14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla aims to build a new program designed to harvest end-user data for its open source projects, but especially Firefox. Firefox Test Pilot is currently nothing more than an initiative debuted under the Mozilla Labs umbrella, in order to lay out the concept behind the project, and to attract interest and identify a software engineer to lead the program. According to Aza Raskin, head of user experience at Mozilla Labs, Test Pilot will be used to gather Firefox usage information, feedback that will subsequently be used to evolve the design process of the open source browser.
“Test Pilot is a still-in-concept platform for a new user-testing program for Mozilla that aims to build a 1% representative sample of the Firefox user base for soliciting wide participation and structured feedback for interface and product experiments,” Raskin stated.
One important aspect of the new program is that Mozilla actually envisions building an entire feedback platform, which could scale beyond Firefox, to Thunderbird and Seamonkey, and subsequently to every Mozilla Labs project. Raskin indicated that the Test Pilot, served to users as an extension of Firefox, would first of all require them to answer non-personally-identifiable questions, in order to classify them in accordance with the locale, technical level etc.
“We’ll only collect aggregate anonymized data, publish all results under open-content licenses, and review every test to make sure your privacy is held sacred. Once in a while, you may be asked to participate in a short survey based on your demographic. If you’ve opted into allowing additional anonymous instrumentation, an experiment may request some of that information for aggregated study. That’s it. You’ll have become part of the global Mozilla community by participating and providing your input into the open design process,” Raskin added.
Mozilla plans for the Test Pilot to be capable of recording data selectively, rather than gather every piece of information available. In this context, the tool would permit Firefox developers to better understand users' behavior in relation to specific features or options. The development of Firefox will subsequently be adapted to better reflect user behavior.
Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 for Windows is available here.
Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 for Linux is available here.
Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 for Mac OS X is available here.