🎯 The objective

The objective of this project is to redesign the account drawer in Thunderbird for Android (TfA) to enhance the usability and clarity of the drawer. This improvement addresses major user feedback from the recent TfA 8 and 9 beta releases, which highlighted difficulties in switching between accounts. The goal is to create a seamless, user-friendly experience by introducing:

• Icons that visually distinguish between accounts.
• A wide view for clearer visibility of account names and email addresses.

By implementing these changes, we aim to improve the user satisfaction and engagement with the TfA app.

🎒 Resources

• User feedback summary:
  • https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kHVbfs13lBEne_TvJaEvHetg-nXn_c6YiH4qYGPkMew/edit?tab=t.0
  • https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LTNBqX6QBqCt-U4xLTye_pasEz8ADf49TNoKcl39xVQ/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.pj2eivuflyos
• User stories and specifications: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XXT3U_ywV5_j0UxrLch0ALPmCmcKbq8BvLqsNwd_SFg/edit?tab=t.0
• Figma designs: TODO
• GitHub issues:
  • Release Feedback: Drawer

🦮 Rules of the Road

To ensure a successful implementation, the following requirements must be met:

🟢 In Scope

• Visual Icon Differentiation for Accounts: Adding customizable icons to represent different accounts visually.
• Wide Format Layout: Updating the account drawer layout to display account names and associated email addresses in a wide format.
• Visible indication of account selection

🔴 Out of Scope

• Changes to the core functionality of the email client unrelated to account switching.
• Introducing a structured folder view for easier navigation within each account, see separate project [EPIC] Folder Hierarchy #8959 .
• Advanced folder management features such as folder creation, reordering or deletion within the drawer.

🚧 Technical and/or Business Requirements

• Accessibility: Ensure compliance with accessibility standards, including proper labeling for screen readers and visual contrast for icons.
• Scalability: Support users with one account and a large number of accounts and folders without degradation in performance. Additionally, ensure that usability and navigation are not compromised for these users.

🏃 Milestones

Milestone 1: Research and Design

• Gather user insights to refine requirements.
• Develop detailed Figma designs for the new account drawer.
• Do usability testing on design prototypes.

Milestone 2: Development and Implementation

• Implement visual icon differentiation for accounts.
• Update the account drawer layout to support wide format.

Cross-Functional Tasks

🎨 Design

• Turn scoped design change description into finished designs that can be implemented

⁉️ QA

• TODO consider if there are any things SV manual QA should do

📊 MarComm

• Ask users for feedback on design
• Inform about changes in reviews
• Potentially update the community on the changes we’ve done and that we are listening (blog post, etc)

🤝 Support - Product

• TODO Sumo changes - which ones?