14 DAY TRIAL // The Test Pilot add-on has been a real treasure trove for Mozilla. It comes installed by default with all pre-release version of Firefox, including betas, and is constantly used to see how users respond to new features and how they use Firefox in general.
An interesting find in an older study is that most people don't use the CTRL+F shortcut, which is used to bring up the 'find in page' feature. While the feature has been around for ages in most desktop software, most people are adverse to keyboard shortcuts in general.
The problem is, in this case, that there's no easy way of bringing up the search feature other than the keyboard shortcut.
There is a 'Find' menu entry in the consolidated menu, which is filed under Edit > Find, if you're still using the old school menu bar, but it takes several more steps.
"What we found is that about 81% of TestPilot users didn’t use CTRL+F during the course of the study," Mozilla wrote.
"TestPilot users are usually more technologically experienced than the general population, since they are largely Firefox Beta users. When we look at TestPilot users who consider themselves beginners, the percentage goes up to 85%," it added.
That's a very poor figure, for a feature that clearly comes in handy in a lot of cases. It's hard to imagine that there are that many people that use the feature, via the menu buttons, and not the keyboard shortcut.
Then again, if users aren't accustomed to using keyboard shortcuts in any situation, they could be more familiar with using the UI elements and menu entries to get the job done.
"In addition, those who use CTRL+F on average use keyboard shortcuts twice as much as those who don’t, even when we ignore those people who don’t use any keyboard shortcuts at all. This implies that people who use CTRL+F are more comfortable with keyboard shortcuts in general," Mozilla also said.