Signing back into the Community for the first time? You'll need to reset your password to access your account. Find out more.
Forum Discussion
birchmeier
3 months agoOccasional Contributor
Add the Search Icon or add a shortcut.
I am incredibly confused on why the search icon would be removed. It is so awkward to click on the search bar. Why I have to search is because autofill fails which is becoming increasingly common or app dev didn’t register a domain name with their app no there are no associations. There is more but regardless the ability to initiate and clear a search is basic functionality. I’d love to see the search icon brought back another option can be to make a user preference on what the double tap on items does, e.g. brings back to the items page or brings back to the items page and opens a search. This preference could be turned off by default. Please add this.
1Password Version: 8.10.52
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: iOS 18.1.1
Browser: Not Provided
- insecuretoffeeOccasional Contributor
Hey Dave, congrats! Nearly 3 years later and search is still difficult to use. Surprisingly it took nearly three years to listen to "overwhelming amount of feedback" and still can't solve the problem. No wonder the app has a 3.7 star rating.
- ManaburnerFrequent Contributor
Hi,
I'm a beta user so I didn't know about this change ending up in the GA version. As soon as this had landed in the beta, I gave feedback stating my displeasure but it seems it was not enough.
As screens tend to get bigger and bigger, it's harder to reach to the top of the screen to perform the search (at least for me).So here's my suggestion: leave the search bar at the top as it is now and let those people with longer fingers tap into it and search right away.
But please also let me customize the bottom tab bar and allow me to add the search icon back. This icon's only purpose would be to put the focus into the search bar so it's easier to activate. Please :) - birchmeierOccasional Contributor
Hey 1P_Dave i was very clear because i knew it would be used as an excuse. If some users complained about search icon experience that’s fine, let them use the top bar. For everyone else make the bottom user configurable. If you do that everyone win. Thank for you answering my question, I’m incredibly disappointed to find out that instead of finding a solution to make both use cases work it was decided only make one work. It shows a complete lack of awareness and disconnect from the users. My very first comment on this discussion suggested this, now you have multiple suggesting it.
I encourage 1P to listen to users who provide suggestions not just the people who complain about wha they don’t like.
- birchmeierOccasional Contributor
I use an iPhone 15 Pro, so a typical screen size. Depending on what page you are on it is the same number of screen touches. e.g.
if already on the items screen than 1st touch is reachability, 2nd touch is the search bar or x to clear.
Anywhere else it is 3 screen touches.
All of the current workflows are significantly more error prone because they require precise presses/gestures it also creates an awkward workflow.
Where as before you could quickly double tab the search icon to achieve the same result and maintaining the same number of screen taps.
Can you help me understand why this functionality was removed? Were users having a poor experience because they were double tapping when they didn’t mean to? Was the functionality somehow confusing?
Could there not be another icon added? Was 4 icons really too many? Do users use watchtower more than search? Wouldn’t watchtower primarily used when a user signs up and goes through and changes all re-used or weak passwords? Than occasionally to see if a password was has been part of a data leak? Could both of those be part of the tutorials than optional notifications for data leaks? Or could watchtower be a tile on the Home Screen?
Could the 3rd icon be a customized option? Default is watchtower? And search icon is another that is a user preference? When double pressed it highlights the current text in the search bar or if empty places the cursor there.
I am all for streamlining an experience. I am also in disbelief that the previous experience with the search icon was so dysfunctional it had to be removed.
- nycyclistOccasional Contributor
I agree with the comments above. I use search all the time, but Watchtower rarely. It’s so much easier to open search from the bottom of the screen. That of course is where the keyboard is located. And Apple notably moved their search bar to the bottom of Safari a few years ago.
- JSON000Occasional Contributor
I also can't believe I need to create an account here to address this but, that "overwhelming" amount of feedback 1P received 3 years ago was from a place of privilege even then. Those users preferred less accessibility for all in favor of familiarity for them, except now that it's been so long, there is no familiarity for them either. Especially because favoring a bottom tab bar for all essential functionality is so ubiquitous and the standard now. Not to mention, because it took 1P so long to revert the original changes, the feedback complaining that progress in accessibility and usability of mobile UI is a bad thing is 3 years old. I've been a user since 2016 and when 1P8 came out, I remember laughing to myself about these users. They're everywhere, refusing change/progress just because it's different. It's only recently that tech companies have started giving in to those types of people and the world is worse for it.
