Support/Firefox4Beta

Firefox 4 is coming out with an expanded beta program. This affects support in 3 key ways:

Supporting the users

The goal is to expand from 1.3M users on the beta channel to 2-4 M users, with 30-40% of the users on the beta being "mainstream" rather than techie. These users are going to need help with their problems and concerns especially because: 1) The software is in beta and not release quality. 2) Mainstream users are less likely to accept changes and may get discouraged and switch back.

In order to do this, we need to figure out how to support these users:

1. How will we run this?
   1. use tags on the kitsune forums
2. How many people do we need?
   1. Can we get marketing to help build a support community
   2. Should we do a special schwag outreach to kick start this community?

Brainstorming and planning doc: Support/Firefox 4 User Support Plan

Collecting user feedback/questions and passing off to devs

SUMO is listed as a feedback channel for this project and we should be responsible and proactive about making sure that we do our part in passing common issues along.

1. How to involve the community in this effort?
2. Can we use the beta to pilot the community <=> QA interaction?

Brainstorming and planning doc: Support/Firefox 4 feedback reporting plan

Using the feedback from all channels to improve SUMO before release

There are going to be lots of feedback channels as part of this project and we should use the data from them to inform what needs to be done to get the KB and SUMO ready for release.

1. What are the feedback channels we should be monitoring (Feedback button)
2. Who should be monitoring them?

Brainstorming and planning doc: Support/Firefox 4 feedback incorporation plan

Test pilot user learning study

There will be a study that will be run through Test pilot that will help us better understand the ways Firefox users adapt to the new UI as well as how they learn.

1. What do we want to get out of it?
2. How should the study be designed
3. Which other groups would benefit from this information and how should we communicate it with them?

Brainstorming and planning doc: Support/Firefox 4 Longitudinal user study

Timeline

• Late June: First betas release for FF4
• July/August: Big push to mainstream users
• Late October/November: FF4 final release.