• unstoppablerobotninja.com/entry/fluid-images
• alistapart.com/articles/fluid-images

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(Reposting from onemozilla.org, so planet.mozilla.org readers can follow along!)

With 200+ sites, 150 blogs and many other various web properties, the Mozilla universe is massive and can be difficult to navigate.

Roughly a year ago, a few Mozillians (David Boswell, Potch, Sean Martell and John Slater) got together to come up with a solution to unify all Mozilla properties: a universal tab that, when clicked, would expand to expose navigational links across all key sites.

A lot of you have probably become pretty familiar with the grey tab in the upper right corner of Mozilla sites, and from a branding perspective it’s been helpful identifying Mozilla properties. We’re excited to roll out the next phase of the universal tab as part of the One Mozilla project.

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One of a few posts on Hacking Professional Development

*****
By billfromesm via Flickr

The ass-kicking realization that I’m not a great negotiator at this point in my career has hit me like a ton of bricks and brought on an “ah-ha!” moment that also kind of feels like a million “I told you SOs.” Namely, because I have things to improve on that I wish I’d nailed a lot sooner in my career.

Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know

Let me back up a little bit, my parents were both master chair and local chair union representatives for ALPA, the Air Line Pilots Association, and AFA, the Airline Flight Attendants Association. I was 9 years old when I wore my first sandwich board and walked a picket line in the historic United Airlines 1985 29-day strike.

Negotiating, as my parents lived it, was less about being politically correct and more about driving the hard line with in-your-face action. My mom was a true feminist and in the 60s, 70s, and 80s often found herself fighting aspects of gender discrimination (e.g. suing United for firing her when she got married! and again when she got pregnant!). My dad was also a pioneer, setting standards for safety for pilots.

My parents were usually at war with some aspect of work. Needless to say, tense moments in work-related situations, make me nervous and I usually respond by diving into defensive posture, especially at times of my life where my self confidence is already bruised.

Anyone who knows me knows that Mozilla has been a challenging environment for me to adapt to, from learning how to interact with community members in public, to onboarding into the unique language and culture of our public Bugzilla workflow, and on over to my particular role, which by it’s nature requires great negotiation skills and confidence as core competencies.

Takeaways from sessions on negotiating by David Eaves:

(for context, read Dave’s post, “The Smyth Deal: The Anatomy of a Positional Negotiation Gone Wrong &  slides on community management)

David started out telling the room (mostly developers) that there is a code to collaboration. At first I thought maybe it was a metaphor gone awry, but then I started taking some notes . . .

4 Basics That Will Help Us Negotiate in Bugzilla & Beyond

• Inquire - Find out what I don’t know (but don’t ask questions like, “How long have you been this stupid?”)
• Paraphrase - Restate what you think a person was saying/communicating
• Acknowledge - Recognize the emotional state that a person is feeling
• Advocate - Solution/action, what we should do

The Uncomfortable Truth

I hate to agree, but when Dave said, “We all contribute to a difficult conversation,” I nodded (so did a lot of other Mozillians in the room). In my case, I hate to admit to it, but I’m as responsible for conversations that turn negative as anyone else, even if I I’m convinced that I’m on the moral high ground.

For the first time in my career, I’m not working for a traditional software firm, Mozilla is wildly different from a Meetup.com or Google. As Dave explains:

Companies or foundations that run open source project are not software firms, they are community management firms whose communities happen to make software. [more]

Problem-solving, decision-making, and leadership are all a part of every role at Mozilla. When conversations we’re in become difficult we have to be accountable to our contributions, and effectively work our way back to a positive place.

Egonomics

Also a tough one! When ego gets in the way of successfully solving a problem, it’s important that we consider ways in which to solve the problem and let our egos recover at a later point.

When Everyone is Advocating

When everyone is advocating, it starts to get noisy and we’re just advocating at one another instead of moving forward. In fact, when everyone is advocating at one another it can start to sound a lot like arguing. In any situations, when everyone is advocating, you have to learn to do something other than advocacy in order to help the discussion move forward.

Improve your alternative

We don’t always resolve situations by reaching our desired outcomes, sometimes we have to create or consider alternatives. Alternative can be improved, and sometimes understanding what everyone’s interests are and looking for helpful data can make an alternative more desirable.

Roles & Responsibilities (I-N-C)

Role definition and communicating the associated responsibilities is key to groups of people working on a project, especially a project as large and open as Mozilla.

