Hello.
The usability beta has been tried out by over 570,000 users across all Wikimedia projects and roughly 80% of those beta users continue using it [1]. As for Commons, about 7,500 users tried out the beta as of end of February and 86% of users are still using it. The usability team is planning to roll out the current beta interface including the new toolbar as the default interface in April and May; please refer to these blogs for more details.[2][3]
As the acceptance rate of the beta by Commons users is relatively high, we would like to make the switch for Commons at first in the second week of April. In order to facilitate the transition and to avoid critical issues, we would like to ask as many of you as possible to try Beta before that date, so that most issues are discovered and fixed before we go default. You can opt-in via the 'Try Beta' link at the top of your interface.
We appreciate that Commons heavily relies on custom user scripts and site-specific JavaScript; Our changes are not especially related to multimedia usability, but we need your help to make sure the most used tools are compatible with the new interface. If you encounter issues using the beta, please share your feedback on the dedicated page [4].
Many thanks in advance.
Naoko Komura and the User Experience Programs Team Wikimedia Foundation
[1] http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Beta_Feedback_Survey [2] http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/03/25/wikimedia-gets-ready-for-some-big-chang... [3] http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/03/the-change-in-interface-is-coming/ [4] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Usability_issues_and_ideas
On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 11:48 PM, Naoko Komura nkomura@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello.
The usability beta has been tried out by over 570,000 users across all Wikimedia projects and roughly 80% of those beta users continue using it [1].
Hello Naoko. I believe the 80% number is failing to account for users which have responded to the beta by logging out and simply not logging back in.
While I do not intend to suggest that there is anything wrong with the beta— since non-logged-in users were solicited and most people have no cause to log into the wikimedia projects, I expect any metric generated by counting the preference would be incredibly inflated and 80% may, in fact be a very low number indicating a serious problem. To the extent that this is worth measuring, it's probably worth measuring correctly.
On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 9:01 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 11:48 PM, Naoko Komura nkomura@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello.
The usability beta has been tried out by over 570,000 users across all Wikimedia projects and roughly 80% of those beta users continue using it [