How Do Firefox Users Use Firefox Support?

Ken Kovash

3 responses

We recently took a look at one of the most critical activities within the Mozilla community – Firefox Support (support.mozilla.com). In that initial discussion, we investigated how Firefox users get to SUMO in the first place.  Next, we want to consider the most common ways that users interact with the site once they arrive.

To accomplish this, we’ll look at the cohort of users arriving at SUMO via the inproduct page.

inproduct_entrance1

We previously saw that more than 71% of users find SUMO this way (all locales).   Again looking at all Firefox locales, let’s see at the highest level what happens when a user enters SUMO:

sum_entrance_breakdown_for_blog

Of the 9.2 million users entering SUMO last month through inproduct help, 14.3% used the site in some way.  While the “bounce” rate of 85.7% is a little concerning, our SUMO community is currently making significant strides in an effort to increase that 14.3 percentage and improve the user’s experience.  For example, the SUMO team is planning to roll-out a couple A/B optimization tests of the SUMO home page to help determine some reasons behind the bounce rate and some solutions around improving it.

Next, let’s look at what a user actually does on the SUMO site.  Of the blue pie slice cohort above, what is the typical experience of this user?  At a high level across all locales, we see that 71% start by utilizing the knowledge base search box and the other 29% click on something else on the page.

percent_searching_on_sumo_for_blog

Perhaps the most insightful story that we can glean… the 71% of users searching varies significantly depending on where in the world a Firefox user is located.  For users of the en-US locale of Firefox, that number is 78.4%, and for users of any non en-US locale, that number is 60.2%.  That’s a big difference in how a user’s interaction with SUMO varies by region!

Lastly, for the 29% of users who are clicking elsewhere upon their arrival at SUMO, what exactly do they find most interesting, i.e., what exactly are they clicking on?  For this analysis, we’re going to focus on just the en-US inproduct page.  The half dozen most popular articles/links are highlighted (i.e., ranked by most clicks) below.

ranked_links_for_blog_v2

Summing up this discussion, we’ve just walked through (at a very high level) what a typical user’s interaction looks like with Firefox Support.  We hope this dialogue will help draw added attention to the fantastic SUMO community, with the end goal of arriving at ideas that will drive a better experience for Firefox users seeking support.

Please comment!

3 responses

  1. David Boswell wrote on :

    Another set of stats that might be worth looking at is how many support questions we get on webmaster at mozilla dot org and dot com. It could also be helpful to send those people a survey to find out if they knew about SUMO and if so why they were unable to find their answer there.

  2. Ken Saunders wrote on :

    I was dissapointed to see the original inproduct help removed from Firefox to begin with.
    I still see no reason why a standard set of the most common issues that new Firefox users face cannot be made available as it once was.

    Sure Firefox is a product that is to be used while connected to the Internet but the Help Contents option is misleading for one and just a link to an Internet page.

    Perhaps the bounce rate is so high because people do not want to have to search for and wade through answers. Clear, concise, and categorized solutions should be put right in front of a user.

    As Firefox adoption grows, we’ll continue to see a lot more of less technically inclined people who still thinks that Google (the search engine) is their Web browser and so presenting help in an overly simplified manner wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

    Smart Location Bar? Most Internet users know it as an address bar so first teach them the terminology before we teach them how to use it.
    I’d suggest setting up a hierarchy of help topics starting with the most basic of things such as the terminology differences and moving down to more advanced customization and tweaking techniques.

    Again, put back the true inproduct help contents and add a link to SUMO and the options that it provides.
    From the Help menu, how about,
    Help Contents (inproduct help)
    Firefox Help Online (SUMO link)

    On SUMO
    Search stays where it is but remove Search the Knowledge Base and replace it with Search Firefox Support.
    Beneath that, list other options.
    Firefox Support Forums:
    Get help from advanced Firefox power users
    Firefox Knowledge Base:
    Documented Firefox help and support
    Live Chat?
    I wouldn’t even bother until it’s 24/7. Imagine being in need of help and wanting to talk to a support tech live but after clicking through several links you find that the help desk is closed.
    Then…
    Firefox for Beginners:
    Navigating, tabs, etc etc.

    Customizing Firefox:
    Obvious

    Firefox Advanced:
    about:config, multiple instances, etc.

    Other Firefox Support?
    Why aren’t the mozillaZine forums listed?
    A whole lot of what I know (and many others) about Mozilla’s products I learned there and I still utilize them.
    And a lot of the “Other Firefox support Websites” contains very little in the way of support and some of the info is obsolete.
    I would also recommend adding the Firefox Support Google group.
    It is highly active.
    http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.support.firefox/topics?lnk=srg

    Hey you do an awesome job at breaking down and presenting the numbers. I’m just offering some ideas to shift the numbers to something that we can all smile about. One of my greatest passions is marketing but I’ve spent a whole lot of time on providing Mozilla tech support when and where I can because it can takes months to get a customer but just seconds to lose one if they don’t know how to use your product.

    Something worth noting is that I volunteer for WikiAnswers.com and you just may be surprised by the increasing amount of Firefox users seeking troubleshooting help and support there.
    Why they totally deviate from the normal and obvious Firefox support channels and venues is beyond me, but they are doing it.
    You can read more about that and my efforts to offer Mozilla products support and why we need others to do so on WikiAnswers.com for Mozilla’s end users at the following link.
    http://www.spreadfirefox.com/node/3444

    Thanks for the opportunity to contribute.

  3. kinoshi wrote on :

    Hat’s off. Well done, as we know that “hard work always pays off”,
    after a long struggle with sincere effort it’s done.
    ====================================================
    Support for Technology