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Based on their recent design changes (deprecation of compact mode, for example), they are either not collecting enough telemetry about the affected parts of the

Based on their recent design changes (deprecation of compact mode, for example), they are either not collecting enough telemetry about the affected parts of the UI/UX, or they are ignoring what they have collected for whatever reason. Of course, there is a chance that telemetry confirms their vision, but based on the explicit feedback I've been seeing online, I doubt the rationality of their decision-making at least part of the time.

st3fan 5y ago
How do you compare strong voices of a few on a site like HackerNews or Reddit against many many many millions of data points of users around the world. Should written feedback overrule a bigger data set?
- Jansen312 5y ago
  Some vocal voices are superusers that can affect others to use or not. Think of them as like current social media influencers. FF userbase has been in decline for sometime now during which those vocal feedbacks had been largely ignore. Perhaps, that give some proof indication "should written feedback overrule a bigger data set"?
- InTheArena 5y ago
  Typically on the web more virulent, extreme content should always win against the quiet majority.
  - SyzygistSix 5y ago
    Is this sarcasm or sincere? I agree to a certain extent; informed people with good taste tend to be strongly opinionated.
    - matthewmacleod 5y ago
      Uninformed people with terrible taste generally seem to be even more strongly opinionated, though. I'm not sure we can draw many useful conclusions!
- caslon 5y ago
  At the rate Firefox's market share is currently declining, it seems unlikely Mozilla actually has a finger on the pulse of the wider "millions [of users] around the world."
  - md8z 5y ago
    Is there anyone who you believe does have a finger on that pulse? If so, why? What can we learn from them?
    - caslon 5y ago
      Unfortunately, a certain employee who was rightfully kicked out of Mozilla in 2014 made a few bets that paid off (users dislike ads, users are stupid and will love it if you offer them money, and they'll go crazy for security snake oil even if it actively harms them). Firefox doesn't block ads because they're funded by Google and they have ads in their own browser. Nobody likes ads. Especially not in the browser. This contributes to the decline. Firefox doesn't advertise with security snake oil, and they beg for money a lot, which is the exact opposite of the model proposed by the only browser that's rapidly shot up in market share in the last decade rather than roughly stagnating.
- Groxx 5y ago
  While I broadly agree: data lies too. "X% more people use this now" says absolutely nothing about if they like it, or if it's doing what they want, or if you'll drive them off the system in a couple months because of it. It just says that X% more used it during the time you were watching. You can use nothing but positive data-driven results to drive yourself out of existence, and it's rather easy. Direct, human feedback is absolutely essential.
- rz2k 5y ago
  Is there a guiding philosophy behind any of Firefox's decisions? If it isn't customizable by the type of users who care about customization, then what is the reason to use Firefox instead of what ships with your OS or Chrome. Why would "typical users" have chosen Firefox in the first place without some vocal user suggesting it? I still use Firefox for everything, I'm just sad that the lack of inspiration in the project means that it might not be a viable option in a few years. Maybe they're aiming for making 98% of users happy, and matching 98% of the features of other browsers, but it needs to have some reason to exist. Usability testing without innovation is that different from p-hacking without hypotheses in science. Anyway, compact density was a non-default option, so it's difficult to understand why the option had to be deprecated. Compare that to MacOS. I didn't upgrade to Big Sur until Apple restored the option `NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture`, which allows you to drag a window from any pixel when you hold down control-option-command. Out of a billion users, I'd be surprised if more than 5,000 users care about this feature. (ie >99.9995% probably don't care) I only use the feature in combination with Karabiner Elements to change the command and Steermouse to recognize mouse button chords, but I invoke the command every couple minutes. Nevertheless it was restored, and it never disappeared in Monterey. Is it the budget alone that allows Apple to be simultaneously opinionated in their UI design and user accommodating, or is it completely different attitudes about users?
  - md8z 5y ago
