Re: Thoughts on Bug 678775

On 18/08/11 07:15, Asa Dotzler wrote:
> Help->Troubleshooting is not difficult. We already put Help-About in a
> different place from pretty much every other browser so people already
> have to figure out discreet paths to the version information for all of
> the popular browsers on all of their different platforms. Given that
> they all have to re-write their support script or doc when any browser
> moves the menu item to a new location (from a menubar to a Firefox
> button on the left side of the browser to a gear button on the right
> side of the browser, etc.) I don't see the hardship in someone doing
> support learning to ask the user to go to Help-Troubleshooting rather
> than Help-About and they'll end up with a much more complete picture of
> what could be going wrong with the site or with Firefox.

So you are saying is that "the number is still there, you just look for
it in a different place". And yet the argument also is that the number
causes confusion. How long will it be before I can Google "find firefox
version number" and come across a HowTo telling me to look in Help |
Troubleshooting instead of Help | About? After that, what
reduced-confusion value will the change really have? Anyone who wants to
find the number will find it - and be confused, or not, as the case may be.

I entirely agree that it's good to reassure users that they are on the
latest stable version - "You are on the latest stable version" is a
great thing to say in Help | About. But the reason it's good is because
there are now _more_ version numbers floating around, not less. In the
rapid release schedule, there are four possible versions that anyone
could be talking about at one time. How are people supposed to talk
about them (in a way which doesn't make their text incorrect after 6
weeks) without using numbers? As someone else said, we just had a round
of press about how Firefox 7 uses less memory. A question a user is
likely to ask when they read that is "Does my Firefox have that
improvement? Am I using Firefox 7?", and "you are on the latest stable
version" is *not* a satisfactory answer to that question for them.

I am not confident of our ability to educate the entire world to stop
talking about Firefox in terms of version numbers. We can get to where
Chrome is, maybe - but they still have version numbers, they are still
in the usual place, and people can still find them when they want them,
and they still get referenced from time to time in the press.

If it helps, think of the presence of the version number in Help | About
like a security blanket. Does a security blanket make a child more
secure? OK. But what happens if you take it away? People like fixed
reference points, and consistency.

I have not seen this much reaction against a particular decision for a
long time, and it is a long way from being a central, vital plank of our
rapid release schedule changes. The amount of time you are spending
defending it, and the amount of effort and negative energy and bad will
generated, is vastly out of proportion to the level of improvement it
might be. Do the cost/benefit analysis.

Gerv