iOS: Chat-Path Onboarding — Tracker Blocking Demo

Asana: Ship Review task
Branch stack: demo-tracker-blocking-onboarding → ui-polish → chat-path-dialog-polish → sr-feedback → uti-flow
Due: 2026-05-15

Overview

A/B experiment adding a tracker-blocking demo step to onboarding for users who pick Duck.ai (chat-path). After the Fire Onboarding step, users see:

"Try visiting a site!" dialog (address bar + toolbar hidden)
Trackers-blocked dialog after a site loads
"You've got this!" EOJ completion dialog
Subscription upsell ("Oh, before I forget…")

Cohorts: Treatment A (address bar top) · Treatment B (address bar bottom) · Control (no change)
Audience: US only · iPhone only · Users who chose Duck.ai in onboarding, in A or B cohort

PR Stack

PR	Branch	Status
#4544	`demo-tracker-blocking-onboarding`	Open — needs fixes
#4591	`demo-tracker-blocking-onboarding-ui-polish`	Approved — needs rebase
#4664	`demo-tracker-blocking-onboarding-chat-path-dialog-polish`	Open — needs fix
#4668	`demo-tracker-blocking-onboarding-uti-flow`	Open — needs fix
#4855	`demo-tracker-blocking-onboarding-sr-feedback`	Open — needs fixes

Required Changes (not yet done)

PR #4544 — main chat-path branch

Danger CI: @UserDefaultsWrapper(key: .daxChatPathVisitSiteSeen) — key is only defined as an enum case; no @UserDefaultsWrapper usage remains. Already resolved.
Mock refactor (alessandroboron): MockDaxDialogsSettings.chatPathPhase is already a plain stored property (var chatPathPhase: DaxDialogs.ChatPathPhase = .none), directly settable in tests. Already resolved.
Sync restore exclusion: Exclude users who selected "Restore My Stuff" (sync restore) from experiment enrollment.
- Why it breaks: When sync data is restored, the synced homeScreenMessagesSeen > 0 value from the user's prior device triggers DaxDialogsOnboardingMigrator.migrateFromOldToNewOnboarding() to set isDismissed = true, which kills all contextual Dax dialogs (including the chat-path visit-site and trackers-blocked steps).
- Current state: The returning-user guard in insertExperimentStepIfNeeded() (OnboardingIntroViewModel.swift:451) is commented out: // guard case .introDialog(isReturningUser: false) = introSteps.first,. Sync-restore users have isReturningUser: true (via OnboardingManager.stepsForCurrentFlow()) so uncommenting this guard is sufficient to exclude them.
- Action: In OnboardingIntroViewModel.insertExperimentStepIfNeeded(), uncomment the line // guard case .introDialog(isReturningUser: false) = introSteps.first,. This excludes all returning users (sync restore + returning installs) from the experiment.
Pixels: Coordinate with rachelmcr (PR #4687).
- Current state: Two new pixel events m_onboarding_chat-path_try-visit-site_unique and m_onboarding_chat-path_trackers-blocked_unique were added in PixelEvent.swift but have no .json5 definition in iOS/PixelDefinitions/.
- Preferred approach: PR #4687 adds a variant parameter to existing onboarding pixels. If it merges first, the chat-path steps can use the existing pixels with variant: "chat-path" instead of new event names — remove the two new pixel event definitions from PixelEvent.swift and use the variant approach.
- Fallback: If #4687 doesn't merge in time, add entries for both new pixels to iOS/PixelDefinitions/pixels/definitions/onboarding.json5.

PR #4664 — chat-path dialog polish

Title scope (alessandroboron): Fixed in commit c15122a1b0 — RebrandedNewTabDaxDialogFactory.createSubsequentDialog now correctly uses isChatPath ? onboardingTryASiteTitle : onboardingTryASiteNTPTitle. Already resolved.

PR #4668 — UTI (Unified Toggle Input) onboarding flow fixes

Fixes to make the chat-path onboarding dialogs work correctly when the Unified Toggle Input is active:

Dialog position: anchor to coordinator.viewController.view.bottomAnchor (UTI bar bottom), embed in unifiedInputContentContainer.
Dialog not dismissed on navigation: viewWillDisappear removes hosting controller parented to MainViewController.
UTI bar staying active after URL submission: preserveOmnibarSession now checks !tab.isLoading.
"You've got this" completion dialog path in UTI mode: showDuckAIOnboardingCompletionDialogInUTI.
UTI bar staying active after completion dismiss: call dismissUnifiedToggleInputToOmnibar directly.
Stale browsing-dialog flags: setAsChatFirstPath now resets all browsing-dialog flags to prevent chatPathPhase jumping to .trackerToEOJ from stale state.
Hardcoded UTI override (aataraxiaa): FeatureFlag.swift .unifiedToggleInput case has defaultValue: .enabled hardcoded (forces UTI on for testing). The original config is commented out on the next line.
- Action: Revert to Config(source: .remoteReleasable(.subfeature(AIChatSubfeature.unifiedToggleInput))) — remove defaultValue: .enabled.
- Note: OnboardingIntroViewModel.resolveDuckAIQueryExperimentCohortID() also has return .treatmentA hardcoded before the real flag logic. Both must be reverted before merge (the resolveDuckAIQueryExperimentCohortID fix is tracked under PR #4544 returning-user guard work above).

PR #4591 — ui-polish

Approved. Rebase on current base.