    As someone who is currently implementing a compact theme for a different app, anything of that nature has a non-zero cost. Which is compounded by the number of designers you have working on the product who now all have to review every change multiple times.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  A technically competent user's feedback should be weighted at least one, if not tens or hundreds of orders of magnitude greater than anonymously gathered telemetry. Remove actual, intentional human communication from the loop and you're lost at sea - anyone can make the anonymous data mean anything, and then it's whomever can make the cleverest chart or analysis of the data that ends up directing decisions. Ignoring the people who actually take the time to communicate problems in favor of interpreted telemetry is exactly why Firefox is losing. Taking direction from technical users, or so-called power users, can give the application improvements in nuanced and technical uses. Taking direction from anonymous "averages" makes development a race to the bottom. Firefox developments over the last couple years feels like what would happen if you put grandma in charge of trying to make things better. To put it bluntly, fuck grandma, she doesn't know what the hell she's doing anyway. Firefox used to be a Lamborghini, it doesn't need training wheels and balloon bumpers. Lean into technical excellence and drop the obsessive ui/ux nonsense.
  - bityard 5y ago
    I agree with this so much. Once it was clear that Chrome was destined to cater to the masses, Firefox should have done a hard pivot with an emphasis on privacy and putting the user in control of their browsing experience. The best time to do this was a few years back when all of this was becoming obvious, but now with massive popular distrust of large tech companies like Facebook and Google making daily news, the second best time is now. There's a reason I run Linux and BSD on every computing device I own, instead of Windows or Mac. It's not because it's easier to use (they are not), it is not because it has more bells and whistles (they do not). It's because at the end of the day, _I_ am the one in control of my computers, not some product manager who needs bullet points on his or her annual review. There is no universe in which Firefox is going to successfully compete against Google at their own game, especially when Google is _still_ the majority source of their funding. I have no evidence for or against this, but my greatest fear is that the people at Mozilla who were passionate about the same things that I am passionate about have left out of frustration and the only ones left are there for the lifestyle and hipsterness of "working in tech" at a non-profit in a trendy city.
    - 5y ago
- Scharkenberg 5y ago
  If the telemetry-based removal of a feature would turn out to be a dealbreaker for a critical mass of users, it should be reconsidered (think of Mozilla's position in the browser market nowadays: it can't afford to piss off the "power users" and evangelists of Firefox). And it's not like Firefox has no Nightly or Beta branch to test the waters before making a significant change. For example, during the prerelease phase of the so-called Proton UI, there was no shortage of clear feedback about it. A lot of it was legitimate criticism about accessibility (harder to distinguish inactive horizontal tabs because the separators were removed; part of the new palette did not have enough contrast; etc.) and usability (e.g. in cases of low screen estate, some menus were suddenly so huge that they'd not fit within the height of the screen). Mozilla is slowly fixing some of these issues, which is a good sign IMO, but also sticking to some other "deliberate design decisions" that still remain controversial. I largely do not believe in design-by-committee, by the way. However, I believe that all valid feedback should be evaluated and taken into consideration if it's critical.
floatingatoll 5y ago
It is also possible that the telemetry shows that the vocal majority you perceive is, in fact, a vocal minority. I don’t have any more knowledge than you about whether that’s the case or not, but the possibility of being in the minority (and perhaps severely so) is absent from your list, and that deserves correction.
- joshspankit 5y ago
  While I agree with you and the way you’ve stated it, it should be widely known that tiny groups of highly technical people can unlock huge understandings about how to improve. Look at the speedrunning community for example: sometimes it’s not just a tiny group, but a single person that sees something that the devs did not, and that can lead to fixing “wtf” bugs for everyone else.
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    There is a chasm of difference between "We've identified something you have not given consideration to" as you describe (which I wholeheartedly support), and "We will insist we're right about the same points over and over again in every post about Firefox for all time" as HN behaves (which I do not, no matter what the topic). The former is a valuable and essential component of public issue reporting; the latter is not.
    - GhettoComputers 5y ago
      I see Firefox doing user hostile activity all the time, so I’m more inclined to think that are using telemetry in the slowly boiling frog analogy. The extension download data even without telemetry shows people want multi row tabs but they’re not putting it in by default. I am not sure how much the data is being used to improve user experience.
      - floatingatoll 5y ago
        Which extension do you mean?

st3fan 5y ago

How do you compare strong voices of a few on a site like HackerNews or Reddit against many many many millions of data points of users around the world. Should written feedback overrule a bigger data set?

