid in the sense that it did highlight something that was true (users liked being able to save more games), but obviously they missed a few other relevant issues (users don't like all their other games silently erased)! Was the Mozilla tabs study done better than this? One would hope so. But who knows? Even if it was, it may simply have highlighted an initial reaction (users are confused when a bunch of new tabs pop up) that is not relevant to any kind of extended use. Maybe their "preference" for overwriting of tabs reflects nothing more than the fact that multiple tabs kind of alarmed them and the more there were the more overwhelmed they felt. Or maybe it was a perfectly valid study, and everybody involved understood what was going on. Who knows? All I know is the people that prefer this feature seem to be a tiny, tiny minority, and even factoring in that those that dislike it are more apt to put in their two cents I find it hard to believe that the actual reality out there is so different. But I could be wrong. Anyway, at least it's an option now.
For lack of any opposing comments, I'm confirming this bug. BZ, can you think of any contact person in AOL who might have the power (and willingness) to release these studies to public domain? or alternatively, anyone in mozilla.org who should be CC'ed to this bug? Prog.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Hope you get somewhere because hardcoding "replace tabs" is destructive and unnecessary.
Assignee: tabbed-browser → mitchell
Component: Tabbed Browser → Miscellaneous
Product: Core → mozilla.org
QA Contact: mitchell
Version: Trunk → other
Blocks: 159431
Blocks: 186583
Blocks: 300198
--> Governance
Assignee: mitchell → nobody
Component: Miscellaneous → Governance
QA Contact: mitchell → governance
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
QA Contact: governance → zak
zak: Please only change the assignee and not the QAContact when you are taking a bug. Many of us watch the QAContact for changes with Governance bugs, and by changing it, it causes bugmail to be lost and never seen. Thanks!
Assignee: nobody → zak
Status: ASSIGNED → NEW
QA Contact: zak → governance
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
Finding case studies isn't really a governance issue. So, who would find and request these studies at the Mozilla Corp?
No ideas but this sounds like the kind of thing that beltzner would at least know something about.
Unfortunately, we can not get access to these studies.
Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 19 years ago
Resolution: --- → INCOMPLETE
(In reply to comment #10) > Unfortunately, we can not get access to these studies. This would be a reason for a resolution of CANTFIX. Comment 0 was COMPLETE as complete can be, so maybe resolve as WONTFIX, or INVALID. Don't tell Prognathous he can't file a proper bug, that's adding insult to injury. If you can't get access to these studies, why do you believe they exist, or are cited correctly? Resolve the bugs referring to these studies as 'CANTVALIDATE'
Let me preface this my saying I love Firefox, use it almost exclusively, actively evangelize for it, and have personally convinced many people to make the switch. Having said that, this bug / design decision is a complete embarrassment for the Firefox project. I don't know if the studies were real, informal "hey Joe take a look at this" kind of stuff, or complete make-believe. What I do know is that this has been an open issue for four years, and it's completely ridiculous. When this was done in the Mozilla browser, when people complained they were told that it was being made an option. And so it was...but then the Firefox project took over and reverted to the bad old behavior. At least it can still be modified with about:config, but that's just pathetic. Tools | Options | Tabs has a ton of blank space on it. Why don't you take advantage of that, plunk in a nice choice to replace tabs or add to tabs, and make everyone happy? Ending this issue forever is really and truly just that easy. Do that, and nobody will care about whether this study actually exists anymore. As a side note, maybe I'm injecting bias somehow, but *my* "studies" unanimously come to the conclusion that nobody likes tab replacement. The typical case is I convince someone to try Firefox, install it, explain and show them the basics of tabbed browsing, and then show them how to open a bookmark folder in tabs. I then ask them if they'd want these tabs to close down all their currently open tabs and then open, or if they want them to open in addition to their currently open tabs. Not a single person has asked for the "replace" option, and several have expressed surprise that anyone would want it to work that way. I then usually find some way to distract them so I can make the change in the about:config area, because that's the type of geeky, confusing thing that's going to convince them that switching from the browser Bill Gates wants them to use is a big mistake (I figure if they don't see me make the change they probably assume I made it in a normal dialog box, as a regular program would do for a reasonable option, so they won't be alarmed that this is some techie browser not meant for normal people).
