959559 - Interaction design for search query callout

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Description

[Matthew N. [:MattN]]

Some questions that came up:
A) How will the user get access to the URL instead of the search terms (e.g. send to a friend)?
B) How does it work with copy and paste?

Comment 1

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

Here's my take on these:

(In reply to Matthew N. [:MattN] from comment #0)
> Some questions that came up:
> A) How will the user get access to the URL instead of the search terms (e.g.
> send to a friend)?

With the first click into the URL bar giving the user only the search terms a user would have to hit the ESC key to get the actual URL for the address.  This is a similar experience to now when you change the current URL and then want to get back to the original.

> B) How does it work with copy and paste?

I'm not sure that we want to do anything clever with Copy & Paste and by that I mean I would avoid implementing a system that copies the URL instead when the search terms are highlighted.  This is assuming that we use a system like described above and feel confident that copy & paste of search URLs isn't a common interaction.

Comment 2

[Michael Maslaney [:mmaslaney] ([e-mail])]

The search query callout in the Awesome Bar:

http://people.mozilla.org/~mmaslaney/Search/search-query-callout.png

Comment 3

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

(In reply to mmaslaney from comment #2)
> The search query callout in the Awesome Bar:
> 
> http://people.mozilla.org/~mmaslaney/Search/search-query-callout.png

That's no interaction design.

Comment 1 is a start but it just sounds like an initial proposal and I'm not sure it's on the right track. ESC for getting the URL isn't very discoverable and the comparison with the use of ESC to undo user edits of the location bar value seems backwards.

Comment 4

[Michael Maslaney [:mmaslaney] ([e-mail])]

Backing up here, the mock is presented to further explain the desired interaction. This is a "first step" for making a search query more apparent. We will continue to iterate on this feature.

Comment 5

[Michael Maslaney [:mmaslaney] ([e-mail])]

Default: 

http://people.mozilla.org/~mmaslaney/Search/search-query-callout.png

First click into the url bar:

http://people.mozilla.org/~mmaslaney/Search/search-query-callout_2.png

When you press ESC

http://people.mozilla.org/~mmaslaney/Search/search-query-callout_3.png


An alternative approach: Once the user has completed the first click into the Awesome Bar, the search term would highlight and expose the full url on click (within the target).

http://people.mozilla.org/~mmaslaney/Search/search-query-callout_2v2.png

Comment 6

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

(In reply to mmaslaney from comment #5)
> http://people.mozilla.org/~mmaslaney/Search/search-query-callout_2.png
> http://people.mozilla.org/~mmaslaney/Search/search-query-callout_2v2.png

These look pretty much the same to me, is the first one supposed to show just the search query?

Comment 7

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

(In reply to Dão Gottwald [:dao] from comment #3)
> (In reply to mmaslaney from comment #2)
> > The search query callout in the Awesome Bar:
> > 
> > http://people.mozilla.org/~mmaslaney/Search/search-query-callout.png
> 
> That's no interaction design.
> 
> Comment 1 is a start but it just sounds like an initial proposal and I'm not
> sure it's on the right track. 

mmaslaney is trying out some visual cues that might make the URL visible and clickable.

> ESC for getting the URL isn't very
> discoverable and the comparison with the use of ESC to undo user edits of
> the location bar value seems backwards.

This would make sense if your assumption is that the both use cases are somewhat equal or the greater use case is people accessing google search URLs.  I'm guessing that searching or re-querying is the greater use case we want to support as such getting access to the URL is secondary.  Also we should consider that your google search page for a term isn't likely to be the same google search page for me with the same term; though this is more true for google and less for other engines.

Comment 8

[Michael Maslaney [:mmaslaney] ([e-mail])]

(In reply to Bryan Clark (Firefox Search PM) [:clarkbw] from comment #6)
> (In reply to mmaslaney from comment #5)
> > http://people.mozilla.org/~mmaslaney/Search/search-query-callout_2.png
> > http://people.mozilla.org/~mmaslaney/Search/search-query-callout_2v2.png
> 
> These look pretty much the same to me, is the first one supposed to show
> just the search query?

The first represents the "hit esc" model, and the second, an alternative, would have the search term clickable to expose the full URL.