Test Pilot

What is Test Pilot?

Test Pilot is a series of stepping stones intended to take a rough concept to a shipping Firefox feature or Add-on.

Test Pilot combines iterative prototyping, user research, and an opt-in user-facing testing platform. Each phase is designed to evaluate new feature concepts quickly and at low cost.

Test Pilot will let us take larger risks with product concepts, giving us a cheap avenue to test and validate product concepts.

How does Test Pilot Work?

Each phase of Test Pilot consists of prototype building and evaluation through user testing. Only in the third phase is any prototype deployed to the Test Pilot application itself.

The following diagram provides a more detailed view of the process:


View full diagram

Who is the Audience for Test Pilot?

Test Pilot is for people who like Firefox.

• They consciously choose to use Firefox
• They appreciate our unique community
• Not afraid of trying new things
• Don’t need to be technical

Test Pilot is currently in development for Desktop Firefox. We are interested in exploring similar systems on our mobile platforms, but do not have user stories for these cases at this time.

Who Builds and Manages Test Pilot?

Test Pilot is run by two groups of people: the Build Team responsible for day to day engineering, UX, and product processes and Mission Control, a group of cross-disciplinary members of the Firefox team tasked with steering individual projects and the Test Pilot project as a whole.

Team members are amplifiers for people participating in the program. When a person or group submits an idea to Test Pilot they are starting a process in which they should expect to be involved until a conclusion is reached.

Test Pilot team members help participants progress through the Test Pilot process in whichever ways are needed - from boiling an idea down to get at a measurable core concept, documenting an idea thoroughly, iterating on designs and prototypes, assisting with coding, communicating with appropriate teams around Mozilla, and helping uplift a successful idea to its next stage in life. An analogy could be made between Test Pilot team members and consultants.

How Can I Contribute To Test Pilot?

If you have an idea, feel free to reach out

• Chat with us on IRC in #testpilot (webchat)
• Join our public mailing list
• You can also just submit an Idea through our submission form.

Or just chat with a Build Team member individually

Product	User Experience	Engineering	QA
Javaun Moradi (irc: javaun)	Bryan Bell (irc: bryanbell)	Wil Clouser (irc: clouserw)	Peter deHaan (irc:pdehaan)
Cory Price (irc: ckprice)	John Gruen (irc: jgruen)	Chuck Harmston (irc: chuck)	John Dorlus (irc: Silne30)
		Jared Hirsch (irc: _6a68)
		Dave Justice (irc: JSON_voorhees)
		Les Orchard (irc: lorchard)

Come to our meetings!

You can also import this calendar into any iCal-capable calendar application.

Many of our meetings have public meeting notes.

Active contributors are welcome to attend our meetings (if you're new to the project, it's best to start the conversation on IRC or the mailing list). Mozilla uses Vidyo for videoconferencing, which offers two ways to connect:

1. Install the Vidyo client by following this link, then connect to the TestPilot room.
2. Dial in: the number is +1 800 707 2533, password 369, extension 9-8858. Dial "*1" to mute yourself once you connect.

Looking for code?

• The website
• The add-on

User Experience

• Mockups

Found a bug?

• Look through the existing issues and submit new ones to github issues

Website URLs

• Stage: https://testpilot.stage.mozaws.net/
• Production: https://testpilot.firefox.com/

List of Test Pilot Projects

• Universal Search
• Activity Stream
• Tab Center
• PageShot
• Your great idea!

Feature Test Pipeline (behind LDAP authentication on mana)

More Pages

• Test Pilot Mission Control
• Test Pilot Data Governance
• Test Pilot Metrics

WIP Documentation

Work in progress documentation and reference hub.