There are at least 3 major roles for people that every project includes:

• People who are Informed – in Mozilla’s case, this is usually the users
• People who are Consulted – in Mozilla’s case this is typically everyone else (community volunteers and paid staff)
• People who Negotiate (decide) – in Mozilla’s case this is usually the module owners

When coming up with a project, it’s important to assign requirements with roles (e.g. members of the Informed don’t attend meetings, but members of the Negotiate are required to attend every meeting).

If you do it right, you can run a big project with lots of involved parties successfully, because most everyone should want to be part of the informed group.

The Code to Understanding Collaboration

David is right, there is a code to understanding collaboration. Like any programming language though, you do have to learn it, make some mistakes, and debug those mistakes . . .

I’m not one of those people for which this comes easily. For some reason, it’s logic that’s not built into me, but all this stuff is making a much better version of me (*no version number required and no release engineers harmed in this process).

*****

Thank you David! I’m reading, Getting to Yes. I can’t wait to see you speak again. And, Deb, thank you for making All-Hands possible.

One of a few posts on Hacking Professional Development

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One of a few posts I’m writing on Hacking Professional Development

*****

By fiskfisk via flickr

Melissa Shapiro, director of PR, Mozilla, is one of the most skilled communicators I’ve ever met and worked with. I’m lucky enough that she’s offered to help me out with a few 15-min weekly trainings. Here’s a summary of our second session, which did go over 15 min by a little bit:

1. Don’t write emails longer than the preview pane on a desktop
2. Read tough emails out loud (alone) with a HUGE smile on your face
3. Respond to the essence of a question & not just the words
4. Reset conversations
5. Take out references that read, “I think” & replace with “here is the next step”

No.1 – Don’t write emails longer than the preview pane on a desktop

Pretty much exactly like it sounds. People don’t read emails, they skim, so keep the content simple. Here are a few ways to do this:

• keep the message action-oriented
• include links to external bits of information
• make the “ask” quick
• sign-off with “if you need more details, please let me know”

No.2 – Read tough emails out loud (alone) with a HUGE smile on your face

Email loses the most important element to successful conversation, the tone. It means that people can misread and over or under react in this medium often.

When a situation is somewhat tense, or you receive an email from a colleague you have a difficult relationship with, take a few minutes read the email out loud with a huge smile on your face. (Of course I amended this when talking to Melissa, adding “alone,” because I can see myself doing this in listening-range and watching Melissa shake her head! Oh Chrissie!)

Here are a few tips to keep in mind while doing this:

• Assume the very best from the other person who wrote the message (keep your HUGE smile on as a reminder)
• Respond to the content and NOT to the emotion
• Answer the question they should have asked
• Focus on the desired outcome(s)

No.3 – Respond to the essence of a question & not just the words

This point elaborates on No.2, drilling more deeply into how to keep written conversations focused. People fumble words all the time, and in order to keep the conversation’s momentum on reaching the desired outcome, responding to the intent and not the words, however jumbled they may have been, is what’s going to get you there.

No.4 – Reset conversations

Conversations, both written and verbal, can go wayward easily. When this happens everything in between can start to feel like friction, especially if you’re trying to get something accomplished on a deadline, or in the case of Mozilla, inside of a bug or aligned with a quarterly goal.

Friction isn’t helpful, and when you start to feel it, it’s a clear signal that it’s time to reset the conversation.

Every project has both first principals  and desired outcomes. In resetting conversations, you’re taking the emotion and the politics out, because luckily first principals (this project requires x on this timeline) and desired outcomes (launching project x successfully) aren’t mired in emotion or politics, they’re just actions.

Tips on resetting conversations:

• Build a bridge, “Here is where we are, how do we get to where we want to be”
• Go back to the beginning (this is also a way to rescue a meeting or end a tense email or bugzilla thread)
• Read without tone, write without tone
• Remind yourself & team for first principals and desired outcomes – there’s nothing political or personal in those elements

No.5 – Take out “I think” & replace with “here is the next step”

Email and written communications leave a lot of room for intuiting meaning. After you’ve written a response, go back over the copy and take out areas where you’ve written, “I think” and replace with “here is the next step” or “here are the recommended steps.”

Conversations, especially written ones, can derail when there is vagary in who does what. Clarity and confidence and the absence of emotion and politics go a long way in written communication.

