940304 - "Reset zoom" button in the app menu is somewhat unclear

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Toolbars and Customization, defect)

Description

[Tim Taubert [:ttaubert] (inactive)]

Using the new Australis menu on the right to zoom a page is pretty much self-explanatory. The button in the middle shows the current zoom level but I don't think it's a great way to offer users to reset the zoom level.

I, as a trained IT professional(tm), was able to figure out that I might need to click that button in the middle but I can see how that might possibly be confusing to people?

I can imagine my father asking me weird questions why he has to click the button in the middle that says "120%" to get back to a 100% zoom level. I unfortunately don't have a suggestion but I hope we can come up with something better?

Comment 1

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Actually, I think maybe we should make the button just say reset? OTOH, without the percentage, maybe it's not clear what the buttons do? Then again, it should be pretty obvious after pressing them, and pretty obvious how to get back... Chenxia, do you have any ideas here?

Comment 2

[Florian Bender]

Instead of simply resetting, the middle button could show a list of "quick access" zoom levels when clicked on, e.g. 50-100-150-200%.

Comment 3

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

(In reply to :Gijs Kruitbosch from comment #1)
> Actually, I think maybe we should make the button just say reset? OTOH,
> without the percentage, maybe it's not clear what the buttons do? Then
> again, it should be pretty obvious after pressing them, and pretty obvious
> how to get back... Chenxia, do you have any ideas here?

As a counterpoint, it is nice that we show what zoom level the page is on.

Comment 4

[Chenxia Liu [:liuche]]

I wonder if changing the color might make sense, to hint that the state zoom state is no longer at the default and the percentage might be clickable. I agree with comment #3, that we should keep the percentage, especially when it's not the default 100%. There might be some interesting way to show the percentage when it's not at the default 100% but hide it otherwise, but we'd want to avoid resizing the zoom icon.

Comment 5

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(In reply to Chenxia Liu [:liuche] from comment #4)
> I wonder if changing the color might make sense, to hint that the state zoom
> state is no longer at the default and the percentage might be clickable.

We shouldn't expose information by color alone for accessibility reasons. Maybe we could bold the text if it was non-100%?

> I
> agree with comment #3, that we should keep the percentage, especially when
> it's not the default 100%. There might be some interesting way to show the
> percentage when it's not at the default 100% but hide it otherwise, but we'd
> want to avoid resizing the zoom icon.

I just realized that there's another bug (don't have it handy right now, sorry) about how the button is currently clickable (not disabled) even if it's 100%. Fixing that might also help making this more intuitive.

Comment 6

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

I think the relevant UX question here is if it's a goal to expose an obvious (i.e. easily discoverable) "reset zoom" function, or not.

The current widget is vastly better than the pre-Australis UI (controls buried in a menu, with no indication of the current zoom level). I think the zoom level is probably more important to show than a "reset" label, as it helps show what the control is doing (although I could see an argument for making it something like big/bigger/biggest).

So it's not perfect, but I think we're well into nuance-tuning land. One could similarly argue that it's not clear what the +/- do (add/remove items in the menu?), or even what "reset" does. I'd P5 it pending additional feedback, but will P4 it since there's a bit of question if the reset functionality needs to be more discoverable.

Comment 7

[Justin Dolske [:Dolske]]

I think at this point we need to pass on this the first round of Australis.