Firefox Support Overview and Draft PRD
jtba...@gmail.com
Based on your feedback, we have developed a Firefox Support Overview
(draft) and a Product Requirements Document (draft). We have also
developed a Firefox Support work flow and a mock-up of the support
home page (rough idea--hopefully helps tell the story, but please
forgive my photoshop skills).
See the overview and PRD here: http://wiki.mozilla.org/Support:Overview
We will go over these two documents this afternoon at 2pm and discuss
them. It would be great them before hand (short notice, I know), but
we will be going over them as a group if you don't get a chance to
before the meeting. If you can't make the meeting, or have comments
that don't come up during today's meeting, please use the newsgroup as
well as our two feedback meetings next Tuesday.
The goal of putting together these documents was to give us all a
concrete way to continue our discussion on how to improve support for
Firefox. Please share this with other members of the community-- even
if they haven't be a part of our initial process. We have tried to
make the documents as self-explanatory so that we could engage as wide
an audience as possible. We will be posting it in more public forums
after our initial feedback session today.
Thanks for all your help and we look forward to hearing your thoughts!
JT
JT Batson
JT
JT Batson
Mozilla Corporation
650-903-0800 ext 280
j...@mozilla.com
JT Batson
Mozilla Corporation
650-903-0800 ext 280
j...@mozilla.com
Jesper Kristensen
Generally I think the support enhancement plan is good. Excuse me if this
post sounds pessimistic. I have mostly commented on the things I don't like.
*URL structure*:
Locale and application name should be in every URL for extensibility reasons.
Main page should be support.m.c/en-us/firefox/
*Home Page mockup 1.1*:
_Good thing_: It is only about Firefox (The Firefox name should be visible in
the URL and breadcrumbs bar)
_Good thing_: It is easy to get to the KB and I like the Top 10
_Bad thing_: It does not list every support option. Forums, chat and
newsgroups should be easily accessible from this page. Encouraging use of the
KB by making the forums harder to use is a bad thing. Encouraging use of the
KB by making the KB easier to use is a good thing.
_Bad thing_: The text under "New to Mozilla Firefox" is not easy to read -
too much text. Most of it does not fit in under the heading and should not be
on this page.
*KB Content*
I like the split in HowTo and Troubleshooting. That resembles very much the
way I divided the Danish Mozilla KB.
*KB Content Creation*:
Yet another review queue...
You are making the barrier of entry to volunteers very high here. This KB is
very likely to become a competitor to the MozillaZine KB making support even
more scattered, because many volunteers won't follow over to this "closed"
system.
It is good to have a well defined content policy, but I don't think enforcing
it with a review queue is the right way.
*Forum User Posting*:
Short time ago (a week?) there was an article in a Danish IT magazine on
problems with some of the current user driven Web 2.0 websites. One of the
major problems was, that many websites was made only for those 10% that
actively posts content, not for those 90% that only wants to get the
information and get out of there as quickly as possible. I see this issue
here. There is a lot of focus on volunteers that gives support and little on
users that need support.
Also: How user registration is handled is unclear to me.
*Chat*:
No experience on that. no comments.
*Other stuff*:
Why is it important to promote the forum on the front page? If people want
personal contact, they will seek it. If the forum is not aggressively
promoted, many users will find emails to send their questions to. We don't
have the capability to provide email support. Personally I have lowered the
amount of support requests to webmas...@mozilla-europe.org by placing a
link to forum.mozilladanmark.dk above each link to the email address. Placing
a link to a generic support page or KB does not work. There is still a few
e-mails in the category "I cannot find out how to use a forum".
Does the new system include localized support? I would be very interested if
our localized support offerings could be hosted on mozilla.com, but only if
the solution you have is good. I fear an administrative hell here, that every
detail has to be approved by Mozilla.com/org, but I may be too pessimistic?
JT Batson
A few quick thoughts related to:
Q: Does the new system include localized support? I would be very interested if
our localized support offerings could be hosted on mozilla.com, but only if
the solution you have is good.
A: Yes (you are spot on!). We know there are a lot of awesome support sites out there done by localization communities. We would love to support them better. Because the localized support sites are done by volunteers, we know that any new Mozilla.com support site would really have to be good in order for the volunteers to want to switch from what they have now to a mozilla.com supported site. If you have any other thoughts on what would make the solution "good," please keep them coming.
Q:I fear an administrative hell here, that every
detail has to be approved by Mozilla.com/org, but I may be too pessimistic?
A: Me too! :) I think that is a valid concern, but I can assure you that it is in no one's interest to nit pick over details (Firefox support would be a flop if anyone tried to micromanage every last detail-- that just doesn't make sense). Firefox support will continue to be a volunteer community project, but now one with more support and leadership from Mozilla (and hopefully easier and better for end users). If there are specific concerns you have, I am happy talk about those... I think these are great discussions to have.
Thanks again.
JT
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