*****

One of a few posts I’m writing on Hacking Professional Development

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Previous Editions:

• September 31, 2011, Webgagement #4: Webify Me Stats, One Mozilla Retrospective & Fivvr
• September 14, Survey o’ Splendidness
• August 17, 2011, Webgagement #3: Iterate! Lightning Talks, Go to a Conference, & Other Useable Hype
• August 3, 2011, Webgagement #2: Underway, Post-Whippet World, Brand Toolkit & Other Useable Hype
• July 20, 2011, Webgagement #1: Q3 Kickoffs, Retrospectives, Mobile & Other Useable Hype

We’re excited to deliver today’s edition, produced by Mike & Chrissie to increase communication between WebDev & Engagement teams and visibility into our projects across Mozilla.

Webgagement Newsletter, September 28, 2011:

Upcoming events you might want to attend:

• Q4 Lightning Talks, Thursday, October 6 @ 10:30AM – The Lineup – http://etherpad.mozilla.org:9000/q4-lightning-talks
• SEO Check-in, led by Laura Forrest, Tuesday, October 4 @ 9:30 AM PST. Call-in info: ext 316 – https://wiki.mozilla.org/SEO

Webgagement Survey Results!

Over the past two weeks, we’ve asked you to let us know how the webgagement movement is doing. Out of nearly 100+ people we received a 20% response, not bad! Thank you for participating.  As promised, here are the survey results http://bit.ly/rknfGF

There were 6 questions, and here are some of our favorite responses:

• Lightning talks are pretty  jam-packed and it’s pretty difficult to get to any depth or  brainstorming on certain topics.  I feel like it’d be  best if we had  less talks and spent more time on a smaller subset of  those that we  knew were higher priorities for a quarter.
• jkl; (ha, ha whoever you are)
• Ongoing inviting web dev to planning / creative brainstorms has been super – would like to see more of this. Team building events at offsites might be good too.
• Making everything more holistic. As individuals, we should be concerned not just about our job in the process, but the entire lifespan of a campaign or project. Also, we should have a workshop run by Dave Eaves that we all attend.
• It would be nice if we met on a more personal level, though — right now, the two groups don’t really know each other on a personal level and a lot of the disconnect comes from that.
• I’ve noticed that it is easier to arrive at decisions in bugs.
• Improvement is still needed with involving people in the ideation  process: Projects are still very much a one-way street. Someone comes up with a project, becomes reasonably certain this is what they want, and  then throw it in webdev’s direction. Often, any feedback that is offered  at that point in time is either deemed “too late” or interpreted as  unwillingness to work with Engagement. Without pointing fingers, I would hope we could give each other the benefit of the doubt and assume that everyone just wants to make the most awesome project possible, and no  one is trying to sabotage anyone. It makes me very sad if we settle for  mediocrity just because we’re not willing to listen to people’s  feedback.
• Involving Web Dev early has been a big help, but I think we need to keep Engagement involved and invested through the Wed Dev process, not just as a QA review at the end.
• I’m in webdev and I wasn’t aware of the bi-monthly newsletter.

We learned a lot this past quarter, and we will use your feedback to improve the program in 3 measurable ways:

1. Adding more WebDevs to the lightning talks
2. Creating a visualization of progress and the information in the Q4 project list (Sean Martell working with CB on this)
3. Increasing transparency by creating more opportunities to participate in project ideation (please come to project kickoffs even if they aren’t your projects! we want our kickoffs to be open and we will be very active in letting you know when these meetings take place)

Our goal is to have a 50% response rate for the webgagement survey at the end of Q4. Help us get there!

What We’ve Been Blogging:

• WebDev at PyCodeConf, Laura Thomson
• Quick User Testing for Firefox for Android on mozilla.org/firefox, CB
• Ethnio + Usertesting.com for real-time unmoderated usability testing goodness, Crystal Beasley
• Web Content is Like Quidditch, in case you missed the all-hands presentation by Carmen Collins
  Part 1:  Bludgers and Obstacles
  Part 2:  Chasers and Keepers
  Part 3:  The Golden Snitch
  Part 4:  The Game & Keeping Score

Working With WebDev Tip:

We <3 data.
Make sure goals and success metrics are documented in bugzilla for all your projects.
We all love data and these items help us better understand projects and will help us create better products.

Webify Stats:

• 1,000,000 created collages in the WebifyMe campaign
• 200,000 additional newsletter signups through the campaign

Welcome New Webgagement Mozillians!

