Firefox/Features/New Tab Page v2
Status
New Tab Page v2 | |
Stage | Feature Overview |
Status | In progress |
Release target | Firefox Next |
Health | OK |
Status note | This new project seeks to improve and combine New Tab ("about:newtab" in Firefox) and Home ("about:home" in Firefox) into one integrated design on Firefox desktop, mobile, and tablet. |
{{#set:Feature name=New Tab Page v2
|Feature stage=Feature Overview |Feature status=In progress |Feature version=Firefox Next |Feature health=OK |Feature status note=This new project seeks to improve and combine New Tab ("about:newtab" in Firefox) and Home ("about:home" in Firefox) into one integrated design on Firefox desktop, mobile, and tablet. }}
Team
Product manager | ` |
Directly Responsible Individual | Jennifer Morrow |
Lead engineer | Blake Winton |
Security lead | ` |
Privacy lead | ` |
Localization lead | ` |
Accessibility lead | ` |
QA lead | ` |
UX lead | Jennifer Morrow |
Product marketing lead | ` |
Operations lead | ` |
Additional members | Bryan Clark, Joanne Nagel, Christopher Arnold |
{{#set:Feature product manager=`
|Feature feature manager=Jennifer Morrow |Feature lead engineer=Blake Winton |Feature security lead=` |Feature privacy lead=` |Feature localization lead=` |Feature accessibility lead=` |Feature qa lead=` |Feature ux lead=Jennifer Morrow |Feature product marketing lead=` |Feature operations lead=` |Feature additional members=Bryan Clark, Joanne Nagel, Christopher Arnold }}
Open issues/risks
- Thumbnails currently not loading in Firefox (they'll need to load consistently before a successful NT2)
- May have implications for our search relationships with partners, since involves internal pages where searches are conducted
- UX is resource-constrained on both research and implementation side
Stage 1: Definition
1. Feature overview
Whenever Firefox users open a new tab, their goal is to use it to navigate somewhere. Firefox currently displays a blank page when Firefox users open a new page. This is guaranteed to not help them perform their next task.
We'd like to implement a page which displays on new tabs and helps users complete their next task. This will likely include offering options that are most likely to include the user's next task so that valuable time and steps are saved.
Such a page must meet certain requirements:
- Load instantly
- Not be so distracting as to take users mentally away from their intended task and into an unintended one
- Be useful without any configuration, yet can be easily configured and disabled
- Does not embarrass the user
Goals
1. Make users more powerful
- Utilizes usage data Firefox already has. Creates value from what Firefox knows about the people who use it, building a richer experience over time without compromising privacy or security
- Make users efficient. Has a high likelihood of predicting what the user’s next action is and saving them time in the process. Allows users to easily navigate different locations and contexts
- Recognize context. Understands that how users browse changes based on their situation, state, and tasks. Does require users to compromise privacy among people in their life.
- Be the user’s agent and advocate. Welcomes users to their browsing session while being helpful, not overpowering.
- Non-goal: Work well with a user’s current and future tools. Firefox cannot be all tools to all users, and a successful design will integrate with users’ current workflows and tools Firefox and a user’s tools should be more powerful together: Firefox should not work around or despite a user’s tools.
2. Offer a seamless experience across devices and users
- Be user-centric, not device-centric. When a Firefox user begins a browsing session, they should always feel they are continuing a web experience with a browser built for them, not having to re-intro duce themselves
- Feel Firefoxy on any platform. While Firefox is designed differently for different form factors, NT2 will look, feel, and act in accordance with our brand tone and style
3. Successfully Integrate New Tab and Home Tab into one Page
- Use what we’ve learned and are learning. Integrate and change based on what we learn from research and testing about what users do, how they browser, and how they respond to changes
- Don’t leave current users in the lurch. While the features NT2 presents will change and some will move, users will not be left unable to find functionality they need
- Non-goal: Combine all the features of Home Tab and New Tab into one page. Currently, these two pages offer users different options, but a successful design for v2 will curate content strategically in the way that produces the best user experience. Any item present on the page must have a rationale to be displayed other than historical design.
Design
Default View
Explanation of view here image right here
Research
Questions to be Answered via Research
- a. What info I’m looking for
- b. What hypothesis I’d like to test
- c. What different numbers would indicate
1. How often do users click on thumbnails and launch targets (these) about:newtab?
- a. What percent of time in which they see about:newtab do they interact with it? Do they interact with a
range of thumbnails and launch targets or just a few? How many thumbnails are displaying for users on average, do they click on the thumbnails that are displaying?
