Crash reporter icon
Alex Faaborg
a crash reporter icon (current it just uses a copy of the software
update icon). This leads to the question of what metaphor to use. I
was thinking about maybe a puff of smoke or a black box, but I haven't
landed on an idea that I think is particularly good.
A couple aspects we need to consider:
-Since the user might have just been interrupted while doing something
important, we probably don't want to be too flippant (Crash! Bang!
Boom!).
-I'm not sure if we want to create something that is too memorable
since it will inevitably become the symbol of our failure (blue screen
of death). Instead of people saying "I'm sick of Firefox crashing"
they will say "I'm sick of the [insert metaphor we select here]"
Ideas?
Alex
Aza
-- aza | ɐzɐ --
Johnathan Nightingale
parachutes, helmets, &c. But Crash Reporter isn't actually about any
of that. It's great that we session restore to soften the impact of a
crash, but that will happen regardless of crash reporter.
Crash reporter is really about a) acknowledging that we crashed, and
feel badly about it, and b) getting the user to help us avoid doing it
again, or doing it to other people, by reporting it. I'm finding it
harder to come up with really compelling metaphors there:
- If we focus on "marking unsafe spots to help others avoid
problems": caution tape, warning signs like "Slippery when wet" or
"Beware of falling rocks", some kind of stick figure in peril
- If we focus on "we feel really bad that this happened": some sort
of humble-looking fox (ref: Developer Kit)
- If we focus on "Help us figure this mystery out" - Some kind of
investigative/CSI imagery, DNA analysis is probably difficult to do
well as an icon
- If we focus on "You're awesome for helping us out" - volunteer-
boosting imagery (e.g. the canonical "We can do it!" posters)
I don't really like many of these very much, but maybe they help spawn
more discussion by narrowing the focus?
Cheers,
Johnathan
On 27-Sep-08, at 10:57 PM, Alex Faaborg wrote:
> For Firefox 3.1 we are going to try to finally get around to creating
> a crash reporter icon (current it just uses a copy of the software
> update icon). This leads to the question of what metaphor to use. I
> was thinking about maybe a puff of smoke or a black box, but I haven't
> landed on an idea that I think is particularly good.
>
> A couple aspects we need to consider:
>
> -Since the user might have just been interrupted while doing something
> important, we probably don't want to be too flippant (Crash! Bang!
> Boom!).
>
> -I'm not sure if we want to create something that is too memorable
> since it will inevitably become the symbol of our failure (blue screen
> of death). Instead of people saying "I'm sick of Firefox crashing"
> they will say "I'm sick of the [insert metaphor we select here]"
>
> Ideas?
>
> Alex
> _______________________________________________
> dev-apps-firefox mailing list
> dev-apps...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-apps-firefox
---
Johnathan Nightingale
Human Shield
joh...@mozilla.com
John O'Duinn
What about using the bugzilla icon?
(http://quality-drupal.stage.mozilla.com/bugzilla-icon)
Why?
- It is cute, friendly and yet professional
- It helps create an association to bugzilla
- There is already work done here, although I've no idea if we have
permissions to use the bugzilla icon like that or not.
- Hopefully users would end up talking about "bugs" not "crashed again",
which is the right mindset to encourage, imho.
tc
John.
=====
Aza wrote:
> A life jacket?
>
> -- aza | ɐzɐ --
>
>
chris hofmann
we had a team of dedicated people working on crash diaganostic and
fixing work I often likened them to an Emergency Room team.
ER Talk
* admitted: to visit or stay in the hospital -- (acknowledge the
crash like Johnathan suggests below)
* chart: a paper that contains information about you like your
temperature, heart rate, and treatment plan (the report that you can
submit)
* triage: a process that helps doctors see the sickest patients first
(our statistical analysis reporting system -- you can see the crashes
that are happening most often to people)
* discharged: to be sent home from the hospital (get you back on your
feet and using your browser again fast...)
if we start doing some of the stuff talked about in other threads like
extension and plugin disabling under certain circumstances that might be
likened to treatments:
* sutures: stitches to help deep cuts heal
* injection: a shot
Johnathan Nightingale wrote:
> My first couple thoughts were all "safe-landing" related: airbags,
> parachutes, helmets, &c. But Crash Reporter isn't actually about any
> of that. It's great that we session restore to soften the impact of a
> crash, but that will happen regardless of crash reporter.
