919780 - Featured collections are being filtered by buchets

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Marketplace Graveyard :: Consumer Pages, defect, P3)

Description

[krupa raj[:krupa]]

Attachment: paid app not showing up.png

steps to reproduce:
1. Add a paid app to the featured collection for region=US and carrier=none OR load https://marketplace-dev.allizom.org/curation/collection/fetaured-app
2. Load the homepage and check if the paid app is listed in the featured apps section

observed behavior:
The paid app featured is not getting listed. See screenshot.

ashes: ID: 81df1

Comment 1

[Mathieu Pillard [:mat]]

We are filtering by buchets, could it be the problem here ? Can you try on a phone or while forcing capabilities ? (We should also filter by region exclusions, possibly filtering out apps you can't buy in your region, but that's not done yet - bug  913123)

Comment 2

[Christopher Van Wiemeersch [:cvan]]

Compare

https://marketplace-dev.allizom.org/api/v1/fireplace/search/featured/?cat=&lang=en-US&pro=6081fc0b0.45.2&region=us

to

https://marketplace-dev.allizom.org/api/v1/fireplace/search/featured/?&cat=&lang=en-US&region=us

Notice the first response's `featured.apps` has 2 apps (two free) and the second response's has 3 paids (two free, 1 paid).

We're do profile filtering on featured apps. There are plans to do profile filtering on desktop (but showing incompatible results in search results with a toggle), like we do on mobile.

We are filtering out paid featured app if they can't be purchased on your device. That seems okay to me. If that's unexpected, let's discuss. We should probably ask the content team too.

Comment 3

[Christopher Van Wiemeersch [:cvan]]

And oh and sorry the feature profile we're filtering against is qHD (which means show on mobile only). Not whether paid or not.

Comment 4

[krupa raj[:krupa]]

> We are filtering out paid featured app if they can't be purchased on your
> device. That seems okay to me. If that's unexpected, let's discuss. We
> should probably ask the content team too.

Since desktop is meant for discovery, all apps should be listed unless featured collections work differently.

Comment 5

[Chuck Harmston [:chuck]]

This is an issue with the rocketfuel client and not the API, yes?

Comment 6

[Matt Basta [:basta]]

The rocketfuel client doesn't send a feature profile.

Comment 7

[Matt Basta [:basta]]

David Bialer is here and he says that since we're going to be pushing desktop apps very soon, we should consider continuing to filter (especially since there's no send to phone). I tend to agree. We've talked it over and this is more of a content issue, so we should make sure that FACs are beefed up.

Comment 8

[sdevaney]

Hi, all. To return to this topic after a brief respite... there are reasons we should display apps on desktop that might only be available on the phone. Namely:

- At this stage we are very focused trying to entice developers to create apps for FFOS. Most of these potential developers do not have FFOS phones. They are judging the Marketplace and the health of its app ecosystem via desktop browsing. So it's very helpful for the dev community to see what's on the Marketplace

Comment 9

[sdevaney]

Whoops. I didn't finish my previous comment. So anyhoo...

- We have many BD partners -- current and potential -- who are analyzing and viewing the Marketplace from just a desktop. Very helpful if they can see the fulle rview of available apps.

- Press. As press exposure heats up, we want our apps ecosystem to accurately reflect its offering. Press will be researching/analyzing Marketplace from desktop. 

I think the answer to the problem of users not knowing certain featured apps only work on certain devices is solvable through a visual cue. Perhaps some simple design element can help here?

Comment 10

[Matt Basta [:basta]]

I fundamentally disagree. We should not at all be targeting developers to make apps for FXOS, we should be asking them to make web apps. The words "Firefox OS" should not come up at all when we're pitching the Marketplace to developers, and we should be strongly discouraging developers from building apps which require FXOS-only APIs. If you put the "proprietary" Firefox OS WebAPIs aside, every app that works on Firefox for Desktop and FX for Android will work on FXOS and the filtering largely won't apply.

If there's a large number of apps with filtering restrictions, we should be working with those developers to make the apps fail gracefully or use better standards.

We shouldn't have an app store that looks full-featured for press, BD, and developers but pisses off users (the people that actually matter) because they can only install a small handful of the apps that we're showing them. Let's focus on solving the root of the problem, not plaster over the symptoms.

Comment 11

[sdevaney]

I agree the end user experience is of primary concern. And due to a dearth of apps their experience suffers greatly. At this point in time we need more developers to embrace the Marketplace and develop apps for it. This is ultimately what I'm trying to address, and to be clear, I'm not suggesting we compromise standards for the exclusive sake of impressing press or business partners. The goal is to spur app development. And I'm at a loss for how we give those interested in FFOS apps a clear window into our ecosystem short of giving each of them a FFOS phone. 

Are there any alternative suggestions for how potential interested  parties can have a peak into the FFOS app ecosystem if they're browsing on desktop exclusively?

Comment 12

[Matt Basta [:basta]]

There's another bug to add a "Disable all filtering" checkbox in the settings page. That will cover the use case that you described.

Comment 13

[sdevaney]

Cool, thanks. Could I get CC'd on that?