392128 - Buttons too small in new download manager: usability/accessibility problem

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Toolkit :: Downloads API, defect, P3)

Description

[Aaron Leventhal]

The new download manager has some tiny buttons repeated on each line.

A huge number of people will have difficulty with these buttons:
1) seeing them
2) "reading" them -- understanding what they're for
3) clicking on these buttons. This includes just about anyone over the age of 65.

I myself had to squint to look at the icons, and my vision is almost 20/20 still :)

The first couple of times I saw the icons, I didn't bother to squint yet. It was a while before I troubled myself to care what they were for.

Usability issue?

Comment 1

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

These are no smaller than the RSS/lock icons in the toolbar, or any of the bookmark icons, etc.  We do need better icons, these are placeholders, but you're basically saying 16x16 icons aren't accessible, which seems like an argument you should have made a really long time ago....

Comment 2

[Aaron Leventhal]

It's a combination of problems --

2 small icons, very close together, far away from what they relate to, and the outline from one of them blends into the background. I suppose they're far away because my download manager was sized to be larger than it needs to be with the new look. You have to visually line up the item on the left with the right icon on the right.

IMO it's obvious that these download mgr icons are hard to see and click on, just by anyone trying to use them. 

I don't agree that I should have argued against a specific icon size long ago -- it's partially about the context the icons are in. For whatever reason, the icons in the URL bar are clearer to see and understand, and I don't think there is any room to make them larger. We don't really have much of a choice there.

Comment 3

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

I'm finding these hard to hit as well, I'm pretty sure it's the proximity of the two buttons to each other, in addition to the size.  We will probably look into fixing this after M8.

Comment 4

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

Dependent on the new icons?  We'll take a look at this after those are done...

Comment 5

[u88484]

The circle icons are hard to hit for two reasons:

1) they are actually only 14 pixles
2) We try to actually click the picture and due to the circles being 14 pixles and rounded this causes problems since there is a good percentage of unused real estate and less perceptive clicking area since we try to aim for the actual picture.

Square 16px icons would fix both of these mentioned issue and more space between the two would fix the problems even more.

Comment 6

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

We're not likely to get new icons before b2, moving to b3

Comment 7

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

This will be fixed by Bug 395448 (hopefully).

Comment 8

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

Madhava: do you want me to instruct the icon designers to use a larger size, or are we just going to fix this with spacing?

Comment 9

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

Attachment: OS X progress bar buttons

Personally I really like the 16x16 (14x14 visible) progress bar buttons in os x.  I think a 5 or 6 pixel margin should help with targeting (currently it is at 4 pixels).

Comment 10

[Aaron Leventhal]

This isn't a problem anymore -- the new download manager doesn't have image buttons anymore.

Comment 11

[Stephen Donner [:stephend] Not actively reading bugmail]

We still do have the "Retry" button, though; is that a problem?

Comment 12

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

(In reply to comment #10)
> This isn't a problem anymore -- the new download manager doesn't have image
> buttons anymore.
Yes, it actually does.  For pause/resume and retry.

Comment 13

[Shawn Wilsher :sdwilsh]

Assigning to Madhava since he's the UX team contact for the download manager.

Comment 14

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

Beltzner: do we still want to block on this, we asked the Iconfactory to produce 16x16 icons, and we will now need to get them redone if you feel the target area is going to be too small.

Comment 15

[Alex Faaborg [:faaborg] (Firefox UX)]

Another solution might be to keep the current icons, but make the target size larger, for cases where you click a little off to the side by accident.

Comment 16

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

(In reply to comment #15)
> Another solution might be to keep the current icons, but make the target size
> larger, for cases where you click a little off to the side by accident.

I think that's the right call. Seperate bug, nice to have, not a blocker IMO.

The new icons (which have higher contrast between shapes) plus a little spacing will solve this. Connor's point in comment 1 is also on the money.

This is WONTFIX.

Comment 17

[Aaron Leventhal]

Maybe if there is a hover effect it will help with successful clicking.