Open AccessWho Gets to Define Success? Listening to Stories of How People Value Firefox to Redefine Metrics and Revive a Decommissioned Product
Author(s) -
PETRIE GEMMA,
DAVIDSON JENNIFER
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
ethnographic praxis in industry conference proceedings
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1559-8918
pISSN - 1559-890X
DOI - 10.1111/epic.12003
Subject(s) - active listening , product (mathematics) , value (mathematics) , space (punctuation) , futures contract , stakeholder , scale (ratio) , citizen journalism , sociology , ethnography , computer science , aesthetics , public relations , business , world wide web , political science , art , geography , mathematics , communication , geometry , finance , cartography , machine learning , operating system , anthropology
Challenging measures of scale is possible through listening to stories of how people value a product, and envisioning ways to measure success beyond typical metrics like Monthly Active Use (MAU) or Daily Active Use (DAU). Understanding what people value is somewhat complex for a product like Firefox because people might use Firefox every day without thinking much about it. In this case study, we detail how we used Futures Thinking and participatory design methods to elicit stories of how people value Firefox. This case study demonstrates that a relatively small number of meaningful ethnographic insights can be powerful enough to influence business strategy. By creating the space for listening to stories and encouraging stakeholder involvement, we were able to make the case to save one of our mobile browsers, Firefox Focus, despite its lack of scale.