Last modified: 2013-02-08 05:03:08 UTC
STEPS TO REPRODUCE: 0. Firefox 17.0.1 on Fedora 16. 1. Go to http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:New_project/fi?uselang=en&useskin=vector 2. I am not logged in. 3. I click the small ULS button in the upper right 4. I enter a search text in the search box. 5. I wondered what the big X at the end of the search field does. 6. I hovered the mouse over it. I did not get a tooltip. So I had to try. EXPECTED RESULTS: Get a tooltip telling me what the X in the Search field does. I expected it to close the Search field, as an X button is traditionally used to *close* display elements, plus that's also the meaning of the X button for the surrounding "Select Language" window that this Search field is part of. Instead it erased my search entry (which is fine too, however I would have expected a broom or something). That might be a separate icon change request if you agree. EXPECTED RESULTS: Consistent meaning for the two "X" buttons in this dialog.
Inclined to WONTFIX. The use cases for ULS should be implemented to well that no additional potential UI clutter is needed. If it needs explaining, then it's not right. So maybe it can be improved, or removed altogether. Leaving that up to Pau.
In case a tooltip is a no-go I'd say: Make the two "X" buttons/icons self-explanatory by fixing the missing consistency.
The use of an "X" button to clear text is a pattern often used in designs that can be used in touch devices (where character by character deletion can be hard). The creator of a similar Dojo-based widget provides some information about this at http://davidwalsh.name/dojo-textbox with an iPhone example. The "x" is also commonly found in Android (I made a screenshot of Google Now search bar: http://i.imgur.com/5kYwW.png ). I think that a toltip is not needed because it takes less time to try it and learn it than reading the tooltip itself. Especially considering that there are no negative side-effects for the user to just try it, and it is not an UI element the user is forced to use (the same can be achieved by deleting the text manually).
Closing as WONTFIX per comment 3.