- b. As long as thumbnails are displaying, a non-trivial amount of users do click on themProbably very few
users use the launch targets.
- c. If thumbnails are basically ignored or used, assuming they are displaying correctlyIf launch targets are
basically ignored or usedIf not enough thumbnails are displaying for users to make this question answer - able right now, so be it
2. How often do users search from about:home?
- a. What percent of the time that users see about:home will they do a search from it? How many users press
the Home button before doing a search on about:home?
- b. Very few users rely on about:home for searching, but some small amount of users may rely on it primarily
for searching
- c. If thumbnails are basically ignored or used, assuming they are displaying correctlyIf not enough thumb
- nails are displaying for users to make this question answerable right now, so be it
3. How often do users press the “Home” button?
- a. Are there users that press the about:home button? If so, what actions are they most likely to take once
they see about:home? This one in particular may be skewed by the Test Pilot audience
- b. Very few users rely on about:home for searching, but some users rely on it primarily for searching
- c. If the number of users who rely on the Home button is small or large, and if there are users who rely on it
only or primarily for searching
4. How many users have changed their homepage to be a custom page, blank page, or “show windows from
last time?” Also, how many “restore session” on about:home once it starts?
- a. An idea of how many users have customized their about:home and how many use session restore
- b. Very few users have changed their about:home, while a non-trivial amount restore their session after a
crash
- c. If the number of users who change about:home is small or largeIf possible, what URLs they replace their
about:home with.
2. Users & use cases
`
3. Dependencies
`
4. Requirements
`
Non-goals
`
Stage 2: Design
5. Functional specification
`
6. User experience design
`
Stage 3: Planning
7. Implementation plan
`
8. Reviews
Security review
`
Privacy review
`
Localization review
`
Accessibility
`
Quality Assurance review
`
Operations review
`
Stage 4: Development
9. Implementation
`
Stage 5: Release
10. Landing criteria
` {{#set:Feature open issues and risks=# Thumbnails currently not loading in Firefox (they'll need to load consistently before a successful NT2)
- May have implications for our search relationships with partners, since involves internal pages where searches are conducted
- UX is resource-constrained on both research and implementation side
|Feature overview=Whenever Firefox users open a new tab, their goal is to use it to navigate somewhere. Firefox currently displays a blank page when Firefox users open a new page. This is guaranteed to not help them perform their next task.
We'd like to implement a page which displays on new tabs and helps users complete their next task. This will likely include offering options that are most likely to include the user's next task so that valuable time and steps are saved.
Such a page must meet certain requirements:
- Load instantly
- Not be so distracting as to take users mentally away from their intended task and into an unintended one
- Be useful without any configuration, yet can be easily configured and disabled
- Does not embarrass the user
Goals
1. Make users more powerful
- Utilizes usage data Firefox already has. Creates value from what Firefox knows about the people who use it, building a richer experience over time without compromising privacy or security
- Make users efficient. Has a high likelihood of predicting what the user’s next action is and saving them time in the process. Allows users to easily navigate different locations and contexts
- Recognize context. Understands that how users browse changes based on their situation, state, and tasks. Does require users to compromise privacy among people in their life.
- Be the user’s agent and advocate. Welcomes users to their browsing session while being helpful, not overpowering.
- Non-goal: Work well with a user’s current and future tools. Firefox cannot be all tools to all users, and a successful design will integrate with users’ current workflows and tools Firefox and a user’s tools should be more powerful together: Firefox should not work around or despite a user’s tools.
2. Offer a seamless experience across devices and users
- Be user-centric, not device-centric. When a Firefox user begins a browsing session, they should always feel they are continuing a web experience with a browser built for them, not having to re-intro duce themselves
- Feel Firefoxy on any platform. While Firefox is designed differently for different form factors, NT2 will look, feel, and act in accordance with our brand tone and style
3. Successfully Integrate New Tab and Home Tab into one Page
- Use what we’ve learned and are learning. Integrate and change based on what we learn from research and testing about what users do, how they browser, and how they respond to changes
- Don’t leave current users in the lurch. While the features NT2 presents will change and some will move, users will not be left unable to find functionality they need
- Non-goal: Combine all the features of Home Tab and New Tab into one page. Currently, these two pages offer users different options, but a successful design for v2 will curate content strategically in the way that produces the best user experience. Any item present on the page must have a rationale to be displayed other than historical design.
Design
Default View
Explanation of view here image right here
Research
Questions to be Answered via Research
- a. What info I’m looking for
- b. What hypothesis I’d like to test
- c. What different numbers would indicate
1. How often do users click on thumbnails and launch targets (these) about:newtab?
- a. What percent of time in which they see about:newtab do they interact with it? Do they interact with a
range of thumbnails and launch targets or just a few? How many thumbnails are displaying for users on average, do they click on the thumbnails that are displaying?
