[WikiEN-l] "About Wikipedia" in navigation sidebar

[William Pietri]

Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 2/11/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:
>   
>> At least in my professional life, I'd user-test all of the suggestions
>> to see how they play in Peoria. Then the ones that passed that I'd to
>> A/B testing with a modest percent of the traffic to see which ones were
>> clearly better by the numbers.
>>     
>
> I'd be wary of applying the results of testing on smaller wikis
> directly to Wikipedia. In this case, "Recent changes" probably
> performs much better on smaller wikis.
>   

Sorry if I wasn't clear; I'm suggesting doing typical user testing, 
where you use the real thing or simulations as close as you can get. I 
agree that smaller wikis may not be good substitutes.

>> Historically, are either of those things done with Wikipedia?
>>     
>
> Usability testing on Wikipedia? Not that I know of.
>   

Interesting. Is that a conscious choice? Or more a historical habit?

Thanks,

William