Community feedback re: User JS and other Opera features
Friday, 21. December 2007, 20:00:17
(I posted this on the Choose Opera forum to address the concerns of community members who have been asking about Opera's technical and community support of User JS)
I appreciate the frustration of zotlan, fearphage, and others who want Opera to do more with User JS (both on a technical level, and in terms of official community support). Let me try to shed some light on the situation.
It's no secret that we (at Opera) haven't released anything in awhile to push forward our support of User JS, compared (for example) to the emphasis we've been putting lately on Widgets (on the Wii Internet Channel, on phones, contests on My Opera, etc). That's just part of how we do things. At any given point in time, we will work on and highlight certain aspects of Opera more than others (i.e. Speed Dial in one release, Link in another).
I can't comment on what we're planning (or not planning) to release, but I think it's too early to say that we've abandoned User JS as something we want to develop further. As with all Opera features we're working on, User JS is part of a long list of priorities, and we make occasional adjustments to our roadmap when we feel it's necessary.
Widespread community interest in User JS is definitely one thing that will improve the chances of more support for User JS in the near future. I don't visit the User JS forum very often, but I do know it exists (and have a handful of scripts installed myself). Myself and others at Opera know that it is an important feature that a lot of people care about, but it's somewhat debatable how popular it is for the majority of our users. As I'm sure you know, it is very difficult to accurately gauge widespread interest from web forums with thousands of posts. (I agree, by the way, that there are a huge number of people all over the world who want Opera to support extensions).
That said, I will make a personal recommendation to our product management team that we pay closer attention to how many Opera users actually use User JS. For example, in the feature usage study we did earlier this year, we didn't track User JS usage. I'll try to make sure we track that in future studies so we can find out how popular User JS actually is. By all means, however, post your own polls or suggest them to Daniel on Opera Watch or to Espen on My Opera.
Of course, even if we find that User JS is not that popular amongst our users, that doesn't automatically mean we don't want it to be. Developer tools, for example, are not used by most Opera users, but we recognize the importance of having Web developers on our side. Depending on how much we think it would benefit our users, we might want to actively make User JS more popular by improving its usability and marketing it more. For any feature, determining how valuable it is, irrespective of how popular it is or would be, is very challenging and depends on a wide range of factors. As Opera users who are champions of the User JS cause, keep making your presence known and be vocal about why User JS is so important, not just for yourself, but for Opera users in general (many of whom, right or wrong, probably prefer that we work on other issues ahead of User JS). Perhaps someone could submit an article about User JS on dev.opera.
In terms of short term priorities, I can safely say that we are working on improving the opera.com website. That includes having a better and more obvious section for users who want to customize their browser. It's something we're working on, and User JS might very well be part of that.
I appreciate the frustration of zotlan, fearphage, and others who want Opera to do more with User JS (both on a technical level, and in terms of official community support). Let me try to shed some light on the situation.
It's no secret that we (at Opera) haven't released anything in awhile to push forward our support of User JS, compared (for example) to the emphasis we've been putting lately on Widgets (on the Wii Internet Channel, on phones, contests on My Opera, etc). That's just part of how we do things. At any given point in time, we will work on and highlight certain aspects of Opera more than others (i.e. Speed Dial in one release, Link in another).
I can't comment on what we're planning (or not planning) to release, but I think it's too early to say that we've abandoned User JS as something we want to develop further. As with all Opera features we're working on, User JS is part of a long list of priorities, and we make occasional adjustments to our roadmap when we feel it's necessary.
Widespread community interest in User JS is definitely one thing that will improve the chances of more support for User JS in the near future. I don't visit the User JS forum very often, but I do know it exists (and have a handful of scripts installed myself). Myself and others at Opera know that it is an important feature that a lot of people care about, but it's somewhat debatable how popular it is for the majority of our users. As I'm sure you know, it is very difficult to accurately gauge widespread interest from web forums with thousands of posts. (I agree, by the way, that there are a huge number of people all over the world who want Opera to support extensions).
That said, I will make a personal recommendation to our product management team that we pay closer attention to how many Opera users actually use User JS. For example, in the feature usage study we did earlier this year, we didn't track User JS usage. I'll try to make sure we track that in future studies so we can find out how popular User JS actually is. By all means, however, post your own polls or suggest them to Daniel on Opera Watch or to Espen on My Opera.
Of course, even if we find that User JS is not that popular amongst our users, that doesn't automatically mean we don't want it to be. Developer tools, for example, are not used by most Opera users, but we recognize the importance of having Web developers on our side. Depending on how much we think it would benefit our users, we might want to actively make User JS more popular by improving its usability and marketing it more. For any feature, determining how valuable it is, irrespective of how popular it is or would be, is very challenging and depends on a wide range of factors. As Opera users who are champions of the User JS cause, keep making your presence known and be vocal about why User JS is so important, not just for yourself, but for Opera users in general (many of whom, right or wrong, probably prefer that we work on other issues ahead of User JS). Perhaps someone could submit an article about User JS on dev.opera.
In terms of short term priorities, I can safely say that we are working on improving the opera.com website. That includes having a better and more obvious section for users who want to customize their browser. It's something we're working on, and User JS might very well be part of that.
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(29%)
Measuring usage is not everything. At the moment it's not easy to install UserJS files and to keep track of them. If that changes, usage might jump a lot because of the accessibility.
