Release Channel Redesign

We're Getting Bigger and Better
Over the past 6 months our humble product website has grown significantly due to the launch of four new core products: our Beta and Aurora release channels which come in both desktop and mobile flavors. 

That's 4 more products!

These channels are vitally important; we rely on the bugs reported by users on these front lines to make Firefox better. In return these users get a special build of Firefox where they can enjoy the coolest new features first.

To make sure we created a nice new home for them within mozilla.org/firefox - our main consumer facing website - we've done a ton of work: phase one consisted launching a main channels landing below (picture below) - really - just getting the basics live:

Phase two - just completed - launched the second phase of the channel project meant to provide more of a brand identity. 

We want to make sure we're clearly communicating the difference between the Beta and Aurora builds (screenshot below) while enabling the same download ease we see with our GA browser ("general availability").

The Results

• Better Discoverability: After conducting using testing via www.usertesting.com to measure the before and after we learned that users are better able to find these new products, especially from natural search. 
• We saw through user testing that people now have a clear sense of the differences between the different builds. This was severely lacking before and clarity around this was one of our main goals.
• More robust experience: We went from having one main channel landing page to adding an entirely new section on our site consisting of four distinct landing pages and a redesigned landing page

Next Steps

• We still have a long ways to go adjusting the usability on the /channels page - see Bug 725808 for the gory details!
• User testing made it painfully clear that the post download experience is less than ideal: we don't do a good job communicating to these VIP users how they can provide feedback, or what features are ready to be tested. That will be tackled during Q2. 

What do you think? Are there any more improvements you'd like to see on our site? If so, leave comment away!




  

Mozilla Website SOPA/PIPA Efforts

This morning my alarm went off at 4:30am so I could hop online to help launch Mozilla's anti-SOPA efforts. 

Although the scenarios are of different degrees of significance, I couldn't help but think of a story I once heard about how Steven Garrity, a long-time contributor, launched the original Firefox download page live for the first time early one morning from bed over 8 years ago. 

Once I finally made it into work it was a delight to see our main SOPA landing page on the cover of the New York Times amongst our peers at Wikipedia, Reddit, and more. 

There are many other bits and pieces to our SOPA campaign, but here is a overview of what we did on our main web facing properties. 

Site Blackout

We blacked out our main download landing pages by having them redirect to the SOPA landing page below (www.mozilla.org/sopa). 

That means that everyone wanting to download Firefox today or anyone who came to our main website through the normal front doors saw this page instead. Those numbers are well into the multi-million. We make the "deep" content available since we want people to be able to get support, and upgrade their browser for security reasons.

A few details:

- We launched using redirects that would not harm our SEO efforts by following guidelines from posts like this people put together exactly for this reason. 

-We also chose to keep a way for visitors to download Firefox - you can see it at the bottom of the screenshot above. This was a bit tricky since we didn't want to come across as "commercial" or trying to take advantage of this event to get more downloads but as Alex Fowler so aptly stated we give visitors the download option in order to: "...continue to support our mission, ensure users have access to support, as well as the ability to find and update to safer and securer versions of Firefox." 

Start Page Blackout

Even more significantly we dramatically changed the look and feel of our default "Start" page, meaning, the page you see when you type "about:home" into your browser. 

We made it black. We added relevant info.  We put a censorship slash through the fox. Everyone on the English build of the browser should see this page today if this is their default homepage. Those numbers are in the tens of millions. 

This launch with very Mozilla-esque  - willing participants huddling together in chaos trying to throw something together to make a difference for the future of the web. 

For example: here's the main etherpad we used to draft out our actions.  Nothing short of mayhem!

We'll see what results from these efforts as the day unfolds. 

In the mean-time it's been a very exciting day.

Different By Design

Firefox is a different type of browser. Mozilla is a different type of company. You can see that from our founding story, the way we work, our priorities, our non-profit status and more.

When it comes to marketing at Mozilla - which, hey remember how we're different? -  we call "Engagement" not "Marketing," we think long and hard about how to communicate this difference. 

After all, living and breathing an authentic story is the best way to spread the word about a product and our story is nothing but authentic.