Welcome Christie Koehler! She is the new Web Product Engineer on WebDev’s Web Production team. If she sounds familiar it is because she is active in the Portland open source community and was the co-chair on the Open Source Bridge conference.

Webgagement Q4 project list: http://bit.ly/qmIkUi (Click on Engagement Q4 & WebDev Q4, this is still a work in progress, but getting there!)

Mahalo!
CB & Mike

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A few months ago we worked with a fantastic company, Gazehawk, on creating and implementing a self-contained user test with eye-tracking technology. Typically, a lot of hardware and expensive software and user recruitment are needed to run these studies. Gazehawk’s technology made it possible for us to do things quickly and cheaply and we got outstanding results.

What is Eye-Tracking?

Eye tracking is the process of measuring either the point of gaze (“where we are looking”) or the motion of an eye relative to the head. Gazehawk uses software to track eye positions and movement around areas of interest (AOIs) on webpages. Our users all opted into this brief study (not at all in conflict with dnt.mozilla.org).

When you combine eye-tracking with other design research tools, you literally come to see things differently. Here are the results of 3 of our studies.

Heatmap

Study 1. “Meet Firefox” and “Know Your Browser” videos – First Run Page

9 successful tracks (we had more testers, but at a certain point their studies become contaminated, so we only report on successful tracks)
31 survey responses (all users were given a pre-survey and a post-survey)

This page is shown to users when they download the full version of Firefox and launch the browser for the first time.

What we observed:

1. Video Content - 5 of 9 tracks spent less than 30 seconds on the page, indicating that they didn’t finish the video. The written survey responses indicate a similar rate: of the 31 people who answered the question, 18 reported not watching the video.

2. Traditional Content -  The “Know Your Browser” section did resonate with our user participants, receiving more clicks and average time-in-area. User participants praised the accessibility and ease-of-use of this section. The most common complaint expressed is that users already felt educated about the features highlighted.

3. Marketing Flare - Most users did not look at the newsletter sign-up option, a few looked at the icon, but only one user clicked on it. The other two promotions, Make Your Mark and Get Firefox for Mobile buttons were similarly unnoticed.

The Takeaways:

One-or-the-other Pattern - The biggest thing we learned is that users tended to choose one or the other, but not both content experiences provided. This might be occurring because Meet Firefox and Know Your Browser seem to be similar, which makes pairing them less useful.

Doesn’t Hurt, Doesn’t Help - As for the marketing flare, it doesn’t hurt the experience, but we might experiment with a single promotion, instead of three promotions to see if we could increase conversion. That said, users could walk away with an ambient understanding based on the iconography.

Heatmap

Study #2 – What’s New (w/Fabulous Tabs! promo) Page

20 successful tracks
46 survey responses

This page appears when we want to appear, usually alongside of an update, but with the rapid release program we’re experimenting with not showing it to users.

What we observed:

1.) Error Messaging - The Flash Player error message was a great success. All user participants looked at it, and though the amount of time spent on the area of interest (AOI) was relatively small (about 4 seconds), it was long enough to indicate that most people read the message.

Moreover, survey responses indicated that this was one of the main things users took from the experience. The “x” button to close the Flash Player update message received more clicks than anything else on the page.

(Note: We debated including this error message, because it’s not really part of the design we focus on. We ultimately did include it because the average user will need to update her Flash player.)

2.) Main Content - Participants focused heavily on the “Fabulous Tabs” area, particularly the “switch to tab” and “panorama” text. The focus of the user participant clicks were the “Learn More” buttons, making it appear that the unique graphical treatment was successful at engaging user behavior. The App Tabs section was less noticeable, likely because it isn’t as close to the pictures as the other two  “Lean More” buttons.

3.) Marketing Flare - Much like the First Run page, participants paid less attention to this section–45% looked at the email, and both buttons had an average view time of 2.4 seconds.

The Takeaways:

One improvement might be to change the location of the “App Tabs” description, but overall the layout works well with the user base.

As for the marketing flare, it doesn’t hurt the experience, but we might experiment with a single promotion, instead of three promotions to see if we could increase conversion. That said, users could walk away with an ambient understanding based on the iconography.

Study #3 – /firefox/fx  page (Panda Version)

21 successful tracks
57 survey responses

This page is shown to users who have the most recent version of Firefox. If a user is on an older version, she is routed to a different experience focused on downloading the latest desktop and mobile Firefox.

What we observed:

1.) Panda - The Panda was fabulously successful at drawing attention to itself and to the spinning wheel, although a few participants reported being confused as to the relationship between Firefox and the Panda.