(In reply to comment #11) > (In reply to comment #10) > > Unfortunately, we can not get access to these studies. > > This would be a reason for a resolution of CANTFIX. > Comment 0 was COMPLETE as complete can be, so maybe resolve as WONTFIX, or > INVALID. Don't tell Prognathous he can't file a proper bug, that's adding > insult to injury. We don't mean that the filer can't file a good bug report, but that instead that we can't fill his request. I'll change it to WONTFIX. > If you can't get access to these studies, why do you believe they exist, or are > cited correctly? I don't have a position on this issue - I just wanted to find the studies. > Resolve the bugs referring to these studies as 'CANTVALIDATE' We only have a limited number of resolutions and adding new ones is a long process.
Resolution: INCOMPLETE → WONTFIX
(In reply to comment #12) > Let me preface this my saying I love Firefox, use it almost exclusively, > actively evangelize for it, and have personally convinced many people to make > the switch. > > Having said that, this bug / design decision is a complete embarrassment for > the Firefox project. I don't know if the studies were real, informal "hey Joe > take a look at this" kind of stuff, or complete make-believe. What I do know > is that this has been an open issue for four years, and it's completely > ridiculous. When this was done in the Mozilla browser, when people complained > they were told that it was being made an option. And so it was...but then the > Firefox project took over and reverted to the bad old behavior. At least it > can still be modified with about:config, but that's just pathetic. > > Tools | Options | Tabs has a ton of blank space on it. Why don't you take > advantage of that, plunk in a nice choice to replace tabs or add to tabs, and > make everyone happy? Ending this issue forever is really and truly just that > easy. Do that, and nobody will care about whether this study actually exists > anymore. > > As a side note, maybe I'm injecting bias somehow, but *my* "studies" > unanimously come to the conclusion that nobody likes tab replacement. The > typical case is I convince someone to try Firefox, install it, explain and show > them the basics of tabbed browsing, and then show them how to open a bookmark > folder in tabs. I then ask them if they'd want these tabs to close down all > their currently open tabs and then open, or if they want them to open in > addition to their currently open tabs. Not a single person has asked for the > "replace" option, and several have expressed surprise that anyone would want it > to work that way. > > I then usually find some way to distract them so I can make the change in the > about:config area, because that's the type of geeky, confusing thing that's > going to convince them that switching from the browser Bill Gates wants them to > use is a big mistake (I figure if they don't see me make the change they > probably assume I made it in a normal dialog box, as a regular program would do > for a reasonable option, so they won't be alarmed that this is some techie > browser not meant for normal people). If we can't find the studies, it doesn't mean that the related bug or that the underlying issues are resolved or invalid. Instead, it means that we don't have the studies. To me, this sounds like a good time to think about new studies. However, I don't work on the browser - just on governance issues. Has anyone caught up with Beltzner about the issue?
This might have been as well the poll done over at multizilla.mozdev.org (took three months) where almost 11.000 people said to want new tabs, while over 17.000 asked tabs to be replaced, and 24.000 people asked for a pref setting for it.
I don't suppose that you have a link on the site? The following searches using Google don't return useful results: * site:multizilla.mozdev.org tab bookmark * site:multizilla.mozdev.org poll * site:multizilla.mozdev.org survey * site:multizilla.mozdev.org tab preference replace I can find references to the feature here: http://multizilla.mozdev.org/faqs.html but not the data that led to the choice to implement the feature. I still maintain that a study on the issue is good way to evaluate this...
(In reply to comment #16) > I don't suppose that you have a link on the site? No, not any more. > I can find references to the feature here: > http://multizilla.mozdev.org/faqs.html > > but not the data that led to the choice to implement the feature. > > I still maintain that a study on the issue is good way to evaluate this... p.s. I do have a copy of the e-mail send to jagernaut@netscape.com (I haven't checked the exact e-mail address, sorry) but I do not know who he/she is and *if* this person was (somehow) involved with this development.
That might still be useful. What is the meat of the email?
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