990049 - [UX] - The top auto-complete should reflect the intended action

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: Address Bar, defect)

Description

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

Then intended interaction should have the first auto-complete item be the intended action. This isn't always the case in our current system. As Bryan and I discussed, this is an issue where we need to "we need expose the broken system in order to move forward. Meaning, this interaction will have Google search always be the first item in the autocomplete, unless a url is detected. 


Bryan Clark can elaborate further

Comment 1

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

When entering in a keyword or search term: 

http://people.mozilla.org/~mmaslaney/Search/enter-search-keyword.png


When entering a url:

http://people.mozilla.org/~mmaslaney/Search/enter-url.png

Comment 2

[Jake]

This is stupid, of all the things people complain about, i've never heard anyone complain about the awesome bar suggestions.

Also there are already add-ons which do this.

Is this a ploy to get more money from google?

Comment 3

[adrian]

You've told us what happens when you enter a keyword that matches your browsing history.

However what will this look like when entering a keyword that matches

a bookmark?
a tagged page?
a currently open tab?
a page you've typed previously?

Surely the intended action for all of these is higher than search.

Comment 4

[Michael]

What about privacy?

Will this change send every keystroke to Google search or only when clicking on the row with Google search word?

Comment 5

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

I'll cover these first comments first and follow up with a general description.

(In reply to Jake from comment #2)
> Also there are already add-ons which do this.

If you can link to ones you think are doing it well and ones that could use improvement that would be helpful.

> Is this a ploy to get more money from google?

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html

(In reply to adrian from comment #3)
> You've told us what happens when you enter a keyword that matches your
> browsing history.

There are two situations being shown that match exactly the situations the happen when a user hits enter without other keys.

> However what will this look like when entering a keyword that matches
> 
> a bookmark?
> a tagged page?
> a currently open tab?
> a page you've typed previously?
> 
> Surely the intended action for all of these is higher than search.

Indeed it likely is and that is work for a followup bug.  Right now we're going to make the current behavior more visual and obvious.

(In reply to Michael from comment #4)
> What about privacy?

This change does not alter interactions with services.  It's purely reflecting what is currently happening.

> Will this change send every keystroke to Google search or only when clicking
> on the row with Google search word?

No.  This does not cover search suggestions or similar types of interactions.

Comment 6

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

(In reply to mmaslaney from comment #0)
> Bryan Clark can elaborate further

From a high level this is just a small change which will be a stepping stone to possible larger changes.  This will not introduce a new interaction, it merely visualizes the existing interactions that currently happen.

As pointed out in comment 3 often a bookmark, history item, or currently opened tabs are all likely higher priority than search.  However those items are currently not default action.

We are proposing this change because we have found through user testing/research that many people are unaware that the URL bar can search and that it is the default behavior.  Often these people use the search input as their sole means of navigation because it is obvious that it searches but they lack suggestions for their history items.

So lets start with discussing the current interaction design of the URL bar; I'm not trying to state this current design is exactly correct.

Search is the default action unless there is a host/domain in your history that matches your input.

1. URL: If a host or domain matches the text you are typing the URL bar will inline auto-complete that domain and the user will be taken to that domain if they press ENTER. i.e. typing cnn could give the inline URL auto-complete of 'cnn.com' and pressing only ENTER will take the user to that domain.

2. Search: When you type anything in the URL bar that doesn't match a host/domain (see 1) pressing ENTER will perform a search for that text via the current selected search provider.

For each of 1 and 2 a user needs to change the default action by arrowing down in order to not go directly to a domain or run a search.  The common pattern here for a site a user visits often is typing: 'hacker news', pressing the down arrow, then pressing the enter key to choose the top suggestion; without the down arrow Firefox would search for the text 'hacker news'.

With the proposed change we would show a suggestion item (selected/highlighted) that reflects the actual default behavior detailed above in 1 and 2.  Again, this doesn't change the interaction but visualizes what is going to happen when you hit enter in the same way as if you arrowed down and selected an item.

Comment 7

[IU]

Please also add a UI preference under Options "Privacy" tab, so people can turn off suggestions.  We don't all trust Google et al.

Comment 8

[Stephen Horlander [:shorlander]]

(In reply to IU from comment #7)
> Please also add a UI preference under Options "Privacy" tab, so people can
> turn off suggestions.  We don't all trust Google et al.

To be clear: This bug is not about search suggest. This bug is only about making what we are already doing explicit. We don't send anything until you hit enter/go.

Comment 9

[:Gijs (he/him)]

(as this seems to just be UX work, marking wontfix for 30/29 so we get this out of our uplift radar)