Hi folks,

I am happy to announce that we have just released a first round of improvements to Media Viewer, based on community feedback.

The goal for these improvements is to make Media Viewer easier to use by readers and casual editors, our primary target users for this tool. 

To that end, we created a new 'minimal design’, with these features:
* "More Details” button: a more prominent link to the File: page

* separate icons for “Download" and "Share or Embed" features

* an easier way to enlarge images by clicking on them

* a simpler metadata panel with fewer items

* faster image load with thumbnail pre-rendering

These features are now live on Wikimedia Commons and sister projects (1), and will be deployed on all Wikipedias this Thursday by 20:00 UTC.

Next, we plan to work on these other improvements:

* an easier way to disable Media Viewer for personal use

* a caption or description right below the image

Learn more about these features on the Media Viewer Improvements page (2). They are based on findings from our recent community consultation (3) and ongoing user research (4). For more information, visit the Help FAQ page (5).

Please let us know what you think of these new features on the Media Viewer talk page (6). 

We would like to thank all the community members who suggested these improvements. Our research suggests that they offer a better user experience, that is both clearer and simpler -- and that clarifies the relationship between Media Viewer and the File: description page. 

We will send another update in October, once the next round of improvements has been released.

Onward!

Fabrice and the Multimedia Team

(1) Pictures of the Day on Commons: 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_day#mediaviewer/File:Erithacus_rubecula_with_cocked_head.jpg

(2) Improvements page:

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/Media_Viewer/Improvements

(3) Community suggestions:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement_(Product)/Media_Viewer_consultation

(4) User Research:

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Media_Viewer_Research_Round_2_(August_2014)

(5) Help page:

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Multimedia/Media_Viewer

(6) Talk page:

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Multimedia/About_Media_Viewer#Media_Viewer_Update:_First_Improvements

_______________________________

Fabrice Florin

Product Manager, Multimedia

Wikimedia Foundation

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin_(WMF)

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