Mobile

My last post talks about the initial work to create a real user analytics system based on the UI Telemetry event data collected in Firefox on Mobile. I’m happy to report that we’ve had much forward progress since then. Most importantly, we are no longer using the DIY setup on one of my Mac Minis. Working with the Mozilla Telemetry & Data team, we have a system that extracts data from UI Telemetry via Spark, imports the data into Presto-based storage, and allows SQL queries and visualization via Re:dash.

Firefox on Mobile has a system to collect telemetry data from user interactions. We created a simple event and session UI telemetry system, built on top of the core telemetry system. The core telemetry system has been mainly focused on performance and stability. The UI telemetry system is really focused on how people are interacting with the application itself.

We have decided to start running A/B Testing in Firefox for Android. These experiments are intended to optimize specific outcomes, as well as, inform our long-term design decisions. We want to create the best Firefox experience we can, and these experiments will help.

It seems common for people have the same expectations for browsers on Mobile as they do on Desktop. Why is that? I’d rather create a set of Mobile-specific expectations for a browser. Mobile is very application-centric and those applications play a large role in how people use devices. When defining what success means for Firefox on Mobile, we should be thinking about Firefox as an application, not as a browser.

Building and shipping a successful product takes more than raw engineering. I have been posting a bit about using Telemetry to learn about how people interact with your application so you can optimize use cases. There are other types of data you should consider too. Being aware of these metrics can help provide a better focus for your work and, hopefully, have a bigger impact on the success of your product.

Firefox for Android has a UI Telemetry system. Here is an example of one of the ways we use it.

The latest release of Firefox for Android is filled with new features, designed to work with the way you use your mobile device.