973335 - Version clarity issues with Firefox release notes pages

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(www.mozilla.org :: Pages & Content, defect)

Description

[Jeff Rivett]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:27.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/27.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20140212131424

Steps to reproduce:

As an IT provider, I need to be able to easily find clear, consistent information about Firefox releases and version history. I need to know what changes were made in new versions so I can assess the urgency of updating, and to allow me to communicate intelligently with clients about new or changed features.


Actual results:

[1] The titles of all Firefox release notes pages are identical: "Firefox Notes - Desktop". To demonstrate the pointlessness of such titles, simply open several tabs in Firefox, each showing the release notes page for a different version of Firefox. There's no way to know which tab corresponds to a particular version. Similarly, create bookmarks for several different Firefox release notes pages. There's no way to know the version to which any of the bookmarks corresponds; they all say the same thing: "Firefox Notes - Desktop".

[2] The first text on a release notes page is an H2 heading, which is good page design. Unfortunately, the content of the heading is simply "Notes (First offered to release channel users on [date].)". Notes on what? Were the notes themselves first offered to users on that date? Search engines like Google place particular importance on headings, and the first one in particular. If these headings are not crafted carefully, search results can be confusing. For example, search Google for "firefox release notes". The results are a mixed bag of old and new release notes pages, and the Site Links below the first result are also non-optimal.

[3] The only place the version being discussed is actually mentioned on the page is in the 'thank you' aside near the top.

[4] The What's New list often contains the same items as previous release notes pages. For instance, the Firefox 23.0.1 page includes most of what was listed for version 23, with three fixes for 23.0.1 added to the top.



Expected results:

[1] The page title should reflect the content of the page, which is release notes about a particular version of Firefox. The title should be something like "Firefox 27.0.1 Release Notes - Desktop".

[2] The first heading on a release notes page should be the product and version being discussed on that page. For example: "Firefox 27.0.1 Release Notes". A subheading with the release date would then follow: "Version 27.0.1 was first offered to release channel users on [date].".

[3] It should be clear what version is being discussed. Including the version in the page title and first heading would satisfy that need.

[4] The What's New section should list changes in the version being discussed, not changes from previous versions.

Comment 1

[Ben Kennish]

I'd also like to add that it is getting increasingly difficult to find the release notes at all!  Try going to www.mozilla.org with the latest Firefox browser and then try navigating the site to find the release notes with just mouse clicks.  It's really difficult!  The first thing I want to do when I see that my Firefox has updated is see a list of what is new but every time I'm frustrated at how hard this is to find on the mozilla.org website.

Comment 2

[Steven Garrity [:sgarrity]]

Matej, can you take a look at the page title changes proposed in this PR? https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/pull/2212

Comment 3

[Matej Novak [:matej]]

Where will these appear and who will see them? In general we don't want to associate version numbers with Firefox anymore, but in this case it might be OK, I just want to be sure I understand the context. Thanks.

Comment 4

[Jeff Rivett]

(In reply to Matej Novak [:matej] from comment #3)
> Where will these appear and who will see them? In general we don't want to
> associate version numbers with Firefox anymore, but in this case it might be
> OK, I just want to be sure I understand the context. Thanks.

The title changes would appear on the release notes pages for Firefox, such as https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/31.0/releasenotes/.

Anyone looking at a release notes page sees the page title.

I still don't understand why you don't want to associate version numbers with Firefox anymore, but that's a separate conversation. However, for what it's worth, in my opinion, version numbers make it much easier for people (regular users as well as IT folks) to understand what version they're looking at and how it differs from other versions.

Regardless, as long as Firefox still uses version numbers, it makes sense to differentiate release notes pages based on the associated versions.

Comment 5

[Jennifer Bertsch [:jbertsch]]

Could the Release Management team please join this conversation?  Thx.

Comment 6

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

Jennifer, actually, I am the one who proposed the changes ;) We discussed about that with Lawrence.

Comment 7

[Matej Novak [:matej]]

My sense it that we're following the industry on this (Google doesn't use version numbers to market Chrome to users either), but I wasn't part of that decision (though I agree with it; one day we'll be talking about Firefox 114 and that's pretty unfriendly).

The combination of the version number in the URL and the date makes it pretty clear what you're looking at, but I can see what you're saying about searching, etc. In the first few releases after Firefox 4, it looks like we put the version number in the subhead:

http://website-archive.mozilla.org/www.mozilla.org/firefox_releasenotes/en-US/firefox/9.0/releasenotes/

I would suggest doing something similar here or perhaps putting it parentheses.

Whatever we do, it should be separate from the name, so it doesn't look like we're talking about "Firefox 32" (or whatever) as a brand name.

Thanks.

Comment 8

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

(In reply to Matej Novak [:matej] from comment #7)
> My sense it that we're following the industry on this (Google doesn't use
> version numbers to market Chrome to users either), 
Yes and no:
http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.fr/
But it depends what you mean by users ;)

> I would suggest doing something similar here or perhaps putting it parentheses.
Sure, I will give it a try.

Comment 9

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

I updated the pull request.

First offered to Release channel users on July 22, 2014 =>
Version 31.0, first offered to Release channel users on July 22, 2014

Page title (HTML):
Firefox — Notes — Mozilla =>
Firefox — Notes (31.0) — Mozilla

Matej, is that what you expect?

Comment 10

[Matej Novak [:matej]]

(In reply to Sylvestre Ledru [:sylvestre] from comment #9)
> I updated the pull request.
> 
> First offered to Release channel users on July 22, 2014 =>
> Version 31.0, first offered to Release channel users on July 22, 2014
> 
> Page title (HTML):
> Firefox — Notes — Mozilla =>
> Firefox — Notes (31.0) — Mozilla
> 
> Matej, is that what you expect?

Should the number in the title be "(v31.0)"? Or is it clear without the V?

Otherwise, looks good to me. Thanks.

Comment 11

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

I don't think that the v is important.

I updated the pull request:
https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/pull/2212

Comment 12

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

I will close this bug now that part of it is fixed:
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/31.0/releasenotes/

The what is new issue for dot release (29.0.1 vs 29) is going to be addressed in bug 1055098