Compatibility/Contribute

Help make the web more open!

The web is meant to be open and accessible to everyone regardless of how they access it. Help to keep it open by contributing to Web Compatibility. We need your skills, insight and opinions to help reach keep the web open globally.

Regional and language

• Collecting information on popular sites in your local region
  • How you can help: Build lists of most frequently used sites in your country/region
  • Skills required: Knowledge of popular web sites in your region
  • Description: In order to ensure websites are working in Firefox all around the world, we build lists of the most popular sites in specific countries. The list usually starts by taking the top 100 sites for the region from a site like Alexa.com then asking volunteers to add and refine the list as makes sense. The list is used to perform automated compatibility tests for each site in that region.
  • Get started: Follow these links to etherpads with lists of sites, please leave your changes highlighted in another color so we can update the master list.

• Translation
  • How you can help: Many sites and tools built for Web Compatibility are only in English, you’re help translating goes a long way to bringing the effort to more countries around the world. (Webcompat.com, AWCY, WIKI, Email templates, simplebug)
  • Skills required: Languages: English + more
  • Description: Web compatibility is a global effort, that has sites and tools which should be available in multiple languages. Translating these can help others get involved, let site owners understand the reported bugs and help supporters spread the word.
  • Get started: Template:List of things that need translation + Template:Contact info

• Casual bug reporting
  • How you can help: During your web travels, if you notice a website works in another browser but not Firefox, check AWCY for open bugs, if not file one (compat form)
  • Skills required: Being awesome, takes two minutes
  • Description: One of the great things about Web Compatibility is once you know what to look for, it’s much easier to notice potential bugs during your regular browsing. If you notice a problem with a website, you can report it in less than 1 minute with the Web Compatibility browser add ons.
  • Get started: Install add ons here

• Outreach: Contacting web sites with fixes
  • How you can help: Find contacts for websites. Contact websites with suggested fixes.
  • Skills required: Web researching and communication
  • Description: Once a bug is analyzed a fix has been suggested, the site should be contacted to notify them of the issue. Your language skills and local knowledge make finding contacts easier. You simply find a contact at the website and send them a polite message. There’s even a tool to help explain the problem to non-technical contacts Template:Simplebug link.
  • Get started: Create a bugzilla account, use Bugs ahoy! and simple bug.

Testing and Technical analysis

• Testing websites for compatibility issues
  • How you can help: Test popular sites in your region and file bugs. Use screenshot application, install an automated testing program or manually test
  • Skills required: A keen eye for spotting visual differences
  • Description: Compatibility issues occur when a website is broken for one browser, or is providing a lesser experience than what another browser receives. You can help identify these issues through a few ways. The easiest way is using the screenshot tool to compare screenshots from different browsers, if the sites don’t match reasonably well, that’s a bug! You can also use other automated testing tools if you want to get fancy, or do it the old fashion way and manually test sites from the regional site lists.
  • Get started: //maybe hallvors can help to write this

• Analyzing Web Compat Issues
  • How you can help: Assign a bug to yourself and dig in. Each bug has a description of the issue to read, test the site and look through the code to find the issue. Bonus points if you can suggest a way to fix it. (Bugs ahoy, OLD TE bugs)
  • Skills required: Knowledge of web coding, CURL, user agent detection
  • Description: Compatibility bugs that have been reported need to be analyzed to identify the cause of the issue. The way to analyze varies by the type of issue. The most common issues found on mobile sites are related to User Agent detection, Javascript libraries and vendor specific CSS/JS (webkit).
  • Get started: Read this (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Compatibility/Guide#Analyzing_for_Web_Compatibility_Issues), create a bugzilla account and use Bugs Ahoy! to find bugs to work on.
  • Provide some info on common types and blogs with info eg. Karl’s blog with httpie (http://www.otsukare.info/2013/08/08/http-cli-and-ua-sniffing)

Writing code and UX

• Building tools for automated testing
  • How you can help: Build tools that run through lists of sites and perform tests to identify compatibility issues
  • Skills required: JS, Your favorite language
  • Description: The web is big, really big. In order to test sites for compatibility issues and keep track of regressions we rely on a healthy share of automated testing. We have a few tools at our disposal that work very well, but there’s always room for improvement.
  • Get started: There are lots of ways you can help, read about our current tools Template:Tools links and reach out when you’re ready to startTemplate:Contacts

• Web coding
  • How you can help: There are lots of great features that need to be built for the compat websites (Webcompat.com / AWCY)
  • Skills required: JS, HTML, CSS, Python/Ruby/PHP/Your preference
  • Description: Web Compatibility hosts a few web sites/tools that make our jobs easier and help spread the word. There are lots of current and future features that need to be worked on. We can use your help to code these sites and tools.
  • Get started: Check out the websites and planned features, contact us to let us know and fork away!

- User Experience

• • How you can help: Use your expertise to help us design the way users interact with our sites and tools. (AWCY.com)
  • Skills required: UX
  • Description: Although we try to always put the user front of mind when designing Web Compatibility sites/tools, the expertise of a UX designer is a goes a long way. Help us shape the designs and interactions of the Web Compatibility toolset.
  • Get started: Check out the sites and tools. Then reach out to us to get started!

• Design
  • How you can help: Logos, sticker/shirt designs, improving current sites
  • Skills required: Photoshop, Illustrator, Design skills, etc.
  • Description: In order to make Web Compatibility stand out we need help from great designers. Everything from our websites, to logos and even t-shirts need a creative eye to really shine.
  • Get started: Check out our sites, logo and t-shirt designs. Then reach out to get started Template:Contact

Advocacy

• Spreading the word
  • How you can help: Talks, tweets, blogs, videos, handing out flyers on corners
  • Skills required: Passion for a free and open web
  • Description: The more users and developers are aware of web compatibility the better! You can post as small as a tweet or as big as a blog, we can use your help spreading the word.
  • Get started: Follow us on twitter, join our mailing list or come chat with us in #webcompat.