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Firefox Heartbeat
I'm getting a banner across the top of all my Firefox pages today: "Want to try something new in Firefox?" with a "Get it now" button, a "Learn More" link, and an "x" to close the banner.
The Learn More link states:
Heartbeat is User Voice in Firefox.
Heartbeat provides real-time understanding of our existing Desktop user population, allowing us to pivot more quickly based on the needs and desires of our users. Heartbeat ties user perception to technical information so we can take your feedback and feed that into future Firefox releases.
The Goals of the project are listed as including:
Reduce user frustration by increasing our visibility into pre-release versions of Firefox so we catch and fix bugs earlier
Respect users time and effort by doing minimally intrusive questioning. Small samples, long rest periods, and simple interactions. We want to collect Just Enough data to be useful.
So I started thinking, Great! You mean they might ask my opinion on new features, and use my response to improve the product?
But then I scrolled down, and it appears that all it does is let you provide an overall rating of Firefox, from 0 to 5 stars. WTF? And once you enter a rating, you get a set of fairly useless links. WTF? How is that supposed to reduce user frustration? How is that supposed to catch and fix bugs? Where is the "questioning" mentioned in the goals?
I suppose if they are getting average ratings of 4 one day, and after releasing a new version of the browser, the rating goes down to 3, that may give them a general indication that users are displeased with something. But still, that seems rather useless. Does that mean that if I'm suddenly displeased with something new, that I should give them 0 stars that day, just to impress upon them that I'm displeased? Otherwise, unless they've passed the tipping point to where I'd actually prefer another browser over Firefox, my overall rating would still have to be high, as otherwise I'd actually be using a different browser.
I guess I'll click "Get it now" just to see if it really only includes what that page shows, or if maybe there's more to it.
..
Update: I found a page where you can leave positive or negative feedback on Firefox - this may be more useful (or may at least *feel* more satisfying) than giving a star rating:
https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/feedback
Update 2: Well, it looks like there's more to it than star ratings.
A Smarter Firefox
Firefox Guide Study 1
The Learn More link states:
Heartbeat is User Voice in Firefox.
Heartbeat provides real-time understanding of our existing Desktop user population, allowing us to pivot more quickly based on the needs and desires of our users. Heartbeat ties user perception to technical information so we can take your feedback and feed that into future Firefox releases.
The Goals of the project are listed as including:
Reduce user frustration by increasing our visibility into pre-release versions of Firefox so we catch and fix bugs earlier
Respect users time and effort by doing minimally intrusive questioning. Small samples, long rest periods, and simple interactions. We want to collect Just Enough data to be useful.
So I started thinking, Great! You mean they might ask my opinion on new features, and use my response to improve the product?
But then I scrolled down, and it appears that all it does is let you provide an overall rating of Firefox, from 0 to 5 stars. WTF? And once you enter a rating, you get a set of fairly useless links. WTF? How is that supposed to reduce user frustration? How is that supposed to catch and fix bugs? Where is the "questioning" mentioned in the goals?
I suppose if they are getting average ratings of 4 one day, and after releasing a new version of the browser, the rating goes down to 3, that may give them a general indication that users are displeased with something. But still, that seems rather useless. Does that mean that if I'm suddenly displeased with something new, that I should give them 0 stars that day, just to impress upon them that I'm displeased? Otherwise, unless they've passed the tipping point to where I'd actually prefer another browser over Firefox, my overall rating would still have to be high, as otherwise I'd actually be using a different browser.
I guess I'll click "Get it now" just to see if it really only includes what that page shows, or if maybe there's more to it.
..
Update: I found a page where you can leave positive or negative feedback on Firefox - this may be more useful (or may at least *feel* more satisfying) than giving a star rating:
https://input.mozilla.org/en-US/feedback
Update 2: Well, it looks like there's more to it than star ratings.
A Smarter Firefox
Firefox Guide Study 1