Provide a way to confirm add-on installation in Firefox (that allows the developer to introduce the add-on if needed)
designakt opened this issue · 8 comments
With the new add-on discovery page in Firefox about:addons (#64) introduces a new install flow that features a way to tell the user that installation was successful and show where the add-on can be found in the browser.
or see prototype on invisionCurrently many extensions pop up a new tab after installation to confirm that the installation was successful and to get their messaging in front of users. Opening a new tab is rather obtrusive measure to confirm installation as it interrupts the users flow by opening a new tab without an immediate user action and takes the user to a completely new site. This will result in installing an add-on to appear as more work than necessary and might derail users from the task their meant to perform next.
Therefor, it would be great if we can find a way to allow for an area in the add-on confirmation that enables the developer to introduce the add-on in their way, mention the most important feature etc.
This issue is about finding such a solution that enables a confirmation that is less obtrusive than opening a new tab.
┆Issue is synchronized with this Jira Task
It seems as if the install notification has two distinct parts:
- After you have just installed the add-on (mandatory)
- More notifications that come afterwards, like tour, preferences, etc. (optional)
On part one, we can either make it non-customisable (Firefox decides what the notification will say) or customisable (developer can write her own message, button title, etc.)
On part two, we can also disallow any more notification to be created (so the notification simply disappears) or allow developers to display anything (maybe my add-on has a tour, a getting started section, or maybe I want my users to customise it straight away).
I think that enforcing the simplest behaviour (ie. we decide what the post-install message is, and disallow any more notification) will make this idea more simple to implement, than if we allow developers to customise her own messaging.
On the other hand, if we allow these notifications to be customisable, it will create a new opportunity (you can argue that certain developers will abuse it) for developers to onboard their userbase. Up to this point, the best a developer can do is hope that their users will click on the newly added toolbar button (which is not highlighted anywhere as being a new item), and then maybe they can display a welcome message.
Thoughts?
@maxpopp has a good initial flow here: https://invis.io/5D7D0CUFE
Feel free to join
https://mozilla.invisionapp.com/d/main/#/projects/7542912
(updated version gathering all what we have so far)
Reiterating my feedback yesterday, it might be helpful to have a confirmation interface that’s mostly not customisable (so it’s quicker and easier for us to implement, and the design will always adhere to our styleguide), but allow developers to customise some parts of it.
For example, let’s say that developers get to customise a button, or a freeform link that can open a new tab with any link they want (maybe their settings page).
In the future, as we expand the capability of this component, we can give more and more customisability. Maybe allow more than one component, more than one step, etc. But for starters, only very few things can be freely customised.
What do you think?
I like the idea of having customizable parts and non-customizable parts on the confirmation.
So it is a good idea to provide a consistent but customizable way for devs to introduce their addon.
Following your post, I also came up with the first concepts of a panel like this, consisting of customizable (but still consistent) and predefined parts.
Following up:
To create more space for the developers to introduce and creating a consistent way/mechanism for other use-cases like onboarding/tour ect, I came up with the idea of providing a carousel. So each different card of this carousel-container can be customized.
What do you think?
I love how this could enable a very consistent look for installation confirmations.
I wonder if it is something that is appealing enough to add-on developers to stop opening tabs and use this instead. How could we test that?
The cog wheel reminded me of the one use on notifications.
And that made me wonder what "options" the cog wheel link to? Options of the add-on, the Add-on Manager or options to disable further install confirmations?
We should also consider update notifications. (Might be a separate issue though.)
Feedback from User Research on Disco Pane that might apply to our work on Install Confirmation :
- Create more consistent confirmation messaging after add-on activation and de-activation
- Help users manage add-ons once activated, including clarifying where users should go to activate/deactivate add-ons and helping users get rid of unhelpful add-ons