Problem/Motivation
As part of #3343940: Field UI 2023 User Research we discovered some issues with the experience of re-using a field. Users found it unclear when they could re-use an existing field, versus creating a new field. Many of the users considered re-using a field more like a "clone field" feature. But even when users knew how the feature works, it was hard for them to figure out whether they actually could re-use a field, because this depends on the pre-existing field storage configuration.
We gave users an example case where we told them that it was possible to reference articles from basic page but we would also like to reference articles from recipes content type. An additional requirement we presented was that with this field, it should be possible to reference 3 articles. Some of the expert users were able to deploy several workarounds to figuring out if they could use the field, but for the less experienced users it wasn't clear how they would be able to verify whether they could re-use the field. We prompted some of them to look at the "Field List" feature where they would be able to find the necessary information.
Because of this, we implemented a prototype for a new re-use existing field experience as part of #3346539: [Plan] Improve field creation experience. This was well received, and given similar tasks, users were able to determine whether they could re-use a field.
Proposed resolution
Since it isn't feasible to display all of the necessary information on the current select list, the proposed solution is to implement a new view for re-using a field. The view should display critical information about the field storage configuration. Some of the information can be collected from #2458127: Show field/field-storage summary instead of field type on field listings. This helps users to quickly locate and use the fields without navigating to the field list page.
Remaining tasks
User interface changes
