mozilla-mobile
[Telemetry Audit] Audit homepage settings metrics
Currently, there are a number of probes which record user preferences for the homepage sections.
- preferences.home_page_setting
- preferences.jump_back_in
- preferences.new_tab_experience
- preferences.opening_screen
- preferences.pocket
- preferences.recently_saved
- preferences.recently_visited
- preferences.show_clipboard_bar
Note these are metrics sent on the metrics ping, not the events ping. With the vaguely-named preferences.recently_saved, for example, we know the current state of the user’s preferences for showing the newly added bookmarks section on the homepage (either true or false).
Delete Old Metrics
We would like to delete all these probes. Set their expiry date to expire within the next couple weeks, and then add a note in the description that this telemetry is being deprecated in favor of new telemetry under user.settings.homepage.
Add New Metrics Where Needed
We will want to add new probes to record just the data we are still interested in for the homepage rebuild. For example, we no longer need pocket-related preferences, so that telemetry can be removed and not replaced. But we may still want to know about the user’s preference for the Jump Back In section on the new homepage.
The naming for new user attribute probes related to the homepage should be as follows:
【 highlighted #403294 】user【 end highlighted 】【 highlighted #403294 】.settings.【 end highlighted 】【 highlighted #403294 】homepage【 end highlighted 】【 highlighted #403294 】.【 end highlighted 】【 highlighted #403294 】﹍<the_new_attribute>﹍【 end highlighted 】
e.g. ﹍user.settings.homepage.jump_back_in﹍ of type Boolean since it’s an off/on toggle
Tagging
These new metrics should be tagged Homepage and Settings. They may live in the settings.yaml specification file.
┆Issue is synchronized with this Jira Task
➤ Cyndi Chin commented:
John Hall Please provide the updated requirements to this ticket. Thank you!
➤ Cyndi Chin commented:
John Hall Following up on the slack thread here ( https://mozilla.slack.com/archives/C07GD43GA00/p1750179933205469?thread_ts=1749210781.197399&cid=C07GD43GA00 ), we will slate the old probes for deletion. If we’re not ready to add new telemetry at this moment, we can open a new ticket for it. Please let me know if any concerns.
➤ John Hall commented:
We will want to have the equivalent of:
- preferences.opening_screen
- preferences.home_page_setting
So for the new naming like:
- user.settings.homepage.open_screen
- user.settings.homepage.custom_URL
BUT I can file this is a follow up ticket after initial launch if it simplifies getting this out. We aren’t activity monitoring these things today
➤ Isabella commented:
FYI Cyndi Chin and John Hall, we have plans to add a generalized user settings JSON structure to our metrics (I was in a meeting to discuss the fine details last week). So if you’re not actively monitoring these probes, I think these preferences will be covered with our new user settings scheme in the next month or two. 🤞 Unfortunately I’ve just been pulled away to work on the Swift 6 migration so my audit work has been deprioritized.
➤ Cyndi Chin commented:
Thanks for the details! Given the comments below, I’ll slate these probes for deletion:
- preferences.jump_back_in
- preferences.new_tab_experience
- preferences.pocket
- preferences.recently_saved
- preferences.recently_visited
- preferences.show_clipboard_bar
and John Hall we can create a separate follow up ticket for the other 2 metrics at a later date, when they are needed. Let’s make sure we tag that ticket under this epic: https://mozilla-hub.atlassian.net/browse/FXIOS-12459 ( https://mozilla-hub.atlassian.net/browse/FXIOS-12459|smart-link )
- preferences.opening_screen
- preferences.home_page_setting
Thanks!
➤ Cyndi Chin commented:
Isabella Is there an existing generalized user settings JSON that I can add to or should I create one? I want to make sure re-visit these two metrics in that ticket and we can close this one out after deleting the probes.
- preferences.opening_screen
- preferences.home_page_setting
➤ Isabella commented:
Hi Cyndi Chin ! Since I’m re-prioritized to the Swift 6 migration I haven’t had a chance to put together the generalized user settings probe, it was next on my list. 😢 It’s a bit involved so I won’t ask you to take it on right now.
What’s the current situation with those 2 probes? Are those needed now? For the short term, we could follow user attribute naming (e.g. user.preferences.homepage_setting) and add them as temporary metrics, with the idea being to eventually replace them with the generalized metric. I don’t want this to be a blocker for your HNT work.
➤ Cyndi Chin commented:
No blocker, I was going to leave the 2 probes as-is until we work on the generalized user settings probe since not much benefit in changing now if it’s going to be changed in the future. Not a blocker for HNT work, just want to make sure we revisit it so wanted to add a note in a separate ticket.