- b. As long as thumbnails are displaying, a non-trivial amount of users do click on themProbably very few
users use the launch targets.
- c. If thumbnails are basically ignored or used, assuming they are displaying correctlyIf launch targets are
basically ignored or usedIf not enough thumbnails are displaying for users to make this question answer - able right now, so be it
2. How often do users search from about:home?
- a. What percent of the time that users see about:home will they do a search from it? How many users press
the Home button before doing a search on about:home?
- b. Very few users rely on about:home for searching, but some small amount of users may rely on it primarily
for searching
- c. If thumbnails are basically ignored or used, assuming they are displaying correctlyIf not enough thumb
- nails are displaying for users to make this question answerable right now, so be it
3. How often do users press the “Home” button?
- a. Are there users that press the about:home button? If so, what actions are they most likely to take once
they see about:home? This one in particular may be skewed by the Test Pilot audience
- b. Very few users rely on about:home for searching, but some users rely on it primarily for searching
- c. If the number of users who rely on the Home button is small or large, and if there are users who rely on it
only or primarily for searching
4. How many users have changed their homepage to be a custom page, blank page, or “show windows from
last time?” Also, how many “restore session” on about:home once it starts?
- a. An idea of how many users have customized their about:home and how many use session restore
- b. Very few users have changed their about:home, while a non-trivial amount restore their session after a
crash
- c. If the number of users who change about:home is small or largeIf possible, what URLs they replace their
about:home with. |Feature users and use cases=` |Feature dependencies=` |Feature requirements=` |Feature non-goals=` |Feature functional spec=` |Feature ux design=` |Feature implementation plan=` |Feature security review=` |Feature privacy review=` |Feature localization review=` |Feature accessibility review=` |Feature qa review=` |Feature operations review=` |Feature implementation notes=` |Feature landing criteria=` }}
Feature details
Priority | Unprioritized |
Rank | 5 |
Theme / Goal | Discover |
Roadmap | User Experience |
Secondary roadmap | Firefox Desktop |
Feature list | Desktop |
Project | ` |
Engineering team | Desktop front-end |
{{#set:Feature priority=Unprioritized
|Feature rank=5 |Feature theme=Discover |Feature roadmap=User Experience |Feature secondary roadmap=Firefox Desktop |Feature list=Desktop |Feature project=` |Feature engineering team=Desktop front-end }}
Team status notes
status | notes | |
Products | ` | ` |
Engineering | ` | ` |
Security | sec-review-needed | ` |
Privacy | ` | ` |
Localization | ` | ` |
Accessibility | ` | ` |
Quality assurance | ` | ` |
User experience | ` | ` |
Product marketing | ` | ` |
Operations | ` | ` |
{{#set:Feature products status=`
|Feature products notes=` |Feature engineering status=` |Feature engineering notes=` |Feature security status=sec-review-needed |Feature security health=OK |Feature security notes=` |Feature privacy status=` |Feature privacy notes=` |Feature localization status=` |Feature localization notes=` |Feature accessibility status=` |Feature accessibility notes=` |Feature qa status=` |Feature qa notes=` |Feature ux status=` |Feature ux notes=` |Feature product marketing status=` |Feature product marketing notes=` |Feature operations status=` |Feature operations notes=` }}
Resources
Blog posts
- Update on Firefox 13′s Home and New Tab Redesign, Boriss, May 18, 2012
- Home Tab and New Tab Conceptual Mockups Faaborg, June 10, 2011
- Firefox Home Tab Faaborg, April 13, 2011
- Firefox Has a Redesigned Home Page and New Tab Experience That Make Browsing the Web Faster and Easier Boriss via Mozilla Blog, June 5, 2012
Research
- Thumbnails, Titles, and URLs: How Users Recognize Representations of Websites Boriss, July 28, 2011
From the 2011 Test Pilot A/B and Multivariate Studies
- How People Use New Tabs Boriss, September 28, 2011
- Test Pilot New Tab Study Results Lilian Weng, August 2, 2011
- Description (not results) of New Tab Multivariate Test Mozilla Test Pilot, July 25, 2011
- Description (not results) of New Tab Page Study Mozilla Test Pilot, June 16, 2011
- Firefox Would Love to Read Your Mind , Boriss, July 21, 2011]
- Research Spinning Up on New Tab Page Boriss, June 15, 2011
Sketches
Sketches, iterations, and visual ideas can be found here now!