Proposal: Expanding NavigationView Pane automatically when hovering mouse or pen focus in the area

[LiZhao-MSFT]

Proposal: Expanding navigation view automatically when hovering mouse or pen focus in the area

The Navigation Pane expands automatically on hover mouse or pen focus in the area instead of requiring the hamburger button to be clicked. It collapse automatically once the focus is moved out of the area. It appears users find this easier to discover items in the navigation view area than via tooltips.

Rationale

• This feature has been implemented in Start and Cortana in 19H1 release. The A/B experiment data from Windows Insiders, confirmed during controlled feature rollout with retail Windows users shows significant increase in proportion of users engaging with the items in navigation pane when the feature is available. It also increase the frequency of engagement on those items.
• The data indicates that the feature helps users discover the items in navigation pane in Start and Cortana, and help them much easier to access resources.
• This feature in Start and Cortana has received very positive user feedback from WIP and Retail population. While it is available to a small % of retail devices via controlled feature rollout, users started to ask how to turn it on manually on devices not having this feature.
• This pattern make sense for other first party apps like News and Weather that use similar UI.

Due to the success of this auto-opening feature on shell surfaces, apps are likely to wish to provide their users with what will become a familiar experience.

Scope

Num	Capability	Priority
1	Update NavigationView's LeftCompact ("sliver") mode to change its open/closed state based on mouse/pen position	Must
2	To ensure an experience consistent with what users will see in Start, make this behavior the control's default without an opt-out mechanism	Must
3	Do not update the behavior of NavigationView's Expanded, Minimal, or Top modes	Must

Requirements

Num	Requirement
1	Match the delay timing used in Start
2	Explore alternative behaviors, e.g. show a tooltip when hovering over the first item, expand the Pane after hovering on second item (this is a proxy for determining when a user is exploring the UI)
3	Consider whether keyboard focus should also open the pane (including after the user has pressed Escape to close the Pane)

Important Notes

Open Questions

I'm particularly looking for feedback about whether apps should be able to opt out of this auto-expanding behavior.

• On the one hand, an opt-out mechanism would dilute the consistency of the user experience and potentially result in user frustration when some apps don't meet user expectations.
• On the other hand, some power users may feel that this behavior slows them down.

[lukasf]

I think it is a good idea to allow devs to opt-out. There could be apps where the nav bar is only rarely used, and devs don't want it to open automatically, hiding important parts of the app. Please don't force new behavior on devs, just because you think it is best. This has not worked out very well in the past.

You could consider adding some kind of "AutoExpandTimeout" TimeSpan property. Some app devs might want the pane to appear faster (or even instantly). Setting a very large value would then allow to opt-out (kind of).

Let me add that I really like the auto-expand behavior. But when the pane opens, it changes the app UI a lot. It should be up to the devs to decide if this is really desirable for their app. This is not a nice new little animation, but a rather drastic change in behavior.

[mdtauk]

Add a property which is set to True by default.
AutoExpandPaneOnHover

Add a TimeSpan as mentioned before, for the delay (if none is set use the Windows Shell default)
AutoExpandTimeout

[shaheedmalik]

As a user, I have used this in regards to the Start Menu and I personally dislike it. Great icongraphy, for me, can tell me what feature I am clicking on. In the case of the Start Menu. it renders the Menu (Split view) button at the top redundant. If it is used,

I think there should be a longer delay on it before poping up. Perhaps 3 seconds? Right now it pops up too fast for me.

[shaheedmalik]

Feedback in the Feedback Hub have also showed criticism about this feature.

https://aka.ms/AA6e9h8

https://aka.ms/AA6dv85f