Duplicate (copy) item in 1Password8 - missing shortcut and cumbersome required vault re-selection

esquared

In 1Password8, there are two issues related to the use of "Duplicate Item".

• The keyboard shortcut is missing (was Command-D on MacOS)
• Duplicate (unnecessarily) asks for the destination vault.

While both are frustrating changes relative to the 1Password7 behavior, of those two, the second is more important. From a usability perspective, what I want is just to create a copy of the item in the same vault. I don't need to be interrupted in my process to answer yet-another-question about where it should go. If I want to move the item to a different vault, I can do that as a separate action. I've never, and I mean never, wanted to create a duplicate in a separate vault w/out first editing something about it, be that the username/password/urls/whatever. From a UX perspective, you are forcing me to think about things I don't need to worry about and interrupting my workflow.

Again, both of these items were, IMO, perfect in 1Password7. Please consider reverting that behavior.

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Note that I originally posted this request in the Desktop Beta forum, but that was closed without resolution.

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1Password Version: 8.10.0 (81000020 beta)
Extension Version: 2.6.1
OS Version: MacOS 13.2
Browser:_ multiple

andrew.l_1P

Hi @esquared,

Thanks for following up about this feedback. I can confirm it was recorded but if you're open to sharing, I'd be interested in hearing more about your use case for duplicating items. For example, what types of items are you duplicating? What do you ultimately do with these items after they've been duplicated in the same vault?

Let me know and I can add these details for the rest of the team!

ref: PB-30534678

esquared

@andrew.l_1P - I'm happy to provide additional information, but I'm still of the opinion that the change in UX experience is definitively sub-par to the behavior that existed before. Specifically, there's no value added to interrupting the flow of action to ask the user where to put the duplicate. If you are a macOS user, it's like a duplicate operation on a file in the file system / Finder. You get a new copy in the same folder, just with Copy appended, with no extra actions or questions interrupting. Icing on the cake is the simple keyboard shortcut (Cmd-D) to make it trivial with no mouse involvement. That's the way it was in 1Password7.

Regardless, the most common use case is to duplicate an item in preparation to share with someone else, either in one of my existing accounts or via the "Share" feature. Mostly it's because the name of the item, it's URL(s), and perhaps even the other sections of fields or notes are useful information and I don't want to have to copy and paste each of those fields/values/notes from one item to another. In that case, having a duplicate function is the easiest method.

I hope that is helpful to show how the feature is useful, albeit desegregated in the new version of 1Passowrd.

andrew.l_1P

Thanks for these details, @esquared! A keyboard shortcut and behaviour consistent with macOS makes sense to me. I do want to clarify your workflow for duplicating and sharing more.

Let me know if I've misunderstood anything but it sounds like your preference is to duplicate an item within your vault (since this would be faster than making one from scratch) and then editing it so it's ready to be shared. In these cases does the duplicated item serve as a sort of template? Do you find yourself editing most/all of the fields on that new item or just a few?

I'm adding details as we go so anything you want to share is welcome, thanks!

esquared

@andrew.l_1P - yes, all of that is true, including the part about having an existing item serve as a sort of template for the new one. In those situations, it is generally the case that I'm not generally changing much - perhaps just the username/password.

Though that's not the primary concern I have, and I feel as if perhaps you might be missing the main point I've been making: in my opinion, there is no value in asking the user into which vault I want the duplicate item to be placed. It should just be in the same vault as the original. From a UX perspective, it is unnecessary friction (yes, that's a technical term in my research area) - that is, the UX forced interaction distracts from the primary task at hand. Interrupting the user at that point to answer an any question is forcing someone else's expectations on the user which probably will not match the needs of the user. If the user wants to move the item, they can do that after creating the duplicate, and perhaps modifying it. Perhaps they won't want to move it to a different vault, and thus there is no value in having been asked in the first place.

Finally, the keyboard shortcut clearly secondary to the above comments - though would be very nice to have - actually, have back, since it' was there in the previous version.

andrew.l_1P

Thanks @esquared, I've filed this as a separate insight to emphasize the workflow interruption. I can't make any promises but I do see how this impacts the workflow you describe and appreciate you sharing all these details.

Let me know if you have any questions and thanks again. 🙂

ref: PB-30639729

esquared

@andrew.l_1P -- I appreciate the attention, but I really don't see the problem with the friction/interruption in the workflow as a separate issue from the lack of a keyboard shortcut. IMO, the two are intrinsically linked in that they are features that were previously working perfectly in 1Password7 and now are substantially more cumbersome. Furthermore, I don't see how anyone's workflow is improved by the interruption at the time of duplication, but clearly someone in the design team thought that was a useful model. If you were willing to have someone from that design team engage here, perhaps that would help focus the discussion on the critical elements of the UX.

andrew.l_1P

Hi @esquared,

Apologies for the delay here. I do understand that for the workflow you described (using duplicating as a sort of template creation), having to choose a destination adds an unnecessary step. I suspect though that there are other use cases for duplicating an item. For example, in my own use I sometimes duplicate an item to a shared vault so a family member can access it. Duplicating instead of moving it ensures I retain a copy that no one else can edit and that none of my existing workflows are interrupted by the item being in a different vault.

That said, I do still see some room for improvement for both our workflows. In my case, any edits made to the original item wouldn't reflect on the duplicate. So maybe I would benefit from rearranging how I organize my items and reevaluating which ones ultimately belong in shared vs. private vaults. In your case, if the details of an item didn't need to be changed, you could share the original item directly. If changes do need to be made and ultimately what you're trying to retain is the format/fields/sections of an item, I think that's an excellent use case in favour of a template feature.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

esquared

Thanks for the followup, @andrew.l_1P , but I really think a template feature is unnecessary. The usage I described is "template like", but that's not my main intent. I just want to start with an item that is mostly what I want, and modify it for another account, likely at the same website or holding very similar data. Yes, template like, but it's not like I do this more than 2 or 3 times for a given item, and thus a true template system would be way overkill. I'd rather see engineering effort put into returning other missing 1Password7 features back into 1P8.

In my case on this topic, I want to minimize the effort involved in duplicating an item. Again, the main impediment to my workflow is the interruption to ask in which vault the new item should reside. IMO, simply duplicate the item in the same vault and move on. Don't impose more steps on a process that is as simple as copy+paste. I get your usage is not the same as mine, and you may enjoy the option to put a duplicate in a different vault, but not everybody wants that. If you had usage statistics gathered, I'd bet you 90% of the people put the duplicated item in the same vault. Even if that number is only 50%, that means that you are annoying half your customer base by asking unnecessary questions.