Firefox3.5/WebsitePlan

Overview

These are the currently planned mozilla.com changes for the Firefox 3.1 release. Although the site will retain the overall 3.x look & feel, there are lots of page updates to cover the various new features.

Primary Team

• Project Lead: John Slater
• Marketing: Dave Bottoms
• Web Development: silverorange
• Localization: Pascal Chevrel
• QA: Stephen Donner
• Video: Alix Franquet
• Layout & Design: The Royal Order/silverorange
• Copywriting: John Slater
• Code Review: Wil Clouser

Specific Site Pages

Main Firefox page

• update main logo & headline/subheadline copy
• update to the "What's So Great About Firefox" section to reflect new features (text and screenshots).
• design: silverorange
• localization: yes

Features page

• incorporate new content that explains new features and improvements to existing features. Also rearrange existing order of the features to uplevel things like performance, and change “Top New Features” to “Top Firefox Features”.
• design: TRO
• localization: probably yes

Homepage

• update main logo & headline/subheadline copy
• design: silverorange
• localization: yes

Video page

• create a version of the page in which Ogg is the default video method…will need to be able to serve up Ogg version to 3.1 users and Flash version to everyone else (with Flash/Ogg being available as a secondary option on each)
• add new videos as detailed below
• design: TRO
• localization: no

Downloading page

• update content here (with new text or screenshots, for example) to make sure it accurately describes the download & install process
• design: TRO
• localization: no?

First Run page

• update main logo…possibly other minor text changes
• show off 3.1’s new video capabilities by creating an animation of the doves flying out of the pipe that’s seamlessly embedded into the background of the page (as opposed to being set apart in a YouTube-style frame). Will be nice eye candy, but more importantly we can point to this as a demo of what’s possible with online video. Note: this animation will likely take longer to create, so we’ll have to turn it in later than the rest of the page (after localization has already begun, possibly).
• design: TRO (animation), silverorange (content updates)
• localization: yes

What’s New page

• this essentially is the first run page for any existing Firefox users who upgrade to 3.1, so we should snazzify it a bit. Nothing major…probably add 3.1 logo more prominently and possible minor text changes.
• design: TRO
• localization: yes

Style Guide

• update all logo references to incorporate 3.1 logo where necessary. Minor text updates possible as well.
• design: TRO (new graphic elements), silverorange (content updates)
• localization: no

Press Center

• update online press kit with new 3.1 links
• update image library with new logos
• add press release on launch day
• create Firefox 3.1 FAQ (TBD)
• design: silverorange
• localization: no

Release Notes

• add new release notes text (copy will come from Beltzner and the Firefox team on this one)
• design: silverorange
• localization: yes

Getting Started

• replace some of the recommended sites with new ones
• decision will be based on Ken Kovash data as to which ones are & aren't performing (data TBD)
• design: silverorange
• localization: optional

Videos

Developer Screencasts

• add “what’s new in 3.1” screencast as well as possible other feature-specific ones (customization, tabs and privacy are the leading candidates)
• will live on the Video page
• design: Rainer w/Alix
• localization: no

Main Firefox Overview

• need to scope out whether we only make minor changes here (updating logo, some parts of the voice over) or whether we get more involved (removing things like platform native look & feel, adding things like private browsing)
• design: TRO
• localization: maybe, but lower priority for launch

Screenshots

• there are screenshots throughout the site that may need to be updated because the icons or UI has changed on the page. Currently scoping this out with Alex Faaborg.
• main new ones we’ll need are screenshots showing private browsing, “Clear Recent History” and “Forget This Website”
• design: TBD as to who will be creating the screenshots
• localization: yes (eventually…some will probably be more essential than others)

Rough Schedule

This schedule may change a bit as we go, but the general timeline is accurate. Priority is to complete pages that need localization as early as possible to allow time for that.

• 1/15: begin design & copywriting
• 2/2: hand off all files to silverorange for development
• 2/16: development complete...transition pages to QA & l10n
• mid-March: launch Firefox 3.1

Related Project: Browser-Specific Download Pages

This isn't directly related to the 3.1 release, but it is a site project happening around the same time. Including some general info here b/c of possible overlaps.

• we want to introduce more dynamic content to the site on the main Firefox download page. Surprisingly, something like 25% of the visitors to this page already have FF3, so we'd want to show them a page focused way more on upgrades like add-ons than downloads. People who have FF2 would see a different version; people who have IE would see a different version still, etc, etc. We already have wireframes for all this and a pretty good idea of what we want it to say.
• project owner David Rolnitzky will be posting more details.
• goal is to launch this in mid to late February so we can get a good baseline number on how it's performing before the 3.1 release.
• will need to roll this out, with the appropriate updates, for 3.1 as well (although possibly not at the same time as launch)
• design: TRO
• localization: no (this is just a test, so for now it’s just on the en-US site)