A few weeks ago, JT and Beltzner presented their 12-point plan for improving Firefox retention. David Rolnitzky and I were tasked with point #5 – “Improve download and first run pages”, so I’m happy to say that we launched a new download page earlier today.
As a bit of context, this is the page that users see after they click the Download Firefox button, and it remains up throughout the entire download process. So, rather than just showing a promo for a messenger bag (which is what the previous version of the page did), our hypothesis is that users will be better served by seeing instructions (with visuals) on how to complete the installation process.
We plan to keep testing and evolving this page over time, so consider this more of a work in progress than a “final” page. Obviously the use of screenshots complicates the localization process, so we’re just launching the en-US version now while we actively try to figure out the best way to localize these pages worldwide. In addition to the Mac page shown here, we also created XP and Vista versions, and other OS’s may follow eventually.
Update 9/4/07: Several commenters correctly pointed out that this page wasn’t always viewable from certain key browsers. That was a known bug at the time we launched the page, and I’m happy to report that it was fixed last week.
