Case study
Firefox Recap
Firefox Recap: A year-end campaign concept celebrating browsing milestones of 165M+ Firefox users.
Firefox, Mozilla's non-profit browser with 165M+ users, was seeing a year-end retention drop as people upgraded devices but didn't reinstall Firefox. The goal: design an experience that celebrates users and their browsing habits, nudging them to keep Firefox in their ecosystem across new devices. I led market research into existing campaigns, designed a dedicated visual language, and collaborated on motion design to make the moments feel dynamic and celebratory.
Why a year-end campaign?
A Firefox designer put together a playful browsing recap for Mozilla employees — and it was a hit. Spotting the potential, Firefox wanted to expand it to users as a memorable, feel-good moment that keeps them coming back.
All year, people click, scroll, search, and move on. A year-end recap pauses that autopilot and turns quiet usage into a story: “here’s everything you did.” These recaps quietly turn product usage into free marketing — people share their stats and the brand travels with them, lifting engagement, retention, and ultimately revenue without feeling like a hard sell.
The brief: design a delightfully memorable moment that celebrates key moments in a user’s browsing journey, personalized just for them, powered by on-device data to fully align with Firefox’s privacy-first values.
Tackling the challenge: scope
“Browsing” touches almost everything a person does online — unlike music-only or fitness-only recaps. Turning such a wide, messy behavior space into a clear, meaningful story without feeling generic became the core challenge.
Research and brainstorming helped cut through the chaos and frame a focused narrative: User Research + Market Research + Brainstorming Content.
Research focus (UX): Firefox brand and values, available user data, churn factors, Gen Z values and expectations, cross-platform browsing habits. (Details of research are under NDA.)
Market research — the OG year-end campaigns. Studying Spotify Wrapped and others surfaced the drivers of success: visual richness and interactivity, thoughtful and humorous storytelling without evoking negative emotions, and personalization that creates a strong connection with the product.
Design strategy
Because browsing touches almost everything people do online, we were intentional about what the recap showed: keep it tight, avoid negative or shame-y moments, respect privacy, and highlight stats that feel genuinely celebratory, not overwhelming.
Content buckets explored: Bookmarks, Add-ons, Search type, Work, Shopping, Tabs, Browsing Patterns, Top Sites, Time Frames, Unique Searches, Entertainment, Social Media, Browsing characters, Peak browsing times, Travel, Features.
Building the storyline
Storytelling was core. I shaped loose data points into storylines — layering in humor and punchlines and defining a strong opening hook and satisfying climax — to keep people watching till the end so they leave with real insight and a smile.
Hook → Inciting Incident → Climax → Resolution
The arc: connect the user with Firefox → Firefox tabs → timeframe & website stats → top categories → top 3 searches → a shareable card.
Designing the visuals
Firefox’s brand values were carried by a visual language of shapes: soft, fluid forms suggested openness and inclusivity, while more structured, enclosed shapes signaled privacy and security. The brand palette was applied across shapes, typography, and motion so the entire experience felt distinctly Firefox.
The concept — “Wall of Web”: the internet framed as an infinite grid, but only some squares are yours. Those become your stars, each representing a moment from your browsing journey.
Playing with motion
Motion did a lot of the heavy lifting: guiding the eye, pacing the story, and giving each stat a small moment of celebration. As a first-time motion-heavy project, it was both exciting and a big step up in understanding how timing and easing shape the whole experience.
Testing & evaluation
This wasn’t a flow that benefits from classic testing methods. I focused on emotional and ethical fit: does the recap evoke the intended feelings, does anything trigger privacy concerns, and how comfortable are people actually sharing it?
My approach — reflective experience testing: show participants the video uninterrupted, observe expressions and offhand comments in real time, then follow up with a short survey on how it made them feel, any privacy concerns, and likelihood to share.
Emotions evoked: Nostalgia, Curiosity, Fun, Excitement, Clarity. Results: 92% satisfaction, 98% NPS — validating emotional connection, reinstall intent, and shareability.
How I grew as a designer
- Dealing with ambiguity — ambiguity shifted from blocker to raw material; I built a muscle for framing fuzzy asks into clear problem spaces and leading the room to a confident decision.
- Curiosity toward other aspects of design — this opened up motion, storytelling, and visual language as real playgrounds, making it feel natural to pick up new tools and own more of the end-to-end experience, not just UX flows.