Firefox Accounts: Settings website IA
Collaboratively laying a strong foundation with Lean Research & IA
Firefox Accounts (now Mozilla Accounts) is the identity and authentication service used by the Firefox browsers, as well as other products in the Mozilla ecosystem, and the Firefox Account settings website (accounts.firefox.com) is the center of that. It allows Firefox Account holders (regardless of the browser or products they use) to manage their global Firefox Account settings, including but not limited to email, password, and synced devices.
PROBLEM:
Built at a time when the ecosystem was less complex, the Firefox Account settings website circa 2019 had become difficult to use due to an outdated information architecture that was confusing to users and didn’t match the current needs of the increasingly complex ecosystem. Given that a refactoring of the underlying code was planned (and that new subscription services were on the way), we took the opportunity to update the website to make it more extensible and to better match the mental models of our users.MY ROLE:
User Researcher, Information ArchitectAs a contributor to the UX team charged with rethinking the Firefox Account settings website, I planned and conducted a 3-part IA research study, kept the cross-functional team engaged throughout the research process by facilitating collaborative sessions that fed into the research, drafted the new site taxonomy, and then gave feedback to designers working on the final design.
IMPACT:
- In a usability test of the design that was created based on the taxonomy created for the Firefox Account settings website, all participants completed all or nearly all tasks on both desktop and mobile with speed and ease, and described the task completion processes as: “simple,” “easy,” and “straightforward.”
- The Firefox Account settings website went live in early 2021, and retains the information architecture recommended by the study.
PROCESS:
The design process for the Firefox Account settings redesign began with a competitive analysis to provide us with inspiration (how were other product ecosystems handling their account settings?). At the same time, we wanted to make sure that our new structure matched users’ current mental models, so we kicked off a 3-part IA research study to inform the its design.The study had two main goals:
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Understand how our users thought about the current and proposed new Firefox Account settings content
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Improve the structure & usability of the Firefox Account settings website based on user mental models
Our high-level design & research process: I owned and led Part II.
Like many others at Mozilla, I view user research as a team sport, so I invited the designers, product managers and content strategists working on Firefox Accounts, Paid Subscriptions and IT to contribute to the protocol and hypotheses for each round of testing (with tests building on the results from the previous test).
Open Card Sort:
I began by conducting two rounds of card sorts to see how users thought about the various pieces of current and proposed content within the Firefox Account settings website. I invited the cross-functional team to give feedback on the description text for the open card sort before running the test in OptimalWorkshop.
Firefox Account Settings - Information Architecture User Research - Open Card Sort Results (Public)
Open card sort input & output.
Closed Card Sort:
To prepare for the closed card sort, I worked with a content strategist to create labels for each card and then ran a workshop with members of the design team to design, iterate, and align on a proposed a high-level bucket and naming structure based on the output of the open card sort:
Design team brainstorm & dot-vote on top-level bucket options for the closed card sort.
Tree Test + Taxonomy Handoff:
After making adjustments to our high-level buckets and labels based on the closed card sort test findings, I evaluated the usability of the proposed taxonomy with a series of tasks the participants were asked to complete using a tree test. Firefox Account Settings - Information Architecture User Research - Tree Test Results (Public)
Tree test, task list and taxonomy.
After completing the testing, I updated the Firefox Account settings taxonomy based on the test findings and handed off the results to the designers working on updating the UI. During the rest of the UI design process, I provided feedback on the proposed designs and advised on related user research findings for subsequent UX/UI work.
Research findings:
In a usability test of the design that was created based on the taxonomy, all participants completed all or nearly all tasks on both desktop and mobile with speed and ease, and described the task completion processes as: “simple,” “easy,” and “straightforward.”
IMPACT:
The recommended information architecture, for the Firefox Account settings website, based on several rounds of research I conducted, went live in early 2021.Like most research done by the Firefox UX team (https://firefoxur.github.io/), the research I conducted is public, and you can read my detailed research plan, protocol & findings: