15:59:33 <donuts> #startmeeting UX Team Weekly Meeting, 29 November 2022
15:59:33 <MeetBot> Meeting started Tue Nov 29 15:59:33 2022 UTC.  The chair is donuts. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
15:59:33 <MeetBot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #help #info #idea #link #topic.
15:59:40 <donuts> hello everyone!
16:00:02 <donuts> pad is here: https://pad.riseup.net/p/tor-ux-team-2022-keep
16:00:14 <donuts> please add anything you'd like to discuss + your updates
16:00:35 <donuts> do we have nicob here?
16:00:40 <donuts> oops I guess not
16:00:56 <donuts> two quick updates:
16:01:10 <donuts> 11.5.8 was released for all platforms last week
16:01:51 <nah> \o/
16:01:59 <donuts> it included a bunch of security fixes
16:02:06 <donuts> (backported from firefox)
16:02:58 <donuts> but also there's some fancy stuff going on to support our migration strategy from single to multi-locale bundles in TB 12.0 for deskstop
16:03:14 <donuts> I believe users will be forced to pass through 11.5.8 on their way to updating to 12.0
16:03:40 <championquizzer> that's nice!
16:04:13 <donuts> 11.5.9 for Android was also released today to fix an issue with Google's SDK version
16:04:15 <championquizzer> i remember getting some reports in the past where TB would fail to update when jumping a lot of versions
16:04:25 <championquizzer> esp. major esr versions
16:05:06 <donuts> that fix should stop Android from crashing during bootstrapping – I'm not sure exactly how long that's been going on, but I'm curious to know if you've had many user reports about this recently championquizzer?
16:06:00 <championquizzer> i noticed during the long weekend when i myself updated. we got a few reports, i have seen diuscussion on reddit and play store reviews
16:06:32 <championquizzer> posted a update on saturday to the release post: https://forum.torproject.net/t/new-release-tor-browser-11-5-9-android/5660/2
16:07:04 <championquizzer> definitely started with 11.5.9 though
16:07:08 <donuts> oh perfect, tyvm!
16:07:38 <donuts> the devs have set up a reminder so we're not surprised by this change again next year
16:07:47 <championquizzer> perfect!
16:08:03 <donuts> wait
16:08:11 <donuts> I'm getting my version numbers mixed up
16:08:20 <donuts> the fix will be in 11.5.10, coming today
16:08:44 <championquizzer> nice!
16:09:04 <donuts> okay that's it for announcements
16:09:41 <donuts> would you like to give any non-TB 12.0 updates now championquizzer? I have an item in the agenda for 12.0 later
16:10:31 <championquizzer> hmm, i mostly wanted to mention about the 11.5.9 bug and give updates about that but we pretty much already covered that
16:10:40 <championquizzer> please go ahead, donuts
16:10:46 <nicob> hi y'all - apologies for being late, am here now
16:10:52 <championquizzer> hey nicob!
16:11:02 <nicob> going to update my section real quick!
16:11:58 <donuts> excellent, thanks championquizzer!
16:11:58 <donuts> and hey nicob!
16:12:02 <championquizzer> nicob: no worries! we were discussing about the emergency android (TBA 11.5.9 release) which is coming out today. in light of
16:12:05 <championquizzer> https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41481
16:12:51 <championquizzer> whhops, 11.5.10 is coming out. sorry
16:13:02 <donuts> okay we discussed the Tor Browser 12.0 release yesterday during our release meeting
16:14:16 <donuts> and decided that in order to provide enough time for support and potential fixes before the holiday season, we should release next week
16:14:31 <donuts> The target release date will be Monday 5th
16:14:54 <donuts> 12.0a5 should be coming out very shortly, which is the final alpha version 12.0 stable will be based on
16:15:19 <donuts> the most notable change since 12.0a4 will be universal intel/apple silicon bundles for MacOS
16:15:26 <donuts> plus some other random fixes
16:15:49 <donuts> that does not leave us with a lot of time for testing, or release prep though (i.e. assets, blog post, any required manual changes)
16:15:58 <donuts> so it's gonna be a bit of a squeeze
16:17:04 <championquizzer> q: is there a easy way to check whether a app is running natively or through rosetta on arm mac?
16:17:10 <donuts> (plus the changes to gettor the anticensorship team need to make, and the /download page too)
16:17:15 <donuts> richard is going to email around the tor-project to solicit some last-minute QA testers, since we're slightly conscious about something maybe going wrong with the l10n migration
16:17:20 <championquizzer> given that, it launches correctly and everything
16:17:51 <richard> 12.0a5 should be released tomorrow
16:17:58 <donuts> championquizzer: it should say in activity monitor I think
16:18:12 <richard> (and boklm figured uot the reproducibility problem this am :) )
16:18:23 <donuts> oh fantastic, ty for the update!
