Of adding bookmarks

[Peter Harvey <pah06 uow edu au>]

Hi all,

There was a recent (long) debate on IRC about a new dialog should be
used when you use "Add bookmark" on a page that is already bookmarked.
The source of this debate is:
  http://home.exetel.com.au/harvey/epiphany/t3c.png

Fundamentally, the question was whether or not the menuitem immediately
under Bookmarks menu should be:
  * Add Bookmark
  * Bookmark this page

Scenarios
---------

Alice wants to bookmark the current page and continue browsing. There
are numerous examples of this and it is the most common use case.

Bob wants to bookmark some page *other* than his current page and
continue browsing. This is a less usual use case.

Carl wants to bookmark a slightly cleaner URL from his current page and
continue browsing. This can happen, especially with the results of
search queries and the like.

Dennis wants to bookmark the current page and then immediately bookmark
some base page (eg. http://www.php.net/manual/en/ and then
http://www.php.net/). This can happen when searching for documentation,
or otherwise after something specific on a site.

So, Alice and Carl are the most common use cases, but Dennis and Bob
would happen often enough to give them some consideration.


Bookmark this page
------------------

The principle here is that the action immediately under the Bookmarks
menu should relate just to the current page. This principle can be
desirable from the conceptual view of "we bookmark a page, we don't
create a bookmark", and/or because it makes the concept of what will
happen simple and clear.

Certain things are implied by this. For example, when selecting
"Bookmark this page" on a page that is already bookmarked, the user
should not be allowed to create a new bookmark. Also, the user should
not *in theory* be able to edit the bookmarked URL, as this breaks the
above behaviour. For example, if I was able to bookmark
http://my.home.page.com/index.html and edit it to
http://my.home.page.com/ then [a] I have bookmarked the same page but
[b] I am able to re-bookmark it). The option remains to permit editing
of the URL on creation, but it will encourage users to use the "Bookmark
this page" action in circumstances where it won't always work.

Alice
      * Just "Bookmark this page"
Simple, easy, clean. Will be warned if a bookmark already exists.

Bob
      * If he can edit the URL, he would try "Bookmark this page" and
        edit, but would fail when (and only when) he's currently on a
        bookmarked page.
      * Would alternatively open "Manage Bookmarks" and then "File/New
        bookmark" to create a blank bookmark to edit.
      * Or would open a new tab, browse to the site (if possible) and
        use "Bookmark this page" from there.
If you can edit the URL of a bookmark on creation then it is likely a
user would think they can create the bookmark first before being blocked
from making duplicates. If you are unable to edit the current URL then
it seems a little long-winded for a user to open "Manage Bookmarks" and
find the file menu, etc.

Carl
      * Would "Bookmark this page", unless he knows that he can't edit
        the URL.
      * Otherwise must open "Manage Bookmarks" and then "File/New
        bookmark" and edit a blank bookmark from scratch.
      * Alternatively can "Bookmark this page", close the bookmark, find
        the bookmark somehow, open properties, and edit the URL
        *anyway*.
Frustrating if you can't edit the URL of a page. Simple and clean if you
can.

Dennis
      * Would "Bookmark this page" for the current page (the manual).
      * Then must follow Bob's routine, except that this time "Bookmark
        this page" is guaranteed to fail if he tries.

Add Bookmark
------------

The principle here is that a bookmark is created and pre-filled with the
information from the current page. As the default use case would be
"bookmark the current page" we would expect users to not modify the URL
most times. So a dialog notifying the user that a bookmark already
exists for this page would be useful, but shouldn't block the user if
they want to edit the pre-filled contents.

This does create a problem that the dialog notifying the user looks
like: http://home.exetel.com.au/harvey/epiphany/t3c.png
If the user has the concept "we bookmark a page, we don't create a
bookmark" then it might be problematic to have "Create new" there. The
common response by users with that concept would be "But why?".

Alice
      * "Add Bookmark". If the bookmark exists then will be warned.
She might be confused by the "Create new" option, but as the dialog is
informational and the message seems to only tell her that the bookmark
already exists the "OK" option is clearly the choice to take.

Bob
      * "Add Bookmark" and edit.
      * If the current page is already bookmarked he will be presented
        with an information dialog telling him that he already has a
        bookmark for the current page. He can tell that Epiphany has
        erroneously thought that he wanted to bookmark the current page,
        and would be in the frame of mind where he knows exactly what
        "Create new" does.

Carl
      *  Exactly the same as Bob.

Dennis
      * "Add Bookmark" for the first page.
      * Then exactly the same as Bob, except that he might be fully
        aware of the dialog that will present itself.

Review
------

Bookmark this page, with URL editing:
      * Encourages users to think the action/dialog can be used in all
        circumstances, which isn't true.
      * Functions like "Add Bookmark" in *most* circumstances, but...
      * Completely blocks the user in some circumstances, forcing them
        to find a different path (through "Manage Bookmarks") to achieve
        their goal.

Bookmark this page, without URL editing:
      * Encourages users to think of bookmarks for pages, not links
      * Prevents the user from touching up the URL, or using current
        page as a template to create similar bookmarks (eg. google.com,
        google.com.au).

Add Bookmark:
      * May confuse Alice if she has a strong notion of "we bookmark a
        page, we don't create a bookmark"
      * Explcitly admits that a bookmark may be duplicated (this can
        happen anyway, we just didn't really want the users to be so
        aware of it)

My opinion
----------

To my mind the idea of "we bookmark a page, we don't create a bookmark"
is broken. It wants to ensure that a user can only bookmark a page once,
but is flawed when:
      * two URLs give the same page (undetectable/unenforcable)
      * a user wants to modify the URL before clicking "OK" on the
        bookmark
      * a user modifies the URL later anyway

I can understand Epiphany being *helpful* in some circumstances. It can
detect duplicate URLs at least and notify the user. But to block the
user completely doesn't ensure no duplicate bookmarks. And it
complicates the other use cases.

Regards,
Peter Harvey.