Mozilla has publicly criticized Microsoft for deploying its AI assistant, Copilot, onto Windows systems without user consent, a practice the Firefox maker describes as prioritizing corporate revenue over user rights.
all of that is correct and also basically what i said. the reason it became a big deal was because of accessibility. the definition of a “long press” is short enough that older users, who tend to hold the mouse button down for longer after a click, were suddenly seeing popup windows everywhere and, believing it to be an issue of the site they were on, assumed their popup blocker was broken. the timing was adjusted to one second in an update and also the long press shortcut was made optional.
when it was pointed out to mozilla that having a popup containing one big blue button in a popup with fancy graphics around it might also be harking back to the popup ads of yore, and that it might compel people to click on the only visible button on instinct, their head of firefox did an interview with pc world where he countered this with, and i’m paraphrasing here, “nuh-uh”. this was in reference to an ama they did where several interaction experts weighed in with frankly pretty standard stuff: don’t surprise the user, don’t shove things in their face, don’t draw attention needlessly.
for reference, here is the popup post-fixing:
before they pushed an update the button didn’t say “continue”, it said “Summarize with AI ✨” and didn’t have a “cancel” option.
oh believe you me i am incredibly concerned about all of it. but they didn’t listen to feedback, is the point. it’s still there, it still pops up randomly due to no accessibility research, it’s still blue.
all of that is correct and also basically what i said. the reason it became a big deal was because of accessibility. the definition of a “long press” is short enough that older users, who tend to hold the mouse button down for longer after a click, were suddenly seeing popup windows everywhere and, believing it to be an issue of the site they were on, assumed their popup blocker was broken. the timing was adjusted to one second in an update and also the long press shortcut was made optional.
when it was pointed out to mozilla that having a popup containing one big blue button in a popup with fancy graphics around it might also be harking back to the popup ads of yore, and that it might compel people to click on the only visible button on instinct, their head of firefox did an interview with pc world where he countered this with, and i’m paraphrasing here, “nuh-uh”. this was in reference to an ama they did where several interaction experts weighed in with frankly pretty standard stuff: don’t surprise the user, don’t shove things in their face, don’t draw attention needlessly.
for reference, here is the popup post-fixing:
before they pushed an update the button didn’t say “continue”, it said “Summarize with AI ✨” and didn’t have a “cancel” option.
I’d be way more concerned about other things in that interview than nitpicking the language when firefox checks notes listened to feedback
oh believe you me i am incredibly concerned about all of it. but they didn’t listen to feedback, is the point. it’s still there, it still pops up randomly due to no accessibility research, it’s still blue.