2.) Spinning Wheel - The spinning wheel was well received as a visual, although about 35% of participants didn’t realize they could interact with it. Participants also occasionally complained that they didn’t have a way of getting information about  features without using the wheel.

3.) Yeti- One item of note is that the little white man in the bottom right got no attention whatsoever — less than a third of users looked at him at all,  and the average glance length was 0.3 seconds. I think that people  probably could not differentiate him well from the background –  ordinarily we expect people to glance at images of human faces (or  things like human faces) intensely.

The Takeaways:

Explore ways for people to both enjoy the spinning wheel and access the  information it contains in a predictable fashion. Also, change the  coloring of the little white guy or strengthen his outline.

~~~~~~

So that’s a wrap, but I’ll follow up with another post that covers at what we’ve done to use this research and improve the experience for our users across all three pages.

Big thanks to Gazehawk’s Brian Krausz & Lionel Barrow. I cannot thank them enough for how they sheparded us through the process and helped me craft the tests, pre-survey, and post-survey that maximized our results.

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Listening & Leadership

The ability to listen is a key part of being an effective leader. There are three levels of listening and choosing which level to listen from is an important skill.

Blindfold Challenge

Our instructors, kicked this session off by dividing the 70+ people in the room into two groups, handing everyone a blindfold, and once blindfolded, placing a piece of continuous rope in each person’s hand.

The goal was to create an equilateral triangle with the rope as a team and blindfolded. Our group counted off, assigned three people as end points and in just a few short minutes ended up with a somewhat lumpy, but pretty decent triangle.

My favorite moment of the exercise, occurred when a team member asked for clarification, “So, we can’t take off our blindfolds, but does that preclude us from taking off other team members’ blindfolds?” Turned out he was a security engineer ;-)

After the exercise, we reviewed the three levels of listening, and applied them to our everyday communications styles.

3 Levels of Listening

• Internal
• Focused
• Global

Level 1 — Internal Listening

At level 1, awareness is on oneself. This is where I’m listening to the words spoken by another person, but I’m thinking about what things mean to me personally.

The spotlight on me, my thoughts, my judgements, my feelings, and my conclusions.

Level 2 — Focused Listening

At level 2, awareness is on the other person or people in a conversation. In fact, there’s so much focus on the other person or people that there’s not much awareness of the outside world.

The spotlight is on the other person or people, and I’m focused on expressions of empathy, clarification, and collaboration.

Level 3 — Global Listening

At level 3, awareness is room-wide, literally. This is where I’m able to read the room, listening to the mood, emotions, unspoken information, and I have the ability to observe how things change in response to what I do.

The spotlight is more global, and a leader in this situation can ask herself, “What’s needed here?”

 A Perfect Triangle for Mom

After we learned about the three levels of listening, we got back into our groups to take another stab at making a perfect triangle. It took us about 3x as long, but this time, by improving our listening, we had a lump-free equilateral triangle that mom could be proud of!

I can’t say that shooting for perfect is always worth the amount of time teams need to invest, but investing in listening makes the team interactions feel a lot more perfect.

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One of a few posts I’m writing on Hacking Professional Development

*****
By Tatters:) via Flickr

Melissa Shapiro, director of PR, Mozilla, is one of the most skilled communicators I’ve ever met and worked with. I’m lucky enough that she’s offered to help me out with a few 15-min weekly trainings. Here’s a summary of our first session:

Tricks & Tips on Verbal Communication

1. Respect and embrace the pause or “ma”
2. Index cards are “magical”
3. Keep a paper clip or two quarters in your pocket for fidgeting

Respect and embrace the pause or “ma”

In Japanese, ma, the word for space, suggests interval. Ma is best described as a consciousness of place, not in the sense of an enclosed three-dimensional entity, but rather in awareness. For communication, it’s the pause, in between verbal interactions.

There’s something funny about peoples’ need to fill the pause. I’ve often referred to it as the “awkward pause” in conversations and maybe it’s something having to do with being from the east coast, but I constantly feel the need to fill the pause and swallow the silence as if it were warm soup.

Saying more than you need to say however, makes you less effective as a communicator. Learning to embrace the “ma” then helps you improve communication and confidence, saying what needs to be said and, in my case, keeping yourself out of trouble by over-communicating.

Index cards are magical

Being prepared is a great way to have a polished conversation or make a compelling presentation. This one is easy, write down exactly what you need to say on an index card. This is an absolute must for meetings where you’re asked to speak to a group. It’s a simple way to stay focused and present concise information that can have real impact.