16:18:26 <championquizzer> great
16:18:29 * richard awaaaay
16:18:48 <donuts> nicob: I've created a ticket here for the assets: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/operations/communications/-/issues/88
16:18:57 <nicob> I saw that donuts, ty!
16:19:08 <donuts> championquizzer: I think that list is probably a good summary of the major changes too?
16:20:16 <donuts> I don't really see a lot needing to change re: the manual, except for multi-locale support and possibly for the two minor Android features too
16:20:50 <championquizzer> donuts: by list, did you mean communications#88?
16:20:56 <donuts> championquizzer: yep
16:21:03 <donuts> richard: did you get a chance to review that ticket?
16:21:09 <donuts> I needa start writing the blog post
16:21:31 <championquizzer> donuts: i think i can't view because of gl permissions
16:21:58 <donuts> oh that sucks
16:22:03 <donuts> I'll paste into the pad
16:22:27 <championquizzer> donuts: also, about the landing page at https://www.torproject.org/download/languages/. are we doing the same as the alpha page?
16:22:52 <championquizzer> thanks, donuts
16:23:14 <donuts> championquizzer: yes, that's the plan – pending the full redesign of /download [early] next year
16:23:15 <championquizzer> looks good re. list
16:23:17 <donuts> okay pasted!
16:23:19 * nah needs to step out bc of an emergency
16:23:39 <donuts> no prob nah
16:23:56 <championquizzer> bye nah o/
16:23:59 <donuts> let's briefly talk contingency planning...
16:24:38 <donuts> I have both intel and apple silicon machines I can test on, and if we discover any major issues with 12.0a5 we're going to pull the plug on next week's launch
16:24:49 <donuts> the next launch window will be January once we're all back
16:25:46 <championquizzer> ack
16:25:50 <donuts> if anything comes up after launch, we'll technically be able to rollback to 11.5.8 I believe – but by launching next week we'll have left enough time for an emergency release before the holidays anyway
16:26:26 <donuts> lastly there's some extra pressure to release in Dec instead of Jan so we don't need to do another round of CVE backports, which the devs are concerned about the reliability of
16:26:41 <donuts> gettor email will stay pointed at 11.5.8 for the time being
16:26:58 <donuts> the telegram bot will need to be updated last minute, however, which the anti-censorship team are aware of
16:27:15 <donuts> Tails are also aware of the l10n changes and I hear they've already tested and fixed things on their end
16:27:26 <donuts> so it's now or never (or January) :D
16:27:38 <donuts> any questions team?
16:28:12 <nicob> I don't think so! :)
16:28:22 <championquizzer> sounds like a good plan. i will test for usability and ping folks who migth be able to test mac side of things :)
16:28:34 <donuts> thanks both!
16:29:30 <donuts> oh championquizzer, I forgot to say earlier – this is unrelated to 12.0, but someone popped along to #tor-ux earlier to say a bunch of new users were confused about noscript's cross-tab identity leak protection in #tor earlier
16:29:45 <donuts> it's not the first time we've heard this and I find it super confusing too
16:29:58 <donuts> we have a ticket to try and smooth out the UX here: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-/issues/41112
16:30:05 <championquizzer> yep
16:30:13 <donuts> if you're getting a lot of user reports about this, can you add a wee comment to the ticket please?
16:30:59 <championquizzer> i haven't received user support requests but probably answered someone last month about this
16:31:11 <donuts> oh okay, so it's not a huge volume?
16:31:15 <championquizzer> https://twitter.com/championquizzer/status/1577687388582969344
16:31:20 <donuts> ty
16:32:05 <donuts> I'm still skeptical as to how useful the banner is too
16:32:05 <championquizzer> donuts: not a huge volume on our support channels as of now, but i believe it has been posted on reddit a few times
16:32:15 <donuts> great, yeah that's understandable
16:32:20 <ma1> donuts,  championquizzer - I'm working on that but keep me posted & motivated ;)
16:32:31 <donuts> thanks ma1!
16:32:38 <championquizzer> thanks, ma1!
16:32:45 <donuts> one thing I'm concerned about is that the new UX doesn't really answer the question of
16:32:48 <donuts> woops
16:33:01 <donuts> *of "why domain I didn't load is appearing here"
16:33:46 <donuts> well, hrm, maybe the new string does make that clearer
16:34:05 <donuts> anyway after we ship those changes, let's keep an ear to the ground to see if users are still getting confused :)
16:34:47 <championquizzer> ack
16:34:55 <donuts> okay moving on!
16:34:56 <donuts> nicob: you were looped into all the emails to/from the sponsor re: S131 yep?
16:35:30 <nicob> I haven't caught up on emails yet today but saw the last update from the sponsor before I left last week, yep!
16:35:58 <donuts> cool! I've pinged a quick update in each of your design tickets, and have reassigned them to you
16:36:07 <donuts> but the tl;dr is let's just start churning things out based on their most recent AI file
16:36:10 <ggus> o/
16:36:15 <nicob> sounds good, ty!