I have an iphone 13 mini and can't reach that tiny thin search bar at the top of the screen. I guess I have to keep this phone forever now, I can't imagine how much more awful this will when I'm forced to forsake my own needs with a larger screen. I don't even have anything that people would consider to be an accessibility need and it's unusable. It's not like my hands are tiny or anything. I can only imagine how much worse it is for someone with "real" accessibility needs. Although, I guess if I can no longer reach that search bar now, 1P is making me have real accessibility needs as well.
A swipe down gesture (emulating spotlight/siri search in ios) to focus the search bar will also NEVER be as accessible as the search icon in the bottom tab bar. Why do you think Apple themselves added the little search icon/text at the bottom of your ios home page? So many users out there don't know and will never use features that aren't immediately obvious. This is even evident from the response just above me mentioning that you can long tap on the 1Password app icon get to search. We're currently in 1Password forums, if 1P's power users and the people interacting here don't know or use a feature like that, no one will. Coincidentally, this is the reason Apple removed 3d/force touch as well. It was too expensive to include when the majority of users never used it. With gestures, you're immediately alienating users with accessibility needs as well as those who don't RTFM. (which is almost every end user?) At this rate, 1P will need a new user tutorial for mobile too.
The response in this thread that Apple makes a reachability feature is also pitiful. Does 1P think they're absolved of dealing with accessibility issues because of this? These changes have quite literally de-prioritized accessibility and modern familiarity in favor of reverting to 2012 design for the loud privileged users of 3 years ago.
On a personal note, I don't actually need ANY of the bottom tabs EXCEPT for search. Certainly not in the mobile UI. Watchtower could live in the "profile" icon up top, items tab is pointless when search exists, home tab is useless as well. In the time it takes to figure out which section of the home tab the thing I'm looking for is in, I could have already found it with search. Funnily enough, I left this feedback in some of your surveys recently asking about how to make home tab useful. Imagine my surprise when 1P decide to eliminate the 1 useful thing in the app for me, in order to prioritize all of the parts I don't need.
Since home tab is customizable, maybe 1P could add a search module there? For example, if I could add a search module to the home tab that changed functionality if I removed all other modules so that when I navigate there, the search/keyboard would open with the old search functionality? Or ya know, just put search back in the bottom tab like 95% of modern apps.
- insecuretoffeeOccasional Contributor
Is there any update here? No only is this experience severely worse, it’s also started to crash much more when using search, especially when using from the Watchtower tab as opposed to the Item or Home tabs.
It’s wild to have three separately searches in three separate locations. It’s just super confusing also to have multiple search and I’ve found myself thinking wait which tab did I search for X item on? And then inevitable clicking into the wrong one.
That’s why I’ve try to exclusively use the Watchtower tab for search because the tab is useless otherwise. But it crashes sometimes when 1/ clicking search bar, 2/ when clicking into a result, 3/ when going back from a result back to search, or when 4/ closing search. I’ve sent your team a diagnostic report.
- birchmeierOccasional Contributor
I won’t say this is going to make me stop using 1Password, but it’s giving me a couple thoughts about the perspective of how they handle user input.
- insecuretoffeeOccasional Contributor
Amazing, truly fantastic work 1Password team:
1/ Still cannot press the Item tab to highlight Search bar so you still have to reach
2/ Search bar exists in three different places, so pressing search bar in one tab vs another doesn’t talk to each other. (Why even have tabs? lol why not just combine Home and Item and have the Tiles totally customizable? Once again, why even have Watchtower tab?)
3/ Search in Watchtower, even as “designed”, still does not work and straight-up crashes the app lolI know this feedback is going straight to the trash so best of luck to any other user coming through the forum hoping to be heard!
- birchmeierOccasional Contributor
Hey 1P_Dave thank you for passing along the info. To answer your question a swipe down may work. I can’t visualize how it would work well because most of the pages in the 1Password app need to be scrolled to view all info. Where as with iOS that gesture is only on a screen where you don’t scroll down. So I just don’t see it working well, especially for re-searching/searching again. I could be wrong, I’d have to see a preview.
I’d still really like an answer on why this change was made. Without an explanation it seems like 1Password made a decision that negatively affects user experience in a silo. Which is odd because 1Password Markerts how much they are an experience/apps build around users.
Thanks for the support nycyclist