[UX] [Meta] Make the most useful content easily accessible on the homescreen

[vesta0]

User Story

As a user, I want my browser homescreen to show me content that is most relevant and useful to me, such as my frequently-accessed types of content (bookmarks, history, recent tabs, top sites, synced tabs, collections, pocket) or relevant updates or tips about the product, so I can easily navigate to them with the least number of taps required

Feature Brief: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GQ7ncFM_UcThSx6CldbrkuQRPxXsJ13rHXNPXI1_qoQ/edit

For UX: Please consider the following issues as you work on this:

11453

6510

9328

Acceptance Criteria

• I see my most frequently-accessed types of content on my homescreen by default. Note: Collections and Default top sites should always show up by default (order to be determined) until user decides to turn them off.
• Navigating to my most frequently-accessed sites should not take more than 2 taps.
• I can customize my homescreen to only show types of content that I want to access frequently.
• My homescreen provides me with the type of information that is relevant and useful to me.

┆Issue is synchronized with this Jira Task

[twaalewijn]

Are you referring to the the "Recent bookmarks", "Recent searches" sections etc. that are currently in nightly? Then I just want to say that closing this issue with those as the solutions to having bookmarks and history on the homescreen is pretty disappointing to say the least.

I might be wrong but the "Recent bookmarks" section appears to only be there if you've bookmarked something within the last 10 days: #20484 So if I do not bookmark anything within that period I am also not going to be able to hit "show all" and navigate to what I actually want to see on my homescreen.

What happened to those promising looking MVP designs from over a year ago in this thread?

I just want all my bookmarks back on the homescreen like I had in Fennec. And looking at this thread and the issue tracker I'm hardly the only one.

The past year I have sort of been getting by with having a bunch of collections that I treat as my bookmark "folders" containing most of my bookmarks as freshly opened tabs. E.g. open a bunch of bookmarks from the library view (don't need to create a new tab because they still do not open in the same one if you just tap on the bookmark itself) and then save that as a collection.

But that has some drawbacks. The ones I have personally encountered a whole lot over last year:

• I cannot edit the name of an item inside a collection like I can with bookmarked items.
• For most of the sites I visit I do not actually care about the session data that is remembered when using collections such as previous/next pages within that tab that I was on before I added it to the collection.

The second point comes up because I don't navigate very deep into the sites usually so to get back to the home screen I just want to hit the back button on my phone a few times. But that only works if you added the tab to a collection when it was still on the first page or else you are going to be navigating through all the previous pages that were open when the tab was saved.

I guess with the new home button in nightly that might become less of an issue, maybe. Haven't really used it a whole lot since I prefer the address bar on the top of the screen.

So I would like to ask: please re-open this issue because the bookmark situation, in my opinion, is not going to be fixed by the recently added features.

And if you are not willing to re-open it then maybe you could please add a little more context as to why you think/feel that the additions cover the lost functionality/workflows from last years update?

Seems like a waste to have someone make designs over a couple of months to bring features back that a lot of users were angry about losing last year, collecting/linking all their separate issues to this one and then closing it after 8 months without updates.

[klint]

Are you referring to the the "Recent bookmarks", "Recent searches" sections etc. that are currently in nightly?

Yes, I am

I might be wrong but the "Recent bookmarks" section appears to only be there if you've bookmarked something within the last 10 days: #20484 So if I do not bookmark anything within that period I am also not going to be able to hit "show all" and navigate to what I actually want to see on my homescreen.

That is correct, but then, if bookmarks are so important for a user, then it is rather likely that they regularly add new bookmark ;)

I just want all my bookmarks back on the homescreen like I had in Fennec. And looking at this thread and the issue tracker I'm hardly the only one.

IMHO, the current implementation is an acceptable solution to start with. Better than before for a user bookmarking intensively.

The past year I have sort of been getting by with having a bunch of collections that I treat as my bookmark "folders" containing most of my bookmarks as freshly opened tabs. E.g. open a bunch of bookmarks from the library view (don't need to create a new tab because they still do not open in the same one if you just tap on the bookmark itself) and then save that as a collection.

But that has some drawbacks. The ones I have personally encountered a whole lot over last year:

• And last but not least, collections are not synced yet, if I remember correctly... that is the main reason why I don't use collection at all. Speaking of which, I wonder whether grouped tabs and inactive tabs are synced.

So I would like to ask: please re-open this issue because the bookmark situation, in my opinion, is not going to be fixed by the recently added features.

Actually, the recently added features do answer the current issue to a large extent. Maybe you're not pleased by the implemented solution, but they do answer. So, better open specific bugs based on the new implementation.

And if you are not willing to re-open it then maybe you could please add a little more context as to why you think/feel that the additions cover the lost functionality/workflows from last years update?

