632458 - Justify or remove nurse cat from support.mozilla.com

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(support.mozilla.org :: General, defect)

Description

[Michael Morgan [:morgamic]]

Even after bug 615495 -- there has been little data or reasoning to justify why nurse cat helps users or enriches the support.mozilla.com experience.  

Please provide such data or reasoning (that is not based on feelings or conjecture) or remove it from the page.

Here is why it shouldn't be there:
- user stories for support are highly utilitarian and don't need fluff
- research shows that images added to "jazz up" a site are ignored
- the image adds page weight
- the image, along with assets on the left, eat up the majority of "above-the-fold" page real estate, pushing useful content to the bottom of the page
- the image is offensive to some locales and we are already making efforts to remove it for specific locales (jp)

Comment 1

[Patrick Jankowiak]

"- the image is offensive to some locales and we are already making efforts to remove it for specific locales (jp)"

It seems to have been fixed then (jp)? 

However, the image has a calming effect in other locales because it is friendly looking and harmless looking. The medical figure gives support and the cat is an intelligent animal. This is in some contrast to the 'monsters' on the mozilla.com EN page, which, even though they are 'smiling', have frightened other people on the grounds of putting (more) monsters into a (usually windows) machine. One of them is even eating a window.

The nurse cat image helps the frustrated user to go ahead and try to solve any issues with the Mozilla product and it does that better than a paragraph on why the user should stay calm and not be afraid to work with the product. It also being 'cute' has a further calming effect on many people. It is not trying to get you. It is important to be calm on a support page to avoid making rash decisions. Instead of being only fluff, it serves the purposes of calming and inviting.

- Except in some locales, where changing it to some non-medical image would be appropriate or necessary to avoid offense.

To address the complaints of bandwidth, the page cited is 275KB. The nurse cat is a 31KB PNG file. Therefore it does not make the page heavy. It is only a small fraction (11.3%) of the download. I would be more concerned about the 169KB of scripts (61.5%) on that page that are also run on the user's computer and how much CPU is eaten with scripts. Whatever image may replace the current one would also be hard-pressed to be smaller. 

Assuming the objection is not against a cat or animal but against a medical figure, maybe changing it to a mechanic cat or an IT cat would help, although the thought of going to a mechanic or dealing with a corporate IT department is foreboding in some situations. Scientist cat anyone? dog? owl? There is almost no image that will not upset someone or that someone does not like.

The bug calls into question the entire use of 'mascots' and therefore spans positions of both reasoning and feeling without a way to separate them within the free style of the Mozilla organization as a whole. I suggest leaving the nurse cat there except for affected locales where it could be changed.

Comment 2

[James Socol [:jsocol, :james]]

An image of the new SUMO header without the cat (from bug 674266 comment 2):

http://cl.ly/0s3g3C1l2A1X401X430g

This change would:
* Move the support content even higher up the page
* Use more of the width of this section for:
** A bigger search box (see bug 674266 comment 8)
** Page title, especially in languages that need it
* Remove ~12KB of page weight (down from 31KB in the current header) and an HTTP connection

(In reply to comment #1)
> However, the image has a calming effect in other locales because it is
> friendly looking and harmless looking.

Eye-tracking research indicates people don't even look at images like this:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/photo-content.html

If there is research that speaks to this calming effect, please let me know, as I haven't found it.

> The nurse cat image helps the frustrated user to go ahead and try to solve
> any issues with the Mozilla product and it does that better than a paragraph
> on why the user should stay calm and not be afraid to work with the product.

The only part of the top section that actually helps the user solve their problem is the search box. Nothing else up there speeds up the process of getting a user an answer.

> To address the complaints of bandwidth, the page cited is 275KB. The nurse
> cat is a 31KB PNG file. Therefore it does not make the page heavy. It is
> only a small fraction (11.3%) of the download.

11% is significant. That said, on the new header, the file size is closer to ~12KB, so it's less of a concern.

> The bug calls into question the entire use of 'mascots' and therefore spans
> positions of both reasoning and feeling without a way to separate them

This bug is about the UX of the SUMO home page, not a referendum on mascots. The effects I mentioned at the top of this comment are all objective and practical benefits of removing this nurse (there are others on the site). If someone can point to objective drawbacks to removing her, please do.

I'm CCing one of our resident web UX experts who may know about research or examples of benefits of this type of content.

Comment 3

[Crystal Beasley [:skinny, :crystal]]

TL;DR

Let's kill the nurse cat graphic. http://cl.ly/3s470w452C2z1A1y3b3F
A total redesign is on the horizon. http://cl.ly/3f2c2j313c2O0c442J2P

.
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We need more than incremental improvements to this site. 

Don't hold me to the sketch I posted above, but I want to get you guys thinking beyond the issue of nurse cat. Let's not debate the substance of the home page redesign... just yet. Give me time to get back the expert assessment of the SUMO site as a whole. We're going to make this a site that has USEFUL content that our users can FIND! 

Hang with me! It's going to be good.

Comment 4

[James Socol [:jsocol, :james]]

Going to make bigger changes!

Comment 5

[Patrick Jankowiak]

@Crystal Beasley - OK, yes it is more than about a graphic. I have no further objections to removing the graphics and no objection to making real improvements to the site.

Comment 6

[Michael Morgan [:morgamic]]

This should be FIXED because the new design doesn't have it!

Comment 7

[Ricky Rosario [:rrosario, :r1cky]]

woooooot