mozilla & firefox:
open design @ scale
John Lilly &
Mike Beltzner
Mozilla

1. some personal history
2. some mozilla background
3. how we design at mozilla today
4. what we’re thinking about next
5. questions & discussion

15 years ago in CS547...

Robert Cailliau
visited from Geneva...
photo: wikipedia.org

...and brought one of these...
photo: wikipedia.org

...and he
photo: wikipedia.org
demoed this...

And I remember thinking to myself:
“Neat! Text & images...click, click, click.”

Then, I fell asleep.

In my defense, I was really tired.

But then things got a lot better
Dr. Dobb’s Journal, Jan 1991
& started to click for me...

“The great and rapid success of the personal computer industry over
the past decade is not without its unexpected ironies. What began as a
revolution of individual empowerment has ended with the personal
computer industry not only joining the computing mainstream, but in
fact defining it.
Despite the enormous outward success of personal computers, the
daily experience of using computers far too often is still fraught with
difficulty, pain, and barriers for most people, which means that the
revolution, measured by it’s original goals, has not as yet succeeded.”
- Mitch Kapor, A Software Design Manifesto (Dr. Dobb’s Journal, 1991)

My path after Stanford HCI
Software Company

My path after Stanford HCI
Software Company
ATG (Apple Labs)

My path after Stanford HCI
Software Company
ATG (Apple Labs)
Incubator

My path after Stanford HCI
Software Company
ATG (Apple Labs)
Incubator
increasing levels of innovation at the edges

My questions changed
“How do I design great things?”
Became: “How do organizations design
great things?”

Which naturally led me to Mozilla
Software Company
ATG (Apple Labs)
Incubator
Ecosystem

Mozilla’s mission is to
promote choice,
innovation, and
participation on the
Internet.

Mozilla is...

Mozilla is...
A global open source software project
with thousands of contributors

Mozilla is...
A global open source software project
with thousands of contributors
Around a quarter billion users

Mozilla is...
A global open source software project
with thousands of contributors
Around a quarter billion users
The maker of the Firefox Web browser

Firefox is...

Firefox is...
~40% of code by
community

Firefox is...
~40% of code by
community
More than 8,000 add-ons

Firefox is...
~40% of code by
community
More than 8,000 add-ons
Ships in more than 60
languages

Worldwide Firefox Market Share (last year!)

Some models for design (caricatures!!)
Genius-driven design
Data-driven design
Chaordic design

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/
en/d/d2/Internet_map_1024.jpg

photo by julep67@flickr (cc) by-nd-nc
Queen’s University
(Great White North)

photo by davestfu@flickr (cc) by-nc-sa photo by alles-schlumpf@flickr (cc) by-nc-sa
Studied cognitive science & education with a focus on A.I.

But I liked the inverse

Started doing software interface design at IBM Canada

Started with Mozilla around the
time of Firefox 1.5

1.5 - interface designer
2.0 - mozilla design lead
3.0 - product designer
3.5 - product director

What do you think about
when you hear the words:
“open source design”

Design by committee
Lipstick on a pig
Not ready for prime time

Embracing the chaos...
“Fitts’ says bigger
“The URL bar should
buttons are better.” “What’s with the
be removed.”
dirty house?”
“There should be
“My mom doesn’t “Nobody uses the “Add support for
a preference setting.”
understand tabs.” ‘Go’ button.” BitTorrent.”
“OpenID is the future!”
“That’s great!”
“Everyone uses tags,
not bookmarks.”
“I love tabs!”
“The profile manager
should be redesigned.”
“Add support for
Ogg Vorbis.”
“That’s awful”
“Closebuttons are better at
the end of the tabstrip.”

...and organizing a chorus.

listen
lead
play

listen
lead
play

Chaos
Anyone can comment on a proposal for a change

Chaos
Anyone can submit a change to the code

Chaos
easier to comment on design than code

Chaos
camps are formed quickly

Chaos
noisy, unfocused, lacks perspective

Order
Not everyone can approve a change

Order
Strong leadership structure

Order
Strong leadership structure

Order
educate

Order
identify and elevate smart contributors

Order
co-ordinated, parallel, leveraged

listen
lead
play

Provide organization and
structure to direct contributions

Create small teams, led by strong
contributors, and give them responsibility

Elevate discussions with data
and research whenever possible

Treat disagreements as negotiations
and don’t forget your BATNA*
(* best alternative to a negotiated agreement)

listen
lead
play

Give contributors complete
freedom to play and explore

Add-ons:
a shared playground for
users and contributors

Labs is an incubator for ideas and experimentation

listen
lead
play

Open, participatory models of design can be surprising

match title & url
the original idea
tweaked the
“frecency”
based on feedback
adaptive learning,
new layout to
improve visual
scanning
came out of the woodwork

Some things we’re thinking a lot about now

Some things we’re thinking a lot about #1:
Browser evolution & competition

The Situation 5 Years Ago
IE6: 95%+

The Situation Today (300% more circular icons!)
68% 22%
8% 1%
choice & innovation FTW!

Where browsers are going...
• Performance like native applications
• More applications
• More persistence
• More context
• More mobile

Things we’re thinking a lot about #2:
Global Design: language implications

Things we’re thinking a lot about #3:
Global Design: cultural implications

Firefox China Edition

Things we’re thinking a lot about #4:
Scale, scale, scale

1% of our audience used to be 10,000 users
it’s now 2,500,000 users
20% is 50 million people

Questions?
Thank you.
beltzner@mozilla.com
lilly@mozilla.com
unattributed pictures from stock.xchng