Improving the Experience of Installing Firefox

Ken Kovash

13 responses

When we last left off, we described an upcoming change to the Firefox installer – those users canceling out of the process (via en-US downloads initiated at www.mozilla.com) will be able to leave feedback if they’re interested:

cancel-install1

Those checking the check box and clicking “Yes” will see the following feedback form open:

feedback_form_for_blog

This form is hosted by Kampyle, a small start-up that has recently been making waves within the analytics world.  It’s difficult to tell via the screen shot above, but the interface and experience of completing their form is slick and should delight many users.

So, what do we expect as an outcome here?  What will be the impact?

We’re estimating that about 5,000 users will leave feedback during our one-day test (this is based on a cohort of 50,000 daily users who complete download, but don’t complete installation).  In crafting the questions in the form above (e.g., “Installation Problem”, “Suggestion?”), in some ways it’s difficult for us to precisely know what answers we want to see at the end of the process.  Mozilla has never previously done research around this moment in a user’s experience, so this first pass is expected to point us in the right direction, narrowing down what we should be thinking about and researching in the future.

The positive impact to Firefox users could be huge.  Direct feedback from thousands of users at a critical moment in time will likely provide a few key insights around our users, their pain points and their experiences.  Either from this initial test or from a longer term survey implementation, we should expect changes/improvements to Firefox (e.g., product, UI, UX, messaging) to result.

13 responses

  1. Tomer wrote on :

    I am wondering how many users are actually installed Firefox but unable to ping mozilla.com because they are unable to configure their desktop firewall to allow Firefox to access the web. At this point, a feedback application won’t be more helpful.

    Instead, I suggest that the feedback button will be a link which will be opened on their current browser so they will be able to provide feedback more easily.

  2. yaPlanetReader wrote on :

    http://www.kampyle.com/owner_public/?page=terms_and_privacy&p=2

    That’s Kampyle’s privacy policy as linked to in their standard feedback form as above. It largely discusses the relationship between Kampyle and Mozilla, not the Firefox end users.

    There are a few “you or your users” in there but why are users reading that expected to decipher which parts of someone else’s privacy policy are indirectly referencing them?

    It would be nice if Kampyle presented a user-focused version of their policy so that privacy-conscious Firefox users can be reassured that Mozilla is treating their personal data correctly.

  3. Jan! wrote on :

    I like the idea, but it looks so non-native; sort of like a mix between old Aqua style and a random web page.

    Also, the “I’d be happy” text could be a bit shorter. Why not simply “Tell Mozilla why.”?

  4. Jan! wrote on :

    Or, a bit longer but maybe less intimidating: “Let Mozilla know why.”

  5. l3v1 wrote on :

    “Improving the Experience of Installing Firefox”

    Sorry to say, but I’m actually tired of this: why should installing or uninstalling an application be an “experience” ?! Maybe, if anything, using it could be called an experience, but even this I’d call far fetched. And what’s with the “How did the installation make you feel?” shrink stuff ? I’d say even if any installation could even make anyone feel anything, such questions most certainly would make me not like the poor sould who’d come up with the idea of asking it.

    Other than that, I’d say if I cancel an installation, I expect it to die and go away as quickly as machinely possible and don’t ask any questions and put any dialogs in my face while doing so.

  6. Alan wrote on :

    If you’re targeting this at all users I’d suggest that IE is expanded to Internet Explorer as not everyone would recognise ‘IE’ to mean Internet Explorer.

  7. Sebastian Redl wrote on :

    What is the difference between “Installation Problem” and “Technical Difficulties”? I think those names could be improved.

  8. Shane H wrote on :

    Like the last poster, I would worry that using ‘IE’ to refer to Internet Explorer would confuse users with little computing experience. Users may refer to it as ‘Windows Explorer’ or ‘Microsoft Internet Explorer’.

    You could also call the first option on the Kampyle screenshot ‘what about my previous internet settings’.

  9. Daniel Einspanjer wrote on :

    I’d suggest we ask them for their mood before and after the install. If they are already pissed because of some virus or whatever, it might make their mood after the install more relevant.

  10. kkovash wrote on :

    Thanks for all the great feedback!

    Tomer — the feedback form will indeed open in the user’s existing web browser (I could have better explained that).

    yaPlanetReader — we completely agree. we initially had the same issue upon first reviewing Kamply’s policy. since then, Mozilla and Kampyle have agreed to an amended set of policies that better defines these things and better protects privacy-conscious Firefox users.

    Ken

  11. JG wrote on :

    This is a mistake on so many levels. You’re surveying your users to find answers to questions you don’t know? You’re increasing the risk of offending your users to fix a problem that doesn’t exist? Or is it a problem you just don’t understand well enough to form a set of questions around?

    What % of your users cancel? I’d imagine there are larger drop-off points during the install funnel than this where you could better focus your efforts to get a higher ROI.

    If you do decide to go through with this, you shouldn’t be opening a browser window to request feedback. It should be part of the installer. It needs to be fast, simple and obvious. Waiting for a web page to load is neither, not to mention the disconnect for the majority of users who won’t understand where the form is coming from or what’s going on.

    Oh, and then there’s the sampling methodology. If you really want to get useful data, you need to ask all your users, or a random sample of them. Making the feedback process opt-in will skew your results.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of user surveys and other user interaction, but you need to make sure you don’t accidentally make things worse while you do so.

  12. yaPlanetReader wrote on :

    @kkovash:

    That’s brilliant. It’s good to know that you guys were already on it. Thanks for the reassurance!

  13. Natanael L wrote on :

    Why not just let the installer open a window with three options?

    > Just install and then open Firefox (easy)
    > Just install Firefox, don’t open after (easy)
    > Customized installation (complex)

    How much easier can it get?