A new year is coming, with plenty of opportunities. I hope Opera will take them
By remcolanting, # 21. December 2007, 23:11:54
By Lawmune, # 21. December 2007, 23:58:58
As it stands UserJS is hitting the limitations of its implementation but only those who write UserJS's (and those who want extensions in Opera) are really interested in that.
On the other hand, you have a growing user base and very little feature education (this is a problem not limited to UserJS of course), so how can you possible expect your users to care about UserJS let alone look for "Widespread community interest" as a basis for making some kind of effort? You dont think the fact that there are a whole bunch of forum topics about UserJS and wishes for improved UserJS is an indication that people see potential in this feature, bearing in mind that they would have had to stumble upon this feature on their own?
Apart from the very early days of UserJS, the community is the only one showing any interest. Exactly how successful would widgets have been if Opera ASA hadnt pushed them so much? Somehow I doubt they would be trucking along the same way UserJS has, with no support from Opera ASA.
UserJS had always served as a community based effort to address incompatibilities and short comings in Opera. A site didnt work or there was some feature you wanted? Lets see if UserJS could fix that. Lets see if the experience of using Opera could be improved and expanded in the short term pending long term development of Opera. This is still happening now, but only a handful of people on forums and newsgroups, etc are actively doing it. And now you expect them to jump up and down, shouting and waving a flag, just so that you may or may not throw them a bone?
Anyway, rant over. To anyone who reads this, merry Christmas and have a happy New Year.
By Stoen, # 22. December 2007, 04:16:39
I'm entertaining houseguests this week, so I don't have time for a full writeup, but here's a quick response to some of your points.
Opera has a growing user base - Agreed
There is "very little feature education" (across the board) - Agreed, and we're working on it, and I have my own ideas on how Opera should address this.
-
Whether or not a lot of people use or care about User JS is one factor that would influence the direction of Opera's efforts, but as I mentioned, it is not the only factor.
As I see it, there are:
1. Popular features that everyone uses and talks about.
2. Features only used by a vocal and active minority.
3. Unpopular or unreleased features that nobody asks for or talks about.
When deciding what to work on, all three types of features have to be considered. For example, we do research on long-term internet trends to predict what features our users will need that they don't about yet.
-
I'm not expecting anyone to, as you say, "jump up and down" to convince Opera to do anything. For those Opera users who wish to provide feedback, however, I'm just trying to describe what type of feedback would be most compelling to various decision-makers within Opera and why.
I hope that clarifies things a little.
In any case, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
By Lawmune, # 22. December 2007, 05:24:57
By Virusboy, # 22. December 2007, 07:17:23
Never the less, you want feedback. I was simply questioning why the continued actions of the UserJS community for all these years was not feedback enough, especially given the complete lack of response by Opera ASA up until your recent communications. My apologies if a certain level of frustration was apparent in my response, it was not directed to you personally.
You asked previously why it is so important? My opinion was expressed above:
If you want more, then perhaps you should ask why this feature and UserCSS was first made accessible to the end user? Or why extensions are so popular? Low requirements for implementation by users coupled with giving them a greater level of control over their browsing experience would be my guess.
By Stoen, # 22. December 2007, 08:18:44
I just want to say that I sympathize with our community members who feel like they're not being communicated to well enough by Opera. We try, but it's not easy. I know that quite a few Opera employees read the forums and collect feedback, even if they don't have time to respond to everything, and we have a small group who makes a serious effort to respond to a lot of comments on a regular basis. As you said, though, our community is growing very quickly; full coverage of the forums and the rest of My Opera requires a bigger team than we have. Personally, I try to cover forums and topics that are related to marketing and outreach. In addition to winning new users, we always want to treat our existing users well; improving our communications is something for us to work on in 2008.
Just to clarify my intent once again, even if there are people at Opera who already believe in User JS and don't need additional feedback, research, etc. to drive their efforts, there are certain things that I can (and will) do as part of my job--get feedback and do research--to inform the decision-making process. I've tried to convey that some feedback is more useful than others.
For example:
'Opera should look at the success of Greasemonkey' - useful; points to information that might affect decisions
'User JS is obviously something that should be prioritized over (name any feature here)' - not as useful; an opinion that is not necessarily obvious at all, even if some people think it is
-
I really think a dev.opera.com article (written by a community member and/or someone at Opera) about User JS would be really great. That would generate broader exposure/discussion of User JS.
By Lawmune, # 22. December 2007, 17:19:08
By Virusboy, # 22. December 2007, 17:24:16
And when you find out HOW it's enabled, it's not just a checkbox in preferences, but a manual procedure:
1. Create a folder by hand.
2. Find that "hidden" text field in preferences and put the folder name there.
3. Save the user js file in that folder.
You may have lost another 5% percent of users just because that sounds too complicated...
IMO, usage of this feature is not gonna take off before the process gets streamlined like widget installation process.
By Luchio, # 22. December 2007, 21:53:23
By Virusboy, # 22. December 2007, 21:56:58
-Create a special folder for UserJs, the same in all installation, there's a widget folder in every opera folder, do the same with userjs.
-Explain briefly how UserJS works. [Dev.opera.com seems to be a good place]
I think that these points are not the feedback you are waiting, I know it, but nevertheless this seems so simple to do that I still don't understand why it's not done yet. (this should barely takes 3 hours in all to do for one person)
By Maulkin, # 28. December 2007, 03:16:05