Mozilla & Firefox Open Design at Scale
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This document summarizes John Lilly and Mike Beltzner's presentation on open design at Mozilla. Some key points: 1. Mozilla is a global open source project with thousands of contributors and around a quarter billion Firefox users. Firefox code is about 40% community contributed and has over 8,000 add-ons. 2. Mozilla's mission is to promote openness and innovation on the internet. Their design process embraces input from the open source community through discussion, experimentation, and small teams led by strong contributors. 3. Challenges of open design at Mozilla's scale include managing global implications on language/culture as the audience grows from thousands to millions. Competition in the browser market and
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Mozilla & Firefox Open Design at Scale
- 1. mozilla & firefox: open design @ scale John Lilly & Mike Beltzner Mozilla
- 2. 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
- 3. 15 years ago in CS547...
- 4. Robert Cailliau visited from Geneva... photo: wikipedia.org
- 5. ...and brought one of these... photo: wikipedia.org
- 6. ...and he photo: wikipedia.org demoed this...
- 7. And I remember thinking to myself: “Neat! Text & images...click, click, click.”
- 8. Then, I fell asleep.
- 9. In my defense, I was really tired.
- 10. But then things got a lot better Dr. Dobb’s Journal, Jan 1991 & started to click for me...
- 11. “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)
- 12. My path after Stanford HCI Software Company
- 13. My path after Stanford HCI Software Company ATG (Apple Labs)
- 14. My path after Stanford HCI Software Company ATG (Apple Labs) Incubator
- 15. My path after Stanford HCI Software Company ATG (Apple Labs) Incubator increasing levels of innovation at the edges
- 16. My questions changed “How do I design great things?” Became: “How do organizations design great things?”
- 17. Which naturally led me to Mozilla Software Company ATG (Apple Labs) Incubator Ecosystem
- 18. Mozilla’s mission is to promote choice, innovation, and participation on the Internet.
- 19. Mozilla is...
- 20. Mozilla is... A global open source software project with thousands of contributors
- 21. Mozilla is... A global open source software project with thousands of contributors Around a quarter billion users
- 22. Mozilla is... A global open source software project with thousands of contributors Around a quarter billion users The maker of the Firefox Web browser
- 23. Firefox is...
- 24. Firefox is... ~40% of code by community
- 25. Firefox is... ~40% of code by community More than 8,000 add-ons
- 26. Firefox is... ~40% of code by community More than 8,000 add-ons Ships in more than 60 languages
- 27. Worldwide Firefox Market Share (last year!)
- 28. Some models for design (caricatures!!) Genius-driven design Data-driven design Chaordic design
- 29. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ en/d/d2/Internet_map_1024.jpg
- 30. photo by julep67@flickr (cc) by-nd-nc Queen’s University (Great White North)
- 31. 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.
- 32. But I liked the inverse
- 33. Started doing software interface design at IBM Canada
- 34. Started with Mozilla around the time of Firefox 1.5
- 35. 1.5 - interface designer 2.0 - mozilla design lead 3.0 - product designer 3.5 - product director
- 36. What do you think about when you hear the words: “open source design”
- 37. Design by committee Lipstick on a pig Not ready for prime time
- 38. 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.”
- 39. ...and organizing a chorus.
- 40. listen lead play
- 41. listen lead play
- 42. Chaos Anyone can comment on a proposal for a change
- 43. Chaos Anyone can submit a change to the code
- 44. Chaos easier to comment on design than code
- 45. Chaos camps are formed quickly
- 46. Chaos noisy, unfocused, lacks perspective
- 47. Order Not everyone can approve a change
- 50. Order educate
- 51. Order identify and elevate smart contributors
- 53. listen lead play
- 54. Provide organization and structure to direct contributions
- 56. Create small teams, led by strong contributors, and give them responsibility
- 57. Elevate discussions with data and research whenever possible
- 58. Treat disagreements as negotiations and don’t forget your BATNA* (* best alternative to a negotiated agreement)
- 59. listen lead play
- 60. Give contributors complete freedom to play and explore
- 61. Add-ons: a shared playground for users and contributors
- 62. Labs is an incubator for ideas and experimentation
- 64. listen lead play
- 65. Open, participatory models of design can be surprising
- 66. 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
- 67. Some things we’re thinking a lot about now
- 68. Some things we’re thinking a lot about #1: Browser evolution & competition
- 69. The Situation 5 Years Ago IE6: 95%+
- 70. The Situation Today (300% more circular icons!) 68% 22% 8% 1% choice & innovation FTW!
- 71. Where browsers are going... • Performance like native applications • More applications • More persistence • More context • More mobile
- 72. Things we’re thinking a lot about #2: Global Design: language implications
- 75. Things we’re thinking a lot about #3: Global Design: cultural implications
- 77. Things we’re thinking a lot about #4: Scale, scale, scale
- 78. 1% of our audience used to be 10,000 users it’s now 2,500,000 users 20% is 50 million people
- 79. Questions? Thank you. beltzner@mozilla.com lilly@mozilla.com unattributed pictures from stock.xchng
Editor's Notes
- - design in OSS projects has a pretty bad reputation
- - going to be talking mostly in a UI design context - but the lessons I’ve learned are really for any sort of design - code design - marketing campaign design - IA design
- - this is the goal - for the past 2 years, I’ve been working towards this chorus - not all the way there yet, but I have a strong sense of how to get there
- - but these are the three things I think you need to remember
- - but these are the three things I think you need to remember
- - some bugs (like the “restore support for MNG”) get a lot of noise
- - this can be terrifying - millions of lines of code, millions of minute details (sound familiar to designers?)
- - everyone has an opinion on design - there’s a lot of misinformation - watch out for things like “user testing would tell us”, “Fitts’ Law says” or “My mom ...”
- - closebuttons on tabs - how do you decide when arguments are both convincing (and vitriolic!)
- - you can see how this design was added to over time - no clear vision on how to support the user task - typical OSS design
- - 2000 people with editbugs - 400 people with CVS access - (still quite a lot!)
- - module ownership & peerage system - benevolent dictatorships
- - Mike Connor (our benevolent leader!)
- - blog posts like alex faaborg’s - talk about it in bugs - dispell myths and get people interested in learning good ways of doing design
- - don’t pretend you’re the only one with the answers - give out whuffie and credibility - identify weak arguments: “My Mom”, “Fitt’s Law”, “More usable”, “It’s always been this way”
- - Gavin Sharp revised the Mozilla OpenSearch format - Mike Connor added JSON support - Joe Hughes worked on the UI presentation - community quickly updated searchplugins
- - but these are the three things I think you need to remember
- - set plans and clearly state design principles
- - our PRDs with prioritization & schedules are out there for people to see - feature brainstorming list helps people organize their ideas (thousands of edits, 2 instances of vandalism)
- - module ownership model - allows debates to occur in smaller groups - final decisions should always be checkpointed with everyone - empower with design specifications that inspire the “commander’s intent”
- - use your resources to leverage the community - get your community to provide the data - got eye tracking research and cognitive data modelling for closebutton problem
- - you own the product - you carry the responsibility - you are the benevolent dictator
- - but these are the three things I think you need to remember
- - if you love ‘em, set ‘em free -
- - introducing Mozilla Labs! - slew of people now excited about figuring out how to add social features into the browser - ties back into listen and lead
- - but these are the three things I think you need to remember
- - but these are the three things I think you need to remember