Tab volume indicator expanding tab space

[bobweasel]

I noticed the volume indicator when a tab plays a sound now would expand the tab size in the tabs bar, is there any way to revert to the previous behaviour where the icon will occupy the favicon instead?

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/media-tabs-shrink-and-grow-like-they-re-in-alice-s-wonder... is it this subject

[bobweasel]

Not sure if it is the same issue as what I am seeing is the volume icon appears beside the favicon, instead of the preferred behaviour of replacing the favicon which is also the behavior before the most recent update (currently on 136.0.1), and does not change tab size. Maybe because I do not face a min tab size issue due to my number of tabs?

[Agentvirtuel]

Hello

Just a question, what was your previous version before the update?

[jeffg01]

Agreed: I would also like to have an option somewhere to disable this. I've now accidentally closed a few tabs because I had the cursor headed toward where it should have been needed, only to have the tab next to it suddenly change size when it finished loading a page with audio, causing its X to shift to a location where I was already starting to click. 

I get why this functionality could be useful, but I find that dynamically-sized UI elements, mainly when they are laggy or delayed as happens when a webpage is gradually loading in content, can cause misclicks like these accidental closings. 

[ttt7]

Seriously, this is one of the worst UX designs I've ever encountered, and that's no small feat. Guess when I'm most likely to click on a media tab? Either when I just opened it and I'm switching to it... halfway through which the volume icon will pop up and completely change the effect of my clicks on precisely the only small area of the screen I'm trying to click. Or when I'm done with the media, say, just finished watching a video, and I go to close the tab or move to another tab, just as the volume icon vanishes and changes the effect of my clicks on precisely the only small area of the screen I'm trying to click.

How did this get approved? How did it pass QA? It is almost optimally bad UX design, it's genuinely baffling. And for there to not even be an option to fiddle with to make things less painful without resorting to userChrome that you would undoubtedly have to fix and re-fix every couple updates? Come on.

First, this needs to be optional, one way or another. Second, future UI design desperately needs to be reviewed by somebody with an understanding of the basics of UX. Rule #1 is to make user interactions unambiguous in space or time. Aligning actual user intent and interpreted user input is, without exaggeration, the single most important job of UX design. Making the result of user inputs dynamically change between when user intent arises and when user input happens is a recipe for disaster.

If there must be a volume play/mute button that's always available on screen (which I don't think is the case, it's not really such a pressing concern that it deserves top-tier screen real estate permanently assigned to it, but regardless), then, first, space for it must be allocated ahead of time. No dynamic resizing. No overlapping with other buttons. Maybe have it next to the tabs, or have the button somewhere generic (applying always to the current tab) instead of coinciding with the "audio playing" indicator, which can just replace the favicon as before. There are plenty of options that wouldn't ruin the UX of general browsing for the sake of one ultra-niche feature (I certainly have never intentionally muted a tab before, nevermind intentionally started a paused video on another tab without switching to it by clicking on the volume icon, not sure what the use case there is even supposed to be)