4 ms·

> I'm not convinced "user research" is the best way to go here. If the majority of your selected users think "save" should mean "upload to mozilla" does that me

> I'm not convinced "user research" is the best way to go here. If the majority of your selected users think "save" should mean "upload to mozilla" does that mean they're right? More or less, yes, if more people understand one design than another, then the one that more people understand is the right one. We're generally shooting for more than a majority though, we'd want most people to understand the interface, and would also take negative reactions into account. In our past studies we found people generally understood the buttons well enough, and specifically it was obvious after first use what was happening. But we only compared the current buttons to one other option (which didn't compare well), so it wasn't a very thorough test. There's more overhead in updating this interface than some others, since we have to get updated translations (to more strings than just the button) and change all our onboarding, which is why we've kind of left it be until we can look at the full set of buttons more closely.

saberworks 9y ago
Haha I am completely dismayed. So that means if I use File -> "Save Page As..." I can look forward to that eventually sending my entire page to your servers ;) Again thanks for your replies and hopefully they can be more clear in the future (without being incorrect). And just in case I have sounded like a jerk, I really do love Firefox and I have been using it since it first came out as Phoenix. I appreciate the work you all put into it even if my above comments didn't make that clear. I actually used the Mozilla Suite before that, too. I still have, wear, and love my dinosaur head t-shirt I ordered from the mozilla store soooo long ago. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/Mozilla_Foundation_logo.svg/1024px-Mozilla_Foundation_logo.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/Mo...
- teresonos 9y ago
  This seems to be one of those "dark patterns" in design, where they try to persuade someone to perform a certain action. At the very least, change it to "Save to Cloud" and "Save to Disk." But to be really clear, "Upload and Share" is definitely the way to go.
cookiecaper 9y ago
One of Mozilla's major value propositions is a privacy and security focus. Lots of people are interested in Firefox because it doesn't stream tons of data about browsing sessions upstream. It should always be obvious when a user is uploading information to the internet; the intuition on snipping/screenshot tools is that they perform actions locally. I take screenshots of internal graphs, admin pages that may contain pseudo-private endpoints and admin account information all the time ("Logged in as $ADMIN_USER", account numbers with vendors, etc.). Sharing those in a private chat or email is a big part of my screenshotting use case. People screenshot a lot of private data. I don't think Mozilla is wise in making "send your image to a public bucket protected only by the obscurity of its URL" the default behavior, at least not without making it obvious that this is what's happening. This sneaky exfiltration of private data is a large part of what people hate about Google and Facebook. Maybe there could be an opt-out on first use? I get that your average grandma isn't going to understand the distinction and will want something she can share (but she's also probably just trying to get to email or Facebook anyway), but this is a real potential security problem for your users.
jxcl 9y ago
> and specifically it was obvious after first use what was happening. Sure, it's obvious after the first use, but if somebody is taking a screenshot of sensitive information, is the best way for them to find this out to show them that they've already uploaded said sensitive information to Mozilla's servers?
RaleyField 9y ago
> if more people understand one design than another, then the one that more people understand is the right one. Something something Henry Ford and faster horses. It's still bad design even if 50%+ε understand save as 'upload to some server' and not the old meaning that predates Windows 95 which is to save it to local storage. You shouldn't be taking liberties whenever you are about to upload any bit of information from your users, instead you should obtain informed consent from all users and not just from better informed ones that can parse the meaning from the cloud icon. The UI is wrong until only a moron in a hurry[1] would be mistaken about what your software is about to perform. Otherwise how are you any better than that other company that starts with a G and ends with oogle. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_moron_in_a_hurry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_moron_in_a_hurry
mverwijs 9y ago
"More or less, yes, if more people understand one design than another, then the one that more people understand is the right one. ", he posted on the one website in the world that still holds on to the original meaning of the word 'hacker'.

saberworks 9y ago

Haha I am completely dismayed. So that means if I use File -> "Save Page As..." I can look forward to that eventually sending my entire page to your servers ;) Again thanks for your replies and hopefully they can be more clear in the future (without being incorrect). And just in case I have sounded like a jerk, I really do love Firefox and I have been using it since it first came out as Phoenix. I appreciate the work you all put into it even if my above comments didn't make that clear. I actually used the Mozilla Suite before that, too. I still have, wear, and love my dinosaur head t-shirt I ordered from the mozilla store soooo long ago. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/Mozilla_Foundation_logo.svg/1024px-Mozilla_Foundation_logo.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/Mo...

teresonos 9y ago
This seems to be one of those "dark patterns" in design, where they try to persuade someone to perform a certain action. At the very least, change it to "Save to Cloud" and "Save to Disk." But to be really clear, "Upload and Share" is definitely the way to go.

cookiecaper 9y ago

One of Mozilla's major value propositions is a privacy and security focus. Lots of people are interested in Firefox because it doesn't stream tons of data about browsing sessions upstream. It should always be obvious when a user is uploading information to the internet; the intuition on snipping/screenshot tools is that they perform actions locally. I take screenshots of internal graphs, admin pages that may contain pseudo-private endpoints and admin account information all the time ("Logged in as $ADMIN_USER", account numbers with vendors, etc.). Sharing those in a private chat or email is a big part of my screenshotting use case. People screenshot a lot of private data. I don't think Mozilla is wise in making "send your image to a public bucket protected only by the obscurity of its URL" the default behavior, at least not without making it obvious that this is what's happening. This sneaky exfiltration of private data is a large part of what people hate about Google and Facebook. Maybe there could be an opt-out on first use? I get that your average grandma isn't going to understand the distinction and will want something she can share (but she's also probably just trying to get to email or Facebook anyway), but this is a real potential security problem for your users.

jxcl 9y ago

> and specifically it was obvious after first use what was happening. Sure, it's obvious after the first use, but if somebody is taking a screenshot of sensitive information, is the best way for them to find this out to show them that they've already uploaded said sensitive information to Mozilla's servers?

RaleyField 9y ago

> if more people understand one design than another, then the one that more people understand is the right one. Something something Henry Ford and faster horses. It's still bad design even if 50%+ε understand save as 'upload to some server' and not the old meaning that predates Windows 95 which is to save it to local storage. You shouldn't be taking liberties whenever you are about to upload any bit of information from your users, instead you should obtain informed consent from all users and not just from better informed ones that can parse the meaning from the cloud icon. The UI is wrong until only a moron in a hurry[1] would be mistaken about what your software is about to perform. Otherwise how are you any better than that other company that starts with a G and ends with oogle. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_moron_in_a_hurry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_moron_in_a_hurry

mverwijs 9y ago

"More or less, yes, if more people understand one design than another, then the one that more people understand is the right one. ", he posted on the one website in the world that still holds on to the original meaning of the word 'hacker'.