Hi David

You can tap the "x" on the side of the find in page search field to close it and display the URL bar.

This is exactly the problem. The feature is not usable unless you are aware that there is a bar at the bottom which doesn't go away like the URL bar does and needs to be manually closed.

The URL bar does not appear when you scroll, which is the expected behavior.

The find bar breaks the URL bar.

What is th action that you are trying to do? Are you wanting to search in a page, or search/enter a website address in the address bar?

Steps to reproduce:

1. Configure your URL bar to show at the top of the browser
2. Open the "find in page" feature
3. Visit some lengthy page
4. Type in a search term
5. Read a significant portion of the page
6. Forget that you invoked the search feature
7. Try to go visit a different URL or perform a search from the URL bar

The problem is that the feature is unnoticeable. The only indicator you are in "find" mode is the bar, which, importantly, is on the opposite end of the page from what you're trying to use. The user's eyes are fixed upon where they anticipate the action, which is at the URL bar.

Or is this only a problem because I've configured the URL bar to show up at the top of the browser, like every other browser I use? Probably. Is it important enough to fix? Well, I think so.

One solution would be to have the "find" bar simply slide away when the user scrolls. You could leave a tab hanging out there, to reactivate it. This could have the additional benefit of preserving the search terms across multiple pages, which would be very helpful.

Another solution would be to flash the find bar when the user performs a swipe motion which would ordinarily trigger the display of the URL bar. I'd love this, honestly - tell me what I'm doing wrong, rather than letting me bang my head against a wall.

If it were styled to be more obtrusive, that might help as well.

There's perhaps a related issue, where bringing down the URL bar takes a few swipes. I think this is the initial assessment: "oh, the URL bar is stuck, just need to swipe harder." When that fails, it's at the point of frustration, and so the Find bar gets all the negative attention. Not saying it doesn't need to be fixed, but that there's more to it.

Hi

Thank you for that. The find in page search does have a very clear X to close the find in page search and display the addressbar.

To stop the addressbar from hiding when viewing a page, you can change the option in the Firefox for Android Settings menu under Customise.

I hope that this helps.

OK. To restate:

1. User opens Find bar
2. User forgets Find bar ever existed
3. User cannot find URL bar
4. User should use the X on the Find bar which they have forgotten
5. User can alternatively elect to use extra space for the URL bar, which would be there continuously, on a phone interface, taking up space.

I think we may be talking at cross purposes. To me it feels like you do not think there's a problem, or that a workaround would be sufficient. As the user experiencing the problem - for several years now - it definitely feels like a problem. It also feels like there is no reasonable workaround.

Would you configure your phone to have the URL bar on the top, please, and then have a look at what I'm seeing with the Find box? Open up the find, locate a word, and then imagine reading an entire article & trying to get somewhere else afterwards.

I'm speaking from my own experience with the UI here. That experience is informed by 26 years of writing software full-time, full-stack. And a master's in Information Systems. And a PhD in computing, researching user interaction.

In no uncertain terms, these features (URL / Find) are at least very problematic from a UX point of view.

Hi

I have followed your steps exactly. There is a "x" for you to close the text search box and use the addressbar.

The people who answer questions here, for the most part, are other users volunteering their time (like me), not Mozilla employees or Firefox developers. If you want to leave feedback for Firefox developers, you can go to this link. Your feedback gets collected by a team of people who read it and gather data about the most common issues.

You can also file a bug report or feature request. See File a bug report or feature request for Mozilla products for details.

Thank you for the links - I'm sure they'll be useful.

I know we're leaving this topic, and I'm just saying this because I don't think I'm being understood:

The user cannot find the find box, because they've forgotten they're using the feature. Anything regarding using the box cannot be part of a workaround.

Setting the URL bar to be visible just wastes the space and does not address the problem: if you set it visible, the Find box hides it.

Thank you for your feedback.