733215 - telemetry for search suggestions and engines

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: Search, defect)

Description

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

We have a number of search related interface changes in the works so we need more data on existing usage of the current search interface.

Here are the pieces I believe we need to start with:

0. Search
  A. How many searches are users doing through the search bar interface?
  B. How many searches are users doing through the URL bar interface?
1. Search Suggestions
  A. Does the engine support suggestions? 
  B. Are suggestions being used by the user?
  C. Are history suggestions being used by the user?
2. Search Engines
  A. How many engines does the user have?
  B. How often do users switch engines?
  C. How often do users add / remove engines?
  D. Are they using the default search engine?

Reasoning:

(0) Intention is to get base numbers to compare with suggestions and engine switching so we know if those numbers are significant in the face of most searching
(0A) Understand if our search bar is the primary search interface
(0B) Understand if our URL bar is the primary search interface

(1) Intention is to understand if users are interacting with the search bar search suggestion interface for either history or new suggestions provided by the search engine.
(1A) Understand if the current engine being used supports suggestions at all.  This is a single event that should be reported when the current search engine is changed.
(1B) Understand if users are selecting the suggestions provided by search engines.  This event is possible with every search.
(1C) Understand if users use the history of search suggestions provided in the search bar interface.  This event is possible with every search.

(2) Intention is to understand the health/landscape of the OpenSearch engine system in Firefox.  Is the interface working?
(2A) Understand if the user has previously installed search engines
(2B) Understand if the user actively switches search engines during their Firefox usage
(2C) Understand if the user actively manages search engines
(2D) Understand if the user has switched away from the shipped default at any time in the past

Comment 1

[Alex Limi (:limi) — Firefox UX Team]

I think many of these are already handled in the upcoming Metrics ping, CCing Metrics team.

Comment 2

["Saptarshi Guha[:joy]"]

There was a search study in TestPilot. May not be exactly what you want, but it could be don again.  The Metrics Ping is still in development.

See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=598653

Adding peeps from UR.

Comment 3

[Curtis Koenig [:curtisk-use curtis.koenig+bzATgmail.com]]]

Thanks for the reasoning. Per conversation with Sid this falls into the feature usage, and browser customizations. However, we would like to know more about what is the intended benefit to users?

Comment 4

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

This might be interesting, but I no longer need this.