Jansen312 5y ago
Some vocal voices are superusers that can affect others to use or not. Think of them as like current social media influencers. FF userbase has been in decline for sometime now during which those vocal feedbacks had been largely ignore. Perhaps, that give some proof indication "should written feedback overrule a bigger data set"?
InTheArena 5y ago
Typically on the web more virulent, extreme content should always win against the quiet majority.
- SyzygistSix 5y ago
  Is this sarcasm or sincere? I agree to a certain extent; informed people with good taste tend to be strongly opinionated.
  - matthewmacleod 5y ago
    Uninformed people with terrible taste generally seem to be even more strongly opinionated, though. I'm not sure we can draw many useful conclusions!
caslon 5y ago
At the rate Firefox's market share is currently declining, it seems unlikely Mozilla actually has a finger on the pulse of the wider "millions [of users] around the world."
- md8z 5y ago
  Is there anyone who you believe does have a finger on that pulse? If so, why? What can we learn from them?
  - caslon 5y ago
    Unfortunately, a certain employee who was rightfully kicked out of Mozilla in 2014 made a few bets that paid off (users dislike ads, users are stupid and will love it if you offer them money, and they'll go crazy for security snake oil even if it actively harms them). Firefox doesn't block ads because they're funded by Google and they have ads in their own browser. Nobody likes ads. Especially not in the browser. This contributes to the decline. Firefox doesn't advertise with security snake oil, and they beg for money a lot, which is the exact opposite of the model proposed by the only browser that's rapidly shot up in market share in the last decade rather than roughly stagnating.
Groxx 5y ago
While I broadly agree: data lies too. "X% more people use this now" says absolutely nothing about if they like it, or if it's doing what they want, or if you'll drive them off the system in a couple months because of it. It just says that X% more used it during the time you were watching. You can use nothing but positive data-driven results to drive yourself out of existence, and it's rather easy. Direct, human feedback is absolutely essential.
rz2k 5y ago
Is there a guiding philosophy behind any of Firefox's decisions? If it isn't customizable by the type of users who care about customization, then what is the reason to use Firefox instead of what ships with your OS or Chrome. Why would "typical users" have chosen Firefox in the first place without some vocal user suggesting it? I still use Firefox for everything, I'm just sad that the lack of inspiration in the project means that it might not be a viable option in a few years. Maybe they're aiming for making 98% of users happy, and matching 98% of the features of other browsers, but it needs to have some reason to exist. Usability testing without innovation is that different from p-hacking without hypotheses in science. Anyway, compact density was a non-default option, so it's difficult to understand why the option had to be deprecated. Compare that to MacOS. I didn't upgrade to Big Sur until Apple restored the option `NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture`, which allows you to drag a window from any pixel when you hold down control-option-command. Out of a billion users, I'd be surprised if more than 5,000 users care about this feature. (ie >99.9995% probably don't care) I only use the feature in combination with Karabiner Elements to change the command and Steermouse to recognize mouse button chords, but I invoke the command every couple minutes. Nevertheless it was restored, and it never disappeared in Monterey. Is it the budget alone that allows Apple to be simultaneously opinionated in their UI design and user accommodating, or is it completely different attitudes about users?
- md8z 5y ago
  As someone who is currently implementing a compact theme for a different app, anything of that nature has a non-zero cost. Which is compounded by the number of designers you have working on the product who now all have to review every change multiple times.
robbedpeter 5y ago
A technically competent user's feedback should be weighted at least one, if not tens or hundreds of orders of magnitude greater than anonymously gathered telemetry. Remove actual, intentional human communication from the loop and you're lost at sea - anyone can make the anonymous data mean anything, and then it's whomever can make the cleverest chart or analysis of the data that ends up directing decisions. Ignoring the people who actually take the time to communicate problems in favor of interpreted telemetry is exactly why Firefox is losing. Taking direction from technical users, or so-called power users, can give the application improvements in nuanced and technical uses. Taking direction from anonymous "averages" makes development a race to the bottom. Firefox developments over the last couple years feels like what would happen if you put grandma in charge of trying to make things better. To put it bluntly, fuck grandma, she doesn't know what the hell she's doing anyway. Firefox used to be a Lamborghini, it doesn't need training wheels and balloon bumpers. Lean into technical excellence and drop the obsessive ui/ux nonsense.
