QA/Community/Minefield Product Page Refresh

After looking at the various pages we have floating around, I hope the UE team can help me reorg the pages and make them more useful to the community as a tool to learn more about our development process, provide feedback, and help with QA/testing. Let me know if you will be able to help me redesign the pages and get some of these changes implemented by year end.

At a minimum, I wanted to update the main product/firstrun pages:

• http://www.mozilla.org/projects/minefield/ (nightly builds page, which should remain relevant)
• http://www.mozilla.org/projects/granparadiso/ (update these expiring pages in prep for future FF4 alphas)
• http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/3.0a3/firstrun/ (update and learn how we may improve FF3 pages)

Here are my thoughts on what works, is missing or might not be ideal with the current pages:

1. Good

• Congratulations message telling people what they have got themselves into and Warning about exactly what they have downloaded.
• Short list of "Notable changes..."
• Hendrix form (thought not sure if it should be the focal point or the only option for users)

2. Bad/Needs Work

• Too much text - not enough bullets/images to make it easy for users to see what's important.
• QA/Testing options don't have enough links to take people to where they need to be to do anything.
• Known issues - I see the usefulness, but perhaps we can expand on what's there or move it somewhere else?

Here is the overview and list of goals that I have come up with after discussing this with the QA team and reviewing what we have right now:

1. http://www.mozilla.org/projects/minefield/

• Target Audience
  • New Nightly Testers/Firefox Users looking to try out the latest/greatest developer builds

               + If they came looking for Firefox, point them to the release page
               + Regardless of how they ended up here, provide quick and easy ways for them to A. Learn about what a "Nightly Build" is and B. Get involved by helping us test (if they're non-techie or qa types) or investigating/hacking on bugs (if they're the dev types)

• • Veteran Nightly Testers

               + Not much we can provide that these folks don't already know, but we can make a few important links and information available so that they see it at least once when installing/updating nightlies.

• Major Blocks/Content
  • Development Status (may require updates every few months to keep info fresh)

               + current "Notable Changes in Minefield" is fine
               + provide links to latest bugs and blocker lists
               + more info about changes to date and upcoming work happening on Trunk
               + point to dev.planning or other appropriate newsgroups

• • QA/Testing

               + promote QMO and community testing events (bug days and test days)
               + invite users to sign up for qacommunity@mozilla.org mailing list
               + educate users about the importance of backing up their data and creating new profiles to test developer builds

• • Bugzilla

               + tell users what it is and provide some basic guidelines/recommendations
               + link to "Hot Bugs" and educate users to check for duplicates before filing new bugs
               + increase quality bug reports (instead of only using hendrix for feedback) by linking directly to "Quick Bug Report" form

• General Goals
  • Provide a permanent product page that we can point people to that are interested in learning about our various "developer" releases/builds.
  • Grow the QA community by providing them quick access to ways to get involved and promoting our new QMO portal; channeling some nightly users to our regular community events like Bug/Test Days.
  • Grow the Nightly Tester community by converting first time visitors/newbies; conveying the message that developer builds are the latest/greatest examples of Firefox innovation and provide them a chance to become an active part of the Mozilla Project.
  • Improve user feedback flow and analysis by giving users a chance to skip Hendrix and log bug reports in Bugzilla (less newsgroup monitoring, more Bugzilla triaging)... but leave Hendrix as an option for people that are either too lazy or don't understand Bugzilla

2. http://www.mozilla.org/projects/granparadiso/

• Same items as above for Minefield, but perhaps a bit more targeted towards the consumer/newbie since we get more regular Firefox users and press looking at alphas/betas during this stage of the development project. Ideas welcome.
• Standard mozilla.org menu on the right should be removed to create more screen real estate. People can always get to it by clicking the "Developers" tab in the top nav.
• Keep section for pointing people to the project pages for this particular branch/release.
• Instead of inviting all users to join qacommunity@mozilla.org, ask some people to sign up for the betatesters@mozilla.org alias so they can help us test beta builds and provide more focused feedback for specific releases (instead of nightlies). We will also need to update the messaging to explain who should be signing up for betatesters alias (web developers, hackers, security experts, etc).. folks that have a vested interest in catching regressions early and making sure critical bugs are fixed with each alpha/beta.

3. http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/3.0a3/firstrun/

• I noticed this URL for 3.0a4 - 3.0a8 redirected to the relnotes.... what was the reasoning behind that? Lack of resources or a conscious decision to discontinue to the firstrun pages used for 3.0a1 - 3.0a3?
• I strongly feel that this firstrun page should be like the URLs above... we can always point people to the actual release notes, but I think it's more valuable to throw the action oriented firstrun page on startup.