PR #4855 — sr-feedback

Hide toolbar + address bar: Replace current approach (separate setNavigationBarHidden(true) + setChatPathVisitSiteControlsLocked(true)) with chromeDelegate?.setBarsHidden(true).
- Current code: NewTabPageViewController.swift:472-478 hides the nav bar and locks toolbar controls separately.
- Requested approach (Costas + Alessandro): chromeDelegate?.setBarsHidden(true/false) hides both address bar and toolbar in one call, which is simpler and matches how other parts of the app hide chrome.
- Action: In showNextDaxDialogNew (the visit-site spec == .subsequent block): replace setNavigationBarHidden(true) + setChatPathVisitSiteControlsLocked(true) with chromeDelegate?.setBarsHidden(true). In dismiss() and dismissHostingController: replace setNavigationBarHidden(false) + setChatPathVisitSiteControlsLocked(false) with chromeDelegate?.setBarsHidden(false).
Use delegate: NewTabPageViewController casts to (parent as? MainViewController)? in several places (e.g. lines 280, 473, 475, 510) to call setChatPathVisitSiteControlsLocked and check currentTab?.isLoading.
- Action: Add func newTabPageControllerWillShowChatPathVisitSiteDialog() and func newTabPageControllerDidDismissChatPathVisitSiteDialog() (or equivalent) to NewTabPageControllerDelegate, implement them in MainViewController, and route the locking/bar-hiding calls through the delegate instead of casting.
- Note: Once bars are hidden via setBarsHidden (item above), the setChatPathVisitSiteControlsLocked call may be removed entirely, simplifying the delegate surface.
Loading guard placement: NewTabPageViewController.swift:473: guard (parent as? MainViewController)?.currentTab?.isLoading != true else { return } exits early and leaves didHideBarsForChatPathVisitSiteDialog unset, resulting in an orphaned lock and a blank NTP if a tab happens to be loading.
- Action: Fold the condition into the outer if block: if spec == .subsequent, chatPathPhase == .visitSite, (parent as? MainViewController)?.currentTab?.isLoading != true { ... } so the whole block (including didHideBarsForChatPathVisitSiteDialog = true) is skipped atomically.
Revert Search Experience screen copy: UserText.swift:2374 searchAndDuckAIOption value is currently "Toggle between\nSearch and Ask AI" — needs reverting to "Toggle between\nSearch and Duck.ai".
- Why: The "Ask AI" rename (GJ8) applies only to the DuckAIQuery experiment toggle, which now uses the dedicated DuckAIQueryExperiment.toggleAILabel = "Ask.ai" string. The Search Experience screen in standard onboarding must keep "Duck.ai".

Privacy Config / Experiment Setup (TBD before shipping)

Rename experiment in privacy config — create new experiment name, disable old one.
Set "targets": [{ "localeLanguage": "en", "localeCountry": "US" }] in the experiment payload.
Inform Pete in O-N Live Onboarding Experiment Details once experiment name is confirmed.

Resolved / Dismissed

GJ6c ✅ — No longer required. Address bar hidden for visit-site step (GJ3), so user can't trigger a search at that point. Costas confirmed a search after the trackers-blocked dialog is acceptable.
GJ3 ✅ — Hide address bar + toolbar for "Try visiting a site" step (chat-path only).
GJ2 ✅ — X button removed from chat-path dialogs (PR #4664).
GJ4 ✅ — Copy updated to "Next, try visiting a site!" after AI.
GJ8 ✅ — "Duck.ai" → "Ask.ai" in DuckAIQuery toggle (onboarding only, not standard toggle). DuckAIQueryExperiment.toggleAILabel = "Ask.ai".
"Try fire tabs" flash ✅ — Suppressed via isStillOnboarding() in DaxDialogs for chat-path users.
GJ7 (search-only path breakage) ✅ — Returning users guarded from experiment enrollment.

Key Files

File	Purpose
`iOS/DuckDuckGo/DaxDialogs.swift`	Core onboarding dialog logic, chat-path phase state machine
`iOS/DuckDuckGo/OnboardingFlow/LinearOnboarding/OnboardingIntroViewModel.swift`	Experiment enrollment, step injection
`iOS/DuckDuckGo/NewTabPageViewController.swift`	Visit-site dialog presentation, toolbar hiding
`iOS/DuckDuckGo/MainViewController+DuckAIExperiment.swift`	Chat-path completion, EOJ dialog trigger
`iOS/Core/FeatureFlag.swift`	`onboardingDuckAIQueryExperiment` feature flag + cohorts
`iOS/DuckDuckGo/UserText.swift`	Onboarding copy strings (DuckAIQueryExperiment, SearchExperience)
`iOS/DuckDuckGo/OnboardingFlow/LinearOnboarding/OnboardingView+DuckAIExperimentSearchContent.swift`	DuckAIQuery toggle + experiment UI
`iOS/DuckDuckGo/OnboardingFlow/ContextualOnboarding/Rebranding/RebrandedNewTabDaxDialogFactory.swift`	Chat-path dialog creation

Copy Changes Summary

Location	Old	New	Status
`DuckAIQueryExperiment.toggleAILabel` (onboarding toggle)	`Duck.ai`	`Ask.ai`	✅ Done
`searchAndDuckAIOption` (Search Experience screen)	`Toggle between\nSearch and Duck.ai`	(should remain Duck.ai)	❌ Needs revert

Experiment Config

{
  "experimentName": "TBD",
  "targets": [{ "localeLanguage": "en", "localeCountry": "US" }],
  "cohorts": ["control", "treatmentA", "treatmentB"]
}

Feature flag: FeatureFlag.onboardingDuckAIQueryExperiment
Cohort type: FeatureFlag.DuckAIQueryExperimentCohort (.control, .treatmentA, .treatmentB)

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