- bityard 5y ago
  I agree with this so much. Once it was clear that Chrome was destined to cater to the masses, Firefox should have done a hard pivot with an emphasis on privacy and putting the user in control of their browsing experience. The best time to do this was a few years back when all of this was becoming obvious, but now with massive popular distrust of large tech companies like Facebook and Google making daily news, the second best time is now. There's a reason I run Linux and BSD on every computing device I own, instead of Windows or Mac. It's not because it's easier to use (they are not), it is not because it has more bells and whistles (they do not). It's because at the end of the day, _I_ am the one in control of my computers, not some product manager who needs bullet points on his or her annual review. There is no universe in which Firefox is going to successfully compete against Google at their own game, especially when Google is _still_ the majority source of their funding. I have no evidence for or against this, but my greatest fear is that the people at Mozilla who were passionate about the same things that I am passionate about have left out of frustration and the only ones left are there for the lifestyle and hipsterness of "working in tech" at a non-profit in a trendy city.
  - 5y ago
Scharkenberg 5y ago
If the telemetry-based removal of a feature would turn out to be a dealbreaker for a critical mass of users, it should be reconsidered (think of Mozilla's position in the browser market nowadays: it can't afford to piss off the "power users" and evangelists of Firefox). And it's not like Firefox has no Nightly or Beta branch to test the waters before making a significant change. For example, during the prerelease phase of the so-called Proton UI, there was no shortage of clear feedback about it. A lot of it was legitimate criticism about accessibility (harder to distinguish inactive horizontal tabs because the separators were removed; part of the new palette did not have enough contrast; etc.) and usability (e.g. in cases of low screen estate, some menus were suddenly so huge that they'd not fit within the height of the screen). Mozilla is slowly fixing some of these issues, which is a good sign IMO, but also sticking to some other "deliberate design decisions" that still remain controversial. I largely do not believe in design-by-committee, by the way. However, I believe that all valid feedback should be evaluated and taken into consideration if it's critical.

floatingatoll 5y ago

It is also possible that the telemetry shows that the vocal majority you perceive is, in fact, a vocal minority. I don’t have any more knowledge than you about whether that’s the case or not, but the possibility of being in the minority (and perhaps severely so) is absent from your list, and that deserves correction.

joshspankit 5y ago
While I agree with you and the way you’ve stated it, it should be widely known that tiny groups of highly technical people can unlock huge understandings about how to improve. Look at the speedrunning community for example: sometimes it’s not just a tiny group, but a single person that sees something that the devs did not, and that can lead to fixing “wtf” bugs for everyone else.
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  There is a chasm of difference between "We've identified something you have not given consideration to" as you describe (which I wholeheartedly support), and "We will insist we're right about the same points over and over again in every post about Firefox for all time" as HN behaves (which I do not, no matter what the topic). The former is a valuable and essential component of public issue reporting; the latter is not.
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    I see Firefox doing user hostile activity all the time, so I’m more inclined to think that are using telemetry in the slowly boiling frog analogy. The extension download data even without telemetry shows people want multi row tabs but they’re not putting it in by default. I am not sure how much the data is being used to improve user experience.
    - floatingatoll 5y ago
      Which extension do you mean?