1012848 - Provide device, OS version (and language) with user reviews

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Marketplace Graveyard :: General, defect, P2)

Description

[:Harald Kirschner :digitarald]

As a developer getting feedback about broken features is worth a lot more when it includes the users device and OS version.

When this is against our privacy terms maybe we could provide an option for users to opt-in to provide those details when writing a review to help the developer.

Comment 1

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

I don't think this is against the policy - we used to do this.  Rob was looking at this area recently.

Comment 2

[:Harald Kirschner :digitarald]

Meeting with LINE, as messenger app developer that needs to investigate problems with confirmation SMSs and similar bugs having the country, device and OS version is crucial; country being most important. Without the feedback does not help.

Comment 4

[:Harald Kirschner :digitarald]

More partners are asking for it!

Mozilla as a company makes decisions based on our mission and driving by analytics like usage/crash reports and we should enable our partners to do the same. Enriching the data within feedbacks empowers users to influence the app development. It empowers the users and connects them with the app developers.

Without the meta data reporting an app crash is just another rant that a developer can't follow up or debug.

ni? on Wil to re-prioritize this.

Comment 5

[Wil Clouser [:clouserw]]

passing the buck to dbialer and flagging productwanted.  Product would determine the priorities in this case.

Comment 6

[:Harald Kirschner :digitarald]

This becomes more and more a blocker for developers to react to feedback appropriately.

To step into their shoes, the next bug I could open for Marketplace might be "Marketplace shows an error and stops working" without any details about phone I am using and no way to follow up with me.

Comment 7

[:Harald Kirschner :digitarald]

We have negative reviews for apps on 1.1 and don't even know which device they use so can't investigate as we can't reproduce on devices we try. This is frustrating us and I am sure even more of our app developers.

Comment 8

[David Bialer [:dbialer]]

I think there are a few issues to address:
1. We would need something to provide to the developer.  We don't know the OS version.  We could provide the user agent string - which would be the user agent string.
2. I don't think this information is relevant to anybody except the developer.  How can we display this info only to developer?  
3. sharing this information should be strictly opt-in by the user.

Comment 9

[Louis Stowasser [:louisstow]]

We could attempt to get the OS version from the Gecko version in the User Agent.

I also see this information being useful to the public. If there's a positive/negative review from someone with the same phone and OS version as me, it's more helpful.

Comment 10

[David Bialer [:dbialer]]

Another option would be to change our user review form to either:
* leave a review
* report a problem - and if this is selected, to ask for more info.

Comment 11

[:Harald Kirschner :digitarald]

+1 on the overarching problem that reviews are "misused" for bug reports.

Also the OS version can be so far *always* deferred from the UA. Device can only be inferred in most cases from the UA, when OEMs included it. We already benefit from the device inference in Google Analytics.

Comment 12

[David Bialer [:dbialer]]

Added design brief: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E_voc2Fp8KZXlSAzCcOAGCEa9QZbBIU0FKRIK4QdwBQ/edit?usp=sharing
and tracker in Podio.

Comment 13

[Caitlin Galimidi [:c8o]]

David and David - 

Can we add this to our backlog / roadmap for sizing and priority consideration please?

Comment 14

[(not reading bugmail) Nick Desaulniers [:\n]]

Add ons seem to have the same issue, see this post by the Author of No Script:
https://hackademix.net/2014/05/13/no-free-professional-service/

Comment 15

[David Almström]

Thomas,
have you been involved in this to see how/if we can use salesforce to communicate with developers for this (or is it overkill)?

I have hard time prioritizing this over e.g. Marketplace for TV or filtering apps per device but let's bring it in back on to next week's Design Brief meeting and discuss the Design Brief that David B prepared.

Comment 16

[:Harald Kirschner :digitarald]

We are not using salesforce as communication tool. But I also don't see how this would relate to having additional meta data on reviews. Can you elaborate?

Comment 17

[David Almström]

(In reply to Harald Kirschner :digitarald from comment #16)
> We are not using salesforce as communication tool. But I also don't see how
> this would relate to having additional meta data on reviews. Can you
> elaborate?

good point.. Reviews are not a great way to communicate bugs or fixes and therefore I was thinking how to engage developers. 

For devices earlier than 2.0, it'll be difficult to rely upon anything but user agent information (i.e. when someone files a review from a devices, Marketplace app need to retrieve user agent information or later hasFeature APIs to detect a certain device/OS).

How would/should this information be presented? For Mozilla to share with the developer if they ask for it, or?

Comment 18

[:Harald Kirschner :digitarald]

> For devices earlier than 2.0, it'll be difficult to rely upon anything but user agent information

Google Analytics provides good data and only depends on UAs. When we can't defer a device from UA we can't add it as meta data to the review. 2.0 does not add an API to defer devices either; just capabilities.

Just to list things that would make review a lot more useful for devs:
- Device: If UA includes it
- OS version: Always possible
- Country: Always possible
- Language: Always possible

Comment 19

[Caitlin Galimidi [:c8o]]

clearing on ni requests