Index cards will keep you organized and also help you respect the ma!

Keep a paper clip or two quarters in your pocket for fidgeting

I’m a fidgeter and a hand gesturerer. As much as that’s just a part of who I am (New Yorker! We talk with our hands waving wildly!), it’s distracting to people who are actually trying to listen to me.

Instead, I have a feeling they’re wondering a few things: 1.) when is she going to hit me with her hands, 2.) is that pen going to poke my eye out when it slips through her fingers 3.) this woman has a lot of nervous energy maybe I should invite her to yoga.

Keeping a paper clip, two quarters or something else that’s subtle in your pocket, gives a person a prop to fidget with that’s not distracting to the people they’re having conversations with.

*****

One of a few posts I’m writing on Hacking Professional Development

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Hacking Professional Development

I’m not someone who loves the term professional development. In fact, I usually shy away from “opportunities” presented by employers. There’s something about the touchy-feely – HRness of it all that makes me super uncomfortable.

Maybe that’s the point.

I can certainly go along with the notion that epic adventures involve feeling uncomfortable at times.

If being uncomfortable around the idea of professional employment is a symptom of needing it, then I’ve just realized that I have the flu equivalent.

Mozilla’s All-Hands featured a terrific line-up of speakers and workshops, and meeting expert negotiator Dave Eaves (@daeaves & eaves.ca) was transformative. I realized there are tools that can help me succeed. I’m also learning that in the meantime I’m going to have to step backwards and relearn some basic lessons as well as fake it till I make it in terms of confidence.

Just before All-Hands, I shared a struggle I’m having with a number of team members. The response I received with ideas and offers of assistance has been amazing. I’m actively working with a few colleagues on hacking professional development that includes (but, certainly isn’t limited to) —self confidence, public speaking, written communication, verbal communication, and much more.

It Turns Out That You Have to Start Somewhere,
So I Sent an Email to a Group of Mozillians

I’ve heard it said that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.

I think I’m finally realizing what that really means, because I’m working through some painful communication problems – painful for me, and I bet in some way painful for you too.

This is a short note to let you know that I’m working on making improvements to my interpersonal communication style. Namely, I tend to get caught up in rapid-fire email. I interpret the copy as though lots of people are yelling at me and go straight into a defensive posture. Part of this goes back to when I was first hired and I haven’t fully made it back to being the person I’m used to being. I lost my confidence.

Onboarding at Mozilla has been tough. I’ve mastered Bugzilla, community conversations, the firehose, and I know where to be for Monday free-lunches (sorry MV, but definitely the SF office!). But, I’m not doing well when it comes to always processing your communication and responding in the right way.

You guys are AWESOME. If you have books, tips, tricks, blogs, newsletters, personal stories that you might be open to sharing with me as I work closely with John and Debbie on adapting to an improvement plan, I’d really appreciate the help.

Thank you for listening and for any ideas you can share back.

Assisted Living before 35, what a concept ;-)

~cb

What’s Next?

I’m compiling the lessons I’m learning into short posts that I hope can help other Mozillians and anyone who shares some of confidence and communications challenges that I’m working on.

A special thanks to the amazing people who are helping me hack my professional development and create a great plan. Mozillians rule.

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Quick summary of what we learned:
•    Users can find the download button pretty easily
•    Users look for information like, new features, updates, etc. in the app store
•    Users take meaning from app store ratings
•    The app store is the biggest point of friction in the current download experience

How We Got There:

The Test

*****

URL:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/fx/

Requirements:
Only accept this test if you use an Android mobile device (phone/tablet).

Demographics:
None specified (using highest rated testers)

Scenario:
Imagine that you’ve just downloaded Firefox web browser to your personal desktop/laptop computer. Now, you’re ready to download Firefox web browser to your mobile device.

Tasks:

1: Download Firefox to your Android device

2: Back over on your desktop/laptop, look at the http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile/ for five seconds. Then look away and answer these two questions (without peeking!)

-What do you remember?
-What do you think the page is about?

3: What information from the website makes you want to download Firefox to your mobile device?

4: Looking back at the experience, if you could improve something what would you change, add, or take away?

No.1

1.) What would have caused you to leave this website and not have downloaded Firefox to your Android mobile device?

• If I could not have figured out how to download it or if I had not seen a reason to use firefox over my current browser.

2.) What confused you the most about the experience?