I don't think the question is for me. I'm just a user ;)

[nbmrjuhneibkr]

but then, if bookmarks are so important for a user, then it is rather likely that they regularly add new bookmark

Wrong. The lack of new bookmarks doesn't make existing bookmarks any less important. Usually new bookmarks aren't added just for the sake of it - their main purpose is to be accessed again and again, maybe even on a daily basis.

There needs to be a way to keep content such as bookmarks and history on the home screen permanently, rather than let Firefox hide it depending on some arbitrary factors.

[klint]

Use the top sites then, instead of bookmarks. Are you really accessibles tens of bookmarks a day? Another alternative is to put your most used bookmarks as shortcuts on the Android launcher. I never use bookmarks actually, because the other alternatives are far more efficient 😊

[Matth7878]

Use the top sites then, instead of bookmarks. Are you really accessibles tens of bookmarks a day? Another alternative is to put your most used bookmarks as shortcuts on the Android launcher. I never use bookmarks actually, because the other alternatives are far more efficient 😊

Please maybe you don't use bookmarks but I assure you there are really useful. For instance I have bookmarks I access only once in a while so it makes no sense to use them as top sites (which are not customizable on number despite long standing issue about it)

Other alternative ? Which one ? Top sites for bookmarks you access once in a while? Collections which are basically bookmark dumbed down, not syncable and that you can't organize? Shortcuts on launcher screen, but is is logical for user to put all their existing bookmarks ? Besides if it is so much more efficient why on desktop those solutions are not implemented or why other browsers don't remove bookmarks in their favors?

My goal is not too sound aggressive (pardon me if I do) but really a lot of users are asking for improvement about usability. All that happens in term of UI are features that are far less critical in every day use (tabs group, inactive tabs, and so on) 😟

[klint]

No offense taken, don't worry. And I don't want to sound agressive either :)

To start with, I agree that there is a big problem with collection. As long as they are not synced, they are useless, whatever their purpose is (which I haven't understood yet :P).

Now, regarding bookmarks, I do use them, especially on the desktop. But mainly because that's all what we have there.

On an Android phone, for the most frequently used bookmarks, it's a different world : on the Fenix home page, we have pinned top sites, we have pinned most used sites, we have useless (so far) collections. We have "recent bookmarks" now. And we have the tab tray, which is an alternative way to store frequently visited sites (in list view to show more info). And on the phone launcher itself, we have shortcuts that we can very easily sort and order in groups and pages, leveraging the power of launcher. .

And for the more seldom used bookmarks, we have the bookmark page in Fenix, which is now only one click away from the home page. But as these are less used bookmarks, one more click is not death, isn't it?

Ok, it is not like it used to be in Firefox 68. But that is life, evolution, change of paradigm from time to time. And we have to adapt. :)

Of course, not everything above is perfect, as issues are remaining, and some of them for a long time. For instance :

• collection are not synced (issue #4424)
• when a site can be installed as PWA on the launcher page, it cannot be installed as a page shortcut, which is a real burden (issue #15450)
• I haven't checked whether the new "Recent bookmarks" section gets empty after a while, but if that was the case, a simple feature request to turn it into "most recent bookmarks" would solve the problem ("most recent" would include the latest bookmarks, even if they are 1 year old). Don't hesitate to file a ticket for that if needed.

[madb1lly]

Hi all, Clearly no attention is being paid to this closed issue any more so the only thing to do about continuing usability problems is to raise new issues. Cheers 🙂

[nbmrjuhneibkr]

If anyone is going to submit new related issues - please link them here too.

[DragoCubed]

Why was this closed?

[mirko77]

@DragoCubed @nbmrjuhneibkr @madb1lly I gave up and switched to Kiwi Browser

[cadeyrn]

Why was this closed?

[Imold]

@DragoCubed Because they don't care about us, or our needs. I only use the browser on my phone if I don't have my laptop, so bookmarks are the most important thing for me, because they sync. Mozilla doesn't care about power users any more, they just want to attract the chrome user base. That's why I switched to Waterfox on PC.

@mirko77 Thanks for the info it's nice to know that there's another mobile browser that supports extensions. Unfortunately I need a browser that uses Firefox sync,

@cadeyrn But they didn't provide a link or even a number for the issue that this is a duplicate of. You can't close this as a duplicate with out stating what the duplicate issue is so we can follow it. Therefor this must have been closed because they don't want our input on what we think would make the homescreen more useful. They already decided what they want the homescreen to be and they're not going to change it, we're supposed to just shut up and use it the way they want us to, not tell them how we want to use it.

[Imold]

@cadeyrn Really, your just going to respond with a thumbs down. Your not going to dispute my claims?