Mobile/Projects/Search activity

Weekly stand-up meeting

• Wednesday 9-9:30am PST, Mobile vidyo room
• Notes: https://mobile.etherpad.mozilla.org/search-activity

Overview

We're building a search activity so we can do some experimentation around search outside of the browser on Android devices. The core idea is that we provide a search activity that puts users back in control of their search & search data, allowing them to customize and control what engines they use, how their results are shaped, and how their data is ultimately used (or not used). We also intend that, eventually, the activity will "learn" about the user over time by way of a frecency algorithm that will further tailor search engines and results to each user's preferences and location.

From the UX deck:

For internet users who are dissatisfied with the tedious nature of finding exactly what they're looking for online, Firefox Search provides a fast and easy-to-read way for users to learn about the things they are looking for, in real time.

Unlike other search activities, we do not lock users into a single source of information, and instead provide flexibility and choice of inputs so that we can offer most useful possible information.

Goals & Metrics

For v1...we can expand on these after we have evaluated the v1 results in pre-release channels &/or in beta/GA.

Goals

• Increase the number of searches done through Mozilla products on Android by X (percentage TBD)
• Increase the user's engagement with Mozilla products on Android (users & usage numbers)

Metrics

• Aggregate number of searches done per day/week/month
• Aggregate number of results tapped per search engine
• Number of active users per day/week/month
• Percentage of users who use the app in 5 out of every 7 days

UX design

• Current UX explorations

Possible search engines

Deb's random notes about some engines we might consider...all subject to change.

Current

• DuckDuckGo (single-card)
  • Could we expand this to general search as well as cards?
• Yelp (local search)
• Wikipedia (research)
  • Would be good if we could do locale-appropriate where possible

Explorations

• Bing (general search)
• Yahoo search (general search - use locale-appropriate where possible)
• Amazon (shopping - use locale-appropriate search where possible)
• A locally-relevant news site (CBC, BBC, NYT)
  • CBC - Canada
  • BBC - UK
  • New York Times - USA
• Vimeo (videos)
• Etsy (shopping, visual search)
• Pinterest (visual search)
• Google News (news)
• Yahoo News (news)
• Yummly (recipes)
• YouTube (videos)
• Google.com/Movies (movie showtimes - locale-appropriate)
• Reddit (general interest)
• Nextbus (local commuter info)
• Longreads (general interest)
• ??

Future?

• ??

Implementation

• Prototype: https://github.com/ericedens/FirefoxSearch