16:36:37 <donuts> could you prioritize anything for TB 12.0 first please, and then handle S131 afterwards though?
16:36:41 <donuts> o/ ggus
16:37:22 <nicob> donuts will do
16:37:29 <donuts> lovely tyvm :)
16:37:36 <nicob> np :)
16:37:44 <donuts> the last thing on the agenda was added by nah, who's had to step away
16:38:23 <donuts> however in case she reads the backlog: we spoke to the sponsor last week about diary studies instead of moderated usability testing, and it sounds like they're on board
16:38:57 <donuts> they're naturally hesitant to introduce us to more orgs until they can review the risk assessment first, but I gave them an update on that front and said we'll share it in the next report
16:39:20 <donuts> all things considered I think we'll still be on track for the research timeline you posted in the ticket nah
16:40:04 <donuts> okay I think we're good
16:40:13 <donuts> I have a couple of quick things to mention that I forgot to bring up earlier
16:40:38 <donuts> championquizzer: after 12.0, could you have a think about how we can improve our handoff to you for major releases?
16:40:47 <donuts> e.g. how and when we communicate changes to the UX
16:41:06 <championquizzer> sure!
16:41:12 <donuts> I'm conscious that the way we loop you in is kind of scrappy and last minute atm :)
16:42:03 <donuts> there is also a checklist to notify stakeholders in the release ticket that we should add the community team too
16:42:09 <donuts> *to
16:42:30 <championquizzer> is all good! we can discuss how to improve the workflow after the release :)
16:42:41 <donuts> sounds great, ty for your patience ^^
16:43:33 <donuts> Last thing from me: in addition to the 12.0 release, I'm trying to finalize the designs for the first VPN pre-alpha this week
16:44:00 <donuts> nicob: let's talk about color systems at some point this week, maybe we should do it before our 1:1 on Friday though?
16:44:19 <nicob> sounds good!
16:44:34 <donuts> I'd like to make sure we use some form of design tokens from the outset to make the pre-alpha → stable development process more sustainable
16:45:12 <nicob> yep makes sense!
16:45:36 <donuts> I read up on MD3s (material design 3s) and think I'm settling on something similar, but different because theirs hurt my head too much
16:46:12 <donuts> also I'm just gonna use material symbols for iconography for the time being
16:46:22 <nicob> okay - I'll read up on theirs too before we meet
16:46:31 <donuts> excellent
16:46:35 <donuts> let me bombard you with some links
16:46:41 <nicob> please bombard me
16:46:51 <donuts> https://m3.material.io/styles/color/overview
16:47:04 <donuts> we won't be doing this, because it broke my brain
16:47:16 <nicob> noted
16:47:18 <donuts> but maybe at some point we can map our color system to theirs
16:47:38 <donuts> the main benefits would be we could tap into money (android's theming engine) and its other accessibility benefits
16:47:43 <donuts> *monet lol
16:47:49 <nicob> hehehe
16:47:50 <nicob> $$
16:48:01 <donuts> I'm using the rounded versions of these: https://m3.material.io/styles/icons/overview
16:48:01 <championquizzer> hehehe
16:48:20 <donuts> and essentially the same typography tokens with some minor changes: https://m3.material.io/styles/typography/overview
16:48:41 <donuts> notably changing the font, and swapping weights here or there – but otherwise keeping the scale and uses the exact same
16:49:14 <donuts> also will use a mixture of MD3 and custom components
16:49:27 <donuts> so the biggest difference is basically the color system so far
16:50:21 <donuts> anyway, I bring this up because we should reply to Ergi soon
16:50:39 <nicob> thanks for the background and links!! will look through these soon
16:51:14 <donuts> nicob: thanks!
16:51:28 <donuts> we'll also need to decide on the semantics for our design tokens at some point too
16:51:37 <nicob> mmm yes
16:51:58 <donuts> I've never actually came up with this myself since we just reuse whatever mozilla have created for TB
16:52:21 <donuts> so have been doing some research that basically boils down to googling "design token examples" and reading about the various approaches
16:54:30 <donuts> okay we're getting close to the hour so I'll pause there, and we can chat about this again later :D
16:54:35 <nicob> yeah I certainly haven't either - I'll poke around too!
16:54:40 <donuts> any last minute topics from anyone?
16:54:41 <nicob> I can ask around my network as well
16:54:59 * championquizzer is good
16:55:05 * nicob is also good
16:55:09 <donuts> nicob: yeah I've been firing a lot of questions at my pals who work in actual product companies
16:55:26 <donuts> instead of bootstrapped nonprofits lol
16:55:36 <donuts> anyway, have a good week everyone!
16:55:37 <nicob> lol
16:55:46 <championquizzer> thanks all! o/
16:55:47 <nicob> thanks all!
16:55:59 <donuts> #endmeeting