These factors led to the launch of our recent brand campaign. Checkout this smattering of creative and notice its boldness, authenticity, and ability to set us apart from the crowd:

The Web Launch

When it comes to our main user-facing channel -- our website (one of the most viewed sites in the world) here's the creative we launched to get this message across:

And some localized versions... (finals are not this neon of a orange)

The "before" shot (Notice how we hint at, but don't really show our difference):

 
Here's What Happened

With the help of a simple survey we were able to measure the affect this new creative had on overall brand awareness. The shift was significant -- now the majority of all new Firefox users know Firefox is made by a non-profit. 

Before we launched this campaign the opposite was true. We crossed well over the 50% threshold and increased awareness over 20% all without hurting download conversion rate.

Next Steps & Bottom Line

We will continue to do more of this and will roll-out this campaign worldwide. And for now, we know we're on the right track and that aligning our outer 'presentation-layer' with our inner values helps us communicate what matters most to us in a way that resonates with our users.

How to Increase Onsite Newsletter Signup Conversion

You've heard it before, small optimizations can have huge impacts that increase conversion numbers. It's true! What follows is the story of one such optimization that my team at Mozilla recently released that increased our daily newsletter signup rate by 25%. 

We Want to Date You
One question always on our minds is how to form lasting relationships with our website visitors. I'm sure many of you have the same question and fear people visiting your website once and moving onto the next sexy thing, never to come back again.

Dumped.

It's a busy inter-webs out there! It happens all the time!

We've recently launched a fantastic email program that allows a deeper connection between Mozilla and our users to be formed. Our web team has worked closely with Winston Bowden (@winstonbowden), our email program lead extraordinaire, to make sure site visitors have a chance to signup for our newly launched monthly newsletter. (sign up here)
 

Launchin' and Learnin'
When the first iteration of newsletter signup form launched it went like this: user clicks signup option in footer and gets linked to a landing page where they can fully register. Can you spot the inefficiency?

 

Above: "Get Monthly News" links to this main Newsletter signup page:

We decided to make this process easier by allowing inline signups. Stripping down the signup form and embedding only the bare-minimum fields within the site footer accomplishes this. It also helps the user experience in two ways: whittles down the signup process, and allows the site visitor to remain on the same page.

Here's what it looks like now:

 

Above: Email signup field is open by default within the footer of every page. Clicking the small tabbed button reveals the other data fields needed for complete signup, as seen below:

Hot or Not?
This slightly more advanced technical implementation did take some time out of our normal release cycle. But was it worth it? Sure was... 

This small change increased the daily signup rate by 25%, or 1,000 incremental new subscribers every day. This will result in an additional 365,000 email subscribers a year!

The Bottom Line
Although next time we launch similar site functionality it should contain the most streamlined user flow from day one, it's never-the-less interesting to see just how big of an effect a small change like this can have.

Do you see other ways we can improve the user experience on Mozilla.com? I'm sure you can. I'd love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

Blogging 'bout Mozilla - A Kickoff Post

Wow. Okay. Here I go faithful "Forrest through the trees" readers. Hold onto your heads - I'm finally going to start blogging about my experiences here as part of Team Mozilla!

After contributing to the Mozilla engagement team on a contractor basis I was recently hired as a member of the Engagement Team (that's what we call "Marketing").

I get to focus on how to make the Mozilla.com website even better by leading and contributing to projects that involve website optimization, brand awareness, SEO, onsite marketing, and a whooooole lot more. In general I aim to help Mozilla.com live up the the clear potential it has as one of the top destinations on the internet.

To say that I'm ecstatic about the opportunity and possibilities is an understatement.

Our team recently went through a whirlwind of a time helping launch Firefox 4 for desktop and mobile. Now that I'm back on my feet (unlike this guy) after those two incredible product releases it’s high time I share a little more about what’s ahead.

This quarter we're focusing on projects that will help us communicate the Mozilla story in a clear and consistent way. When it comes to Mozilla.com that means letting visitors know we're a non-profit, making sure the website is as cutting edge as our browser, and tracking how effectively we're sharing our story with the world.


I'll be updating you, dear reader, along the way so that you too can learn from our progress, stumbles, and (hopefully mostly) slam dunks.

Talk to you soon!
Laura
lforrest at mozilla.com