Opening based on my comment here: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=881463#c22

xpost from linked bug, here's an unpolished version of what this looks like, though I believe the pbos@ entry should show "warning" as text instead (error state takes precedence over name)

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Relevant xpost: "as one of the users that uses multiple profiles that sync to the same account, thus the icon is the same, I would gladly give up the icon and replace it with the text of the profile name"

Given that we don't enforce that the profile image is unique, the avatar image is not always a sufficient indicator.

Reporter@ Thanks for the issue.

As this issue is marked as Feature Request, removing Needs-Bisect label and marking this issue as Untriaged for further updates from Dev.

Thanks..

Please reconsider marking this as a feature request, as well as increasing its priority. It is a request to replace a feature that was removed. It was present in Chrome 68 (screenshots attached). From the screenshots you can see that it in 68, it was possible to distinguish windows of one person from another since the person's name was displayed. Beginning in 69, only an avatar image is displayed, making it difficult to distinguish between a window belonging to one person or another. 

In 69 and 70 there was a workaround that has been removed in 71. Please see the discussions in issue 881463 as well as the product forum links contained there.

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This is marked as a feature request.

The text above (two profiles syncing to the same account) seems invalid. We tried logging in to the same account on Canary on two different profiles and Chrome said that "we don't support that" and wouldn't do it. If there's a way for two profiles to sync to the same google account that seems like a bug.

The profiles in M73 should be different avatars. When you add a new profile Chrome asks you to select an avatar. The problem is that if you choose none, the default will be the same across multiple profiles. This is issue 852015 and the workaround before we set better defaults is to change the avatar yourself (in chrome://settings). Arguably you shouldn't be allowed to use the same avatar for more than one profile.

The screenshot above in comment #8 of M73 (you wrote "the text above", but I'm guessing that was a typo) is not of two profiles syncing to the same account, just of two profiles that aren't configured to sync. That causes them to have the same default avatar. To reproduce that from a fresh install, I just went People > Add Person.  It ends up with the state as above, two windows, each of different profiles (aka people), with no way to distinguish between them.

If that is clear, and adding the text of the profile name (as in the shot of M68 ) is still considered a feature request, I understand.

If it will address this, the text "Doggy McDogdace" in the screenshot in #3 would need to be the name of the Person as defined in the Chrome app, and not the "name" of the google account being synced to- which are not necessarily the same.

"the text above" was related to comment #4 where I referred to a user that had two profiles syncing to the same account. We couldn't get that to repro as Chrome would refuse to sync multiple profiles to the same account.

"That causes them to have the same default avatar." is issue 852015 and I think that's for sure a bug. If you change the profile images under chrome://settings/manageProfile they do change from the grey default, right? A reasonable default here would've been to have the first profile use profile image 1, and the second one use profile image 2. My problem with the M73 screenshot is that both users get the same icon by default, not that text isn't showing in the toolbar.

I don't think adding the text here would fly, it encroaches on valuable toolbar space and looks out of place. We'd also need to figure out how short to crop it, but someone with "Mr Longname McLongnameson (personal)" and "Mr Longname McLongnameson (corp)" would require a long profile string to distinguish. Doggy McDogface is even arguably too long.  I think distinguished default avatars are the answer here, possibly with more distinct default designs.

Please don't replace text with an avatar.

re McLongnameson comment, could you consider right-aligning the profile name, following the same rule as what happens if you have too many toolbar items or bookmarks bar items?

IMO it is up to the user to make sure they come up with a profile name that is not obnoxiously long and doesn't encroach on toolbar space.

That works for this specific McLongnameson who disambiguates on suffix, but not "Steve Longname McLongnameson" and "Stacy Longname McLongnameson" who share the same computer but instead lose their first name.

I suggest that you make use of themes to distinguish the browser windows if picking distinct avatars cannot provide a sufficient distinction here. Using browser themes is significantly more distinct than profile strings could ever be.

The profile name is crucial and as I wrote in another thread: It was Chrome's best feature and the one most important Edge is missing.

In 2018, most of us are having different profiles at the same service. Most have a job, a private life, some have two jobs, some multiple companies, some isolate Facbnook in a dedicated profile and so on. Logging in and out is no solution, even if the service allows fast switching (like Gmail does), having different browser profiles and contexts to work in is a huge time saver and the way we work nowadays.

I have 15 profiles which I all use frequently and now I can't distinguish them anymore.

Worse and this is where things get shady:
- I gave all my 15 profiles the same avatar pic in Chrome (this white head)
- Once I log into Google, it changes to the profile pic registered with the Google service, if none was uploaded you see the first letter of your name and a random color
- This also doesn't help much because people have the same names and profile pics in most of their services
- But what is actually disturbing: Only when I use a Google service this feature gets enhanced and kind of an automatic fill-in
- Why is Chrome preferring Google in the Chrome UI? Guess we all know why and we know this shouldn't happen

I mean, there was just recently a huge push-back from press and users when Chrome signed in automatically Google users.





 

Adding PM as this is somehow a feature request following the changes in M69.

Sabine: This is something to consider when thinking about multi-profile use cases.

This is a product / UX feature request, so assigning to sabineb@.

pbos@ has a lot of background on it and how it should be addressed. We'll need to sync with him after the holidays and see if / how to improve this for our multi-profile users.