On Tue, Apr 15, 2014 at 7:12 PM, Steven Walling <steven.walling(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
On Tue, Apr 15, 2014 at 9:59 AM, Gergo Tisza
<gtisza(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
- instead of guessing about user preferences,
you could just create a
simple survey which shows them the same text with two different font
stacks
side by side, and ask them which is more readable. This is good for
making
aesthetic decisions more objective, and also for catching weird issues
with
old machines, CJK fonts etc: you can add a comment field to the
survey,
and
if the browser is sufficiently modern to support canvas elements, you
can
even save a snapshot if the rendered text; you can skim through the
survey
replies which are different from what you have expected, and look for
display problems.
Are you volunteering to build such a survey tool? ;-)
We don't have a powerful/easy to use/not annoying/privacy-respecting survey
tool that can do side-by-side comparisons. This is why the feature was
launched using Beta Features for five months first. Putting out in opt-in
mode and gathering feedback via the channels we have now is the most
efficient way to make a change that doesn't have a big WMF team assigned to
like Multimedia or VisualEditor.
When it comes to using a survey to catch problems early and gauging
preferences, a survey still very much suffers from the self-selection bias
that all opt-in options have. It's just the name of the game. When you move
something from opt-in to opt-out you reach a wider audience and encounter
new complaints/questions/bugs.
What would be a good design for such a survey? Would it be a good idea to
ask surveyees which scripts they regularly read, and for each of those
scripts prepare a bit of text, including hard parts (combining characters
and the such), style it with fontx, sans-serif, and ask questions about the
qualities we are looking for?
If so, what would be the questions to ask? When I read the former tests,
base questions seem to be
* How would you rate the readability of this font?
very/completely unreadable - somewhat unreadable - not specifically
readable or unreadable - well readable - very well readable
* How would you rate the neutrality of this font? (I don't really know what
this means exactly, so a different phrasing is probably better, maybe
something like "do you think this font has a specific style", where less is
better?)
Very neutral/not a specific style at all - somewhat neutral/no of a
specific style - not neutral or non neutral/not much of a specific style -
somewhat non-neutral/a somewhat specific style - very non-neutral/a very
specific style/you just showed me papyrus
* Does this font look authoritative?
Very authoritative - somewhat authoritative - neither authoritative nor
non-authoritative - not very authoritative - not authoritative at all/I
just told you you're showing me papyrus
* Does this font seem to render correctly?
yes - no
Is testing like this a road we want to go down at all? If so, is this
specific format a good idea? Can we improve this idea to make it good?
I don't mind making this in the weekend if it is a good idea.
--Martijn
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