[Address Book] app sends you to "Online Accounts" and strands you there

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement]

First time in contacts when asked to add an account to sync.

You are taken into settings and add an account which returns to main settings screen. This should take you into the new account to tick the contacts sync check box!

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.10
Package: ubuntu-system-settings-online-accounts 0.4+14.10.20140908~rtm-0ubuntu1 [origin: Ubuntu RTM]
Uname: Linux 3.4.67 armv7l
ApportVersion: 2.14.7-0ubuntu1
Architecture: armhf
Date: Tue Sep 23 11:54:02 2014
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-09-16 (7 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu Utopic Unicorn (development branch) - armhf (20140916-030205)
SourcePackage: ubuntu-system-settings-online-accounts
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[David Barth (dbarth)]

This is a long debate, but essentially the design for the feature so far is that we should switch back to the account list, not the individual account that was created.

[Olga Kemmet (olga-kemmet)]

We did usability testing on OOBE and first time use cases this week.
When users synced their contacts from the Address Book app, they were redirected to online accounts where they had to add their Google account.
Logging into Google was bumpy but worked fine, but once those steps were done users were completely confused why they are back to the online accounts overview instead of the detailed view for the Google account.
This is the view which actually allows users to set the syncing options and 4/5 users didn't manage to access it.

Therefor, I will mark it back to "New".

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

Changing to critical according to Olga's comments

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

I can't reproduce this to see what the problem is. In 14.10 r274, when I choose "Google" from the list of account types, it takes me to a "Google" screen that spins for a few seconds and then returns to the "Accounts" screen.

Please either let me know when adding a Google account becomes possible, or attach a video of the problem described in this bug. Thanks.

[Olli Ries (ories)]

not a target for the 10/16 image, moving to 10/23

[Alberto Mardegan (mardy)]

Matthew, adding Google accounts should have always been working. It may be that you didn't have network connectivity (by the way, we probably need some error messages in this case)? Could you try with a Facebook or Twitter account instead?

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Okay, reproduced in devel r243. Here are the major issues I see:

(A) You're asked: "You have no contacts. Would you like to sync contacts from online accounts now?" This is, unfortunately, not meaningful. When you see this prompt, there's probably about a 10% chance that you know what Online Accounts is, about a 1% chance that you've ever actually gone in there, about a 0.1% chance that you've guessed which of the account types offer contact syncing, and about a 0.01% chance that you've memorized them well enough to give an informed answer to this question.

(B) If, out of curiosity, you tap "Yes", you are eventually presented with OA's full list of account types. Does Contacts really import contacts from Flickr and Ubuntu One? I doubt it, since <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOne/Status#Contacts> suggests that Ubuntu One hasn't even had a contacts service since June 2011. Why offer choices that can't work?

(C) As described in this bug report, when you enter your account details, you're dumped at the main screen of System Settings with no clue where to go next. (I strongly disagree that "This should take you into the new account to tick the contacts sync check box", firstly because that wouldn't solve the problem of stranding you inside System Settings, and secondly because you already answered that question by adding the account in the first place.)

(D) If you find your way back to Contacts, you discover that there are no contacts synced, and no explanation of why it didn't happen.

(E) If somehow you manage to go back to System Settings, navigate into Online Accounts, and enter the account screen, you discover that Contacts still does not have access to the account that you just said it could have access to.

(F) Even if you then flick the switch to give Contacts access to the account, and navigate back to Contacts, there are still no contacts synced, and still no explanation of why it didn't happen.

(G) If you choose "No" at the beginning, but change your mind later, or if you have a connection problem or sign-in problem but want to try again later, or if you want to sync contacts from more than one account, you're out of luck. There appears to be no way to get the prompt back, short of resetting the phone.

In addition, minor problems:
(h) The prompt begins "You have no contacts." If it's referring to local contacts that seems like it's reporting something obvious as an error (I just launched the app!), and if it's referring to online ones it raises the question of why it's inviting you to sync non-existent contacts.
(i) The prompt's buttons are "Yes" and "No", when this is avoidable.
(j) On choosing "Yes", you see the "System Settings" splash screen, confusing you about you what you just did.
(k) On the second page of the Google Account sign-in, the "Accept" button is off the edge of the screen.

Problems (A), (B), (C), (E), (h), (i), and (j) can all be fixed by following the flow shown in the Online Accounts spec. <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/OnlineAccounts#phone-access> That is, changing the prompt to one that explicitly offers the account types that can actually be synced. Something like:

    Get Started With C...

[Bill Filler (bfiller)]

sounds like this needs a discussion at the sprint to all get on the same page about the flow and figure out what the work items are

[Joe Odukoya (jodukoya)]

This bug definitely needs to be sorted. Is there now agreement on the user flow and work items list?

[David Barth (dbarth)]

The fix is purely in the contact par, so taking OA off the list