• Everything seemed pretty straight forward, but I do think it could be nice to have a link on the page for the features to convince me to download firefox for my android.

3.) What other ideas do you have about how this experience could be improved?

• Add the link to the page to illustrate the features! I found it very easy to see why I would want firefox on my android once I read the features, however looking at the page to get the app did not convince me.

4.) We’re all ears! Share your final thoughts & help us improve Firefox!

I found the page easy to look at and easy to navigate. I also found all of the information on the features page informative

No.2

1.) What would have caused you to leave this website and not have downloaded Firefox to your Android mobile device?

• On the Mozilla site, there wasn’t really that much information on the actual app other than a link to download it. You have to leave the Mozilla site and go to the Android Market to get information and screen shots as to how it works and user ratings.

2.) What confused you the most about the experience?

• Nothing was confusing about the experience but there just wasn’t much to the Firefox page.

3.) What other ideas do you have about how this experience could be improved?

• Give more information as to how the app works at the Mozilla site.

4.) We’re all ears! Share your final thoughts & help us improve Firefox!

• I love Firefox, it is my browser of choice. I think there should be more info on the app on the page so the user doesn’t have to search for and click links to see more about it.

No.3

1.) What would have caused you to leave this website and not have downloaded Firefox to your Android mobile device?

• If I knew syncing would be so confusing… and also if it had bad reviews, if it seemed glitchy or like other people experienced many glitches.

2.) What confused you the most about the experience?

• It wasn’t a part of the task but once I started trying to sync my phone with my computer i was confused. I wish it was a clear step 1, 2, 3 process but it seemed like a lot of pages talked about syncing and it was too confusing. The information about the firefox mobile itself was good, i think there was nothing confusing about that. Maybe the technical lingo under the “what’s new/whats offered” tab.

3.) What other ideas do you have about how this experience could be improved?

• More comparisons with the current browsers on phones and why your guys’ is better, a list of things you are currently working on to show people you are always looking to improve your product.

4.) We’re all ears! Share your final thoughts & help us improve Firefox!

• I just think the set up process for syncing was very confusing.. it didn’t clearly say tell me i had to download firefox sync. I liked the pictures of the process but I still found it confusing..
• The biggest thing is to convince people why you should download such a large program onto their mobile device (which often slows the device down) and why it is better than the current browser.

No.4

1.) What would have caused you to leave this website and not have downloaded Firefox to your Android mobile device?

• There is no list of features that would make me want to use this browser over any other , for instance there is nothing about how this browser would increase speed or userbility.

2.) What confused you the most about the experience?

• The iphone that had something called firefox home if i remember rightly on it , as this doesn’t seem to be the browser but something different all together.

3.) What other ideas do you have about how this experience could be improved?

• Include the beneficial features that this browser would bring to the table and also re-locate the developer tools section to somewhere more discreet, also add a QR code for faster interaction.

4.) We’re all ears! Share your final thoughts & help us improve Firefox!

• Final thoughts are that overall firefox is a great browser but sometimes feels a bit overloaded and that it does need to be watered down just a little bit.

No.5

1.) What would have caused you to leave this website and not have downloaded Firefox to your Android mobile device?

• Couldn’t find top 3 benefits to downloading with assurance that they apply to Android (vs iPhone)
• Tried to download but even though device had min OS, did not have compati processor

2.) What confused you the most about the experience?

• I’ve never considered another Android app that had a processor requirement, so it was confusing that the market said incompatible, but didn’t say why
• Confusing on features between android and iphone

3.) What other ideas do you have about how this experience could be improved?

• Crisp benefits right under each device or both if identical
• Note processor requirement right on home page and in android market description
• What types of tools/plug ins are available

4.) We’re all ears! Share your final thoughts & help us improve Firefox!

• Content sites are busting up content to paragaph level so they can show more page hits and ads. Can you put in the ad stripping content consolodation that is promised for iOS 5 Safari (for at least desktop firefox)? Currently use joliprint script to strip out for printing

*****
Next steps & what we’re working on:

•    Improving the experience inside of the app stores with copy updates
•    Adding alternate methods of download to the Firefox desktop website, including send-to-phone and QR code functionality
•    Distinguishing what we show on the download page for phones and tablets
•    Testing, testing, and more testing!

Ideas? Share them in comments, please!

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