>
> Crash reporter is really about a) acknowledging that we crashed, and
> feel badly about it, and b) getting the user to help us avoid doing it
> again, or doing it to other people, by reporting it. I'm finding it
> harder to come up with really compelling metaphors there:
>
> - If we focus on "marking unsafe spots to help others avoid
> problems": caution tape, warning signs like "Slippery when wet" or
> "Beware of falling rocks", some kind of stick figure in peril
> - If we focus on "we feel really bad that this happened": some sort
> of humble-looking fox (ref: Developer Kit)
> - If we focus on "Help us figure this mystery out" - Some kind of
> investigative/CSI imagery, DNA analysis is probably difficult to do
> well as an icon
> - If we focus on "You're awesome for helping us out" - volunteer-
> boosting imagery (e.g. the canonical "We can do it!" posters)
>
> I don't really like many of these very much, but maybe they help spawn
> more discussion by narrowing the focus?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Johnathan
>
> On 27-Sep-08, at 10:57 PM, Alex Faaborg wrote:
>
>
>> For Firefox 3.1 we are going to try to finally get around to creating
>> a crash reporter icon (current it just uses a copy of the software
>> update icon). This leads to the question of what metaphor to use. I
>> was thinking about maybe a puff of smoke or a black box, but I haven't
>> landed on an idea that I think is particularly good.
>>
>> A couple aspects we need to consider:
>>
>> -Since the user might have just been interrupted while doing something
>> important, we probably don't want to be too flippant (Crash! Bang!
>> Boom!).
>>
>> -I'm not sure if we want to create something that is too memorable
>> since it will inevitably become the symbol of our failure (blue screen
>> of death). Instead of people saying "I'm sick of Firefox crashing"
>> they will say "I'm sick of the [insert metaphor we select here]"
>>
>> Ideas?
>>
>> Alex
>> _______________________________________________
>> dev-apps-firefox mailing list
>> dev-apps...@lists.mozilla.org
>> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-apps-firefox
>>
>
> ---
> Johnathan Nightingale
> Human Shield
> joh...@mozilla.com
>
>
>
John J. Barton
> For Firefox 3.1 we are going to try to finally get around to creating a
> crash reporter icon (current it just uses a copy of the software update
>
> Ideas?
Yes, better hurry. FF3 is so much more stable for FF2 that you may not
get much use out of you icon.
jjb
Robert Kaiser
> - If we focus on "we feel really bad that this happened": some sort of
> humble-looking fox (ref: Developer Kit)
We should try to refrain from imagery that ties it to the Firefox logo,
as 1) we have de-branded variants and 2) crashreporter is toolkit code
used by other apps as well that don't have a Firefox in their logos.
Robert Kaiser
Jennifer Boriss
>as 1) we have de-branded variants and 2) crashreporter is toolkit code
>used by other apps as well that don't have a Firefox in their logos.
Robert - on point 2, can we not have the version of crashreporter that Firefox brings up be specific to Firefox, and thus use Firefox logo or a fox? I was wondering about the possibility of using perhaps not the Firefox logo, but the fox mascot in a position of humility/apology, such as suffering a light injury, deploying a parachute, having crashed a plane/boat/car/bike, literally crashing into the ground (think cartoon version of ( http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/funny-pictures-firefox-crash-snow.jpg ), or just looking ashamed. The goal here would be to 1. acknowledge that we screwed up and 2. give a bit of levity - though not to the point of patronizing - when the user is rightfully angry. A couple examples of this are Songbird here ( http://songbirdnest.com/files/images/74_crash-reporter.png ) and Adium here ( http://daringfireball.net/misc/2006/02/adium-crash-reporter.png ).
I thought Johnathan's post about the metaphors was a good way to think about what we want to convey. My favorite of the possible messages is "help us figure this mystery out" - it acknowledges the problem while inviting the user to be a part of the solution. I notice that Apple went with this same approach ( http://www.macuser.com/2008/06/05/CrashReporterPrefs%20icon.jpg ), though of course they're not necessarily right. :) If we go with a Fox we could make a fox detective, and if not we could still make the icon detective-y.
One thought about using a bug - this makes sense to people that use Bugzilla, but we should consider that to the average joe, the bug metaphor means only a bug in software. So, if we used a bug we should be careful that it does not relate that Firefox is "buggy."
- Boriss
Robert Kaiser
Justin Dolske
I think we should use whatever icon makes sense. If the code needs fixed
to allow using unbranded / project-specific icons, then we should do
that too.
Justin
Robert Kaiser
>> We should try to refrain from imagery that ties it to the Firefox logo,
>> as 1) we have de-branded variants and 2) crashreporter is toolkit code
>> used by other apps as well that don't have a Firefox in their logos.
>
> Robert - on point 2, can we not have the version of crashreporter that Firefox brings up be specific to Firefox, and thus use Firefox logo or a fox? I was wondering about the possibility of using perhaps not the Firefox logo, but the fox mascot in a position of humility/apology, such as suffering a light injury, deploying a parachute, having crashed a plane/boat/car/bike, literally crashing into the ground (think cartoon version of ( http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/funny-pictures-firefox-crash-snow.jpg ), or just looking ashamed. The goal here would be to 1. acknowledge that we screwed up and 2. give a bit of levity - though not to the point of patronizing - when the user is rightfully angry. A couple examples of this are Songbird here ( http://songbirdnest.com/files/images/74_crash-reporter.png ) and Adium here ( http://daringfireball.net/misc/2006/02/adium-crash-reporter.png ).
The problem with a "foxy" icon is that each XULRunner app or app that
packages the crashreporter needs to create and package a different icon
in that case, which places more burden on them and makes Mozilla-based
apps more inconsistent.
I would hope that not every app that uses crashreporter needs to develop
its own funny crash icon.
> One thought about using a bug - this makes sense to people that use Bugzilla, but we should consider that to the average joe, the bug metaphor means only a bug in software. So, if we used a bug we should be careful that it does not relate that Firefox is "buggy."
Well, if it crashes, it actually is buggy in some way for sure. But
then, I understand we probably want to sound nice rather than just honest.
Robert Kaiser
Mike Beltzner
(like Firefox) to specify their own when building the packages.
I understand Robert's argument, here, and wouldn't want Songbird's crashes
(for instance) dealt with by a sad fox. At the same time, it would be nice
to let them put in their own sad tooting bird. :)
cheers,
mike
----- Original Message -----
From: dev-apps-firefox-bounces+beltzner=mozil...@lists.mozilla.org
<dev-apps-firefox-bounces+beltzner=mozil...@lists.mozilla.org>
To: dev-apps...@lists.mozilla.org <dev-apps...@lists.mozilla.org>
Sent: Sun Oct 12 07:46:37 2008
Subject: Re: Crash reporter icon
Robert Kaiser
Michael Vincent van Rantwijk, MultiZilla
The first thing I thought about was Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes, as in
investigators, but the key factor here is to turn something /bad/ (the
crash) into something /good/ (the fix)!
Send us that crash report, and we will fix this bug. Let them (the
end-user) know that their help is appreciated, and that you /need/ their
help. Make them feel good by sending a crash report.
Let this be an open invitation to the user, to help you (Mozilla). An
(automated) reply / follow up would be an additional plus.
My vote would be for a broken light bulb, making it clear that
'something' is broken. Bigger icons could add images of tape or glue,
because you are after all going to fix (think session restore here)
something ;)
Just my 2 cent ;)
Michael
Alex Faaborg
> create and package a different icon in that case
Yeah, we are totally aware of this. We will either go with something
generic, or if we decide to go with a branded icon we will provide
both branded and unbranded versions, similar to other icons like HTML
document and Disk Image.
-Alex
Kevin Brosnan
> The first thing I thought about was Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes, as in
> investigators, but the key factor here is to turn something /bad/ (the
> crash) into something /good/ (the fix)!
>
> Send us that crash report, and we will fix this bug. Let them (the
> end-user) know that their help is appreciated, and that you /need/ their
> help. Make them feel good by sending a crash report.
>
> Let this be an open invitation to the user, to help you (Mozilla). An
> (automated) reply / follow up would be an additional plus.
>
> My vote would be for a broken light bulb, making it clear that 'something'
> is broken. Bigger icons could add images of tape or glue, because you are
> after all going to fix (think session restore here) something ;)
>
> Just my 2 cent ;)
> Michael
>
>
>
>
> dev-apps-firefox mailing list
> dev-apps...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-apps-firefox
>
Dr Watson is a crash tool on
windows.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Watson_%28debugger%29
orange
these ideas tho know too big, just thought I'd toss out maybe help
others get ideas...
http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo150/orange1867/ff_crash_fox.png
http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo150/orange1867/ff_crash_dragon.png
http://i370.photobucket.com/albums/oo150/orange1867/ff_crash_ninja.png
--
[orange is in ca using sympatico]