683757 - [Update /m] -- Add Back Button to all /m Pages

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(www.mozilla.org :: General, defect)

Description

[mcbmoz]

Hey Anthony,

This is a tiny update to the user experience for all /m pages for both Android and iOS. The goal is to improve back and forth movement across the /m site regardless of device.

Can you add a "back" button/or link to interface, so that when a user does click on a menu item, she can easily go back to where she started.

~cb

Comment 1

[Steven Garrity [:sgarrity]]

Why is a back button helpful on mobile devices? Android has a hardware back button and iOS has a toolbar showing a back button.

Comment 2

[mcbmoz]

Hey Steven,

Thanks for asking a great question, designers are definitely split on this item. People who know their smartphones really well (not my mom) know they can use their built in back button. Users who are changing phones, new to a smartphone, or new to the mobile web are less apt to use built in controls.

I like to design to re-use learned behaviors, especially because this is a very small site built to just get users to download Firefox.

Since we're designing for multiple devices (some known and more emerging) we want to provide consistent navigation and a way to get home.

How about reasons not to add it?

~cb

Comment 3

[Steven Garrity [:sgarrity]]

(In reply to mcbmoz from comment #2)
> I like to design to re-use learned behaviors, especially because this is a
> very small site built to just get users to download Firefox.
I would see this as an argument in favour of relying on the platform-provided buttons. These buttons can be learned once and applied to any site, while and in-site back button must be discovered/learned specifically for our site (rand

> Since we're designing for multiple devices (some known and more emerging) we
> want to provide consistent navigation and a way to get home.
We do have the logo/menu elements, which both provide a way back to the home page.

> How about reasons not to add it?
Pixels, man! Pixels! We don't got many. Or, rather, screen real-estate is very tight at the top of the page. the logo and 'menu' button already take most of the width of the display while in portrait mode on a phone.

Comment 4

[mcbmoz]

(In reply to Steven Garrity from comment #3)
> (In reply to mcbmoz from comment #2)
> > I like to design to re-use learned behaviors, especially because this is a
> > very small site built to just get users to download Firefox.
> I would see this as an argument in favour of relying on the
> platform-provided buttons. These buttons can be learned once and applied to
> any site, while and in-site back button must be discovered/learned
> specifically for our site (rand
> 
> > Since we're designing for multiple devices (some known and more emerging) we
> > want to provide consistent navigation and a way to get home.
> We do have the logo/menu elements, which both provide a way back to the home
> page.
> 
> > How about reasons not to add it?
> Pixels, man! Pixels! We don't got many. Or, rather, screen real-estate is
> very tight at the top of the page. the logo and 'menu' button already take
> most of the width of the display while in portrait mode on a phone.

Steven,

I'm cool with your decision.

~cb

Comment 5

[Jason Grlicky [:grlicky]]

Just my two cents here:

- Though there are dedicated back buttons on Android phones, not everyone knows how to use them. That's why I went with the "back" link (at the top of the page) on the Mobile AMO designs: http://people.mozilla.com/~jgrlicky/drop/AMO/mobile_mockups/details.png . We could probably do something similar here without sacrificing too many pixels. Maybe the home icon and "Back" or something? We'd have to work out the copy. If you'd like to see how it works out in practice, check out AMO on an android phone.

- This would just be on subpages like http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/m/privacy.html , http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/m/faq , and http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/m/firefox/channel/ , right? Especially for people who enter the site from /channel, it might actually be nice to have a visible way to get back to the main page.

- If this is something that has come up in user testing, that's a pretty good sign that we should consider it.

Comment 6

[Steven Garrity [:sgarrity]]

(In reply to Jason Grlicky [:grlicky] from comment #5)
> - Though there are dedicated back buttons on Android phones, not everyone
> knows how to use them. That's why I went with the "back" link (at the top of
> the page) on the Mobile AMO designs:
> http://people.mozilla.com/~jgrlicky/drop/AMO/mobile_mockups/details.png

Thanks Jason. Do you have stats on how often that top-left title (with the Firefox logo) is clicked vs. the blue link with the home icon?

I also wondered about "Back" vs. "Home" - related, but potentially quite different functions (though the difference is less significant on our relatively shallow (so far) mobile site. I'm not sure the "back" concept really holds up. For example, if you arrive on a mobile-sub-page from Google, does a back button send you back to Google? For this reason, I think a clear "Home" link is probable more valuable.

That said, we do have a large clickable home link (the title) - that may or may not be discoverable. On non-mobile sites, though, the logo-as-home-link has become almost universal. Amazon has a nice little hack to reinforce this (though 'hover' doesn't apply in mobile browsers): http://littlebigdetails.com/post/9455484107/amazon-when-not-on-the-amazon

Comment 7

[Jason Grlicky [:grlicky]]

(In reply to Steven Garrity from comment #6)
> (In reply to Jason Grlicky [:grlicky] from comment #5)
> > - Though there are dedicated back buttons on Android phones, not everyone
> > knows how to use them. That's why I went with the "back" link (at the top of
> > the page) on the Mobile AMO designs:
> > http://people.mozilla.com/~jgrlicky/drop/AMO/mobile_mockups/details.png
> 
> Thanks Jason. Do you have stats on how often that top-left title (with the
> Firefox logo) is clicked vs. the blue link with the home icon?
> 

I don't know of any statistics on it, but that strikes me as information that could be quite valuable, and could inform all of our future mobile designs! I'll forward this bug to Wil to see if he knows how we could start gathering data on this, if we don't have data on it already.

Comment 8

[Steven Garrity [:sgarrity]]

Chatted a bit more with Chrissie about this - I suggested that we probably don't need this for now given that we only have a few /m sub-pages and they all have a download button now. WONTFIX'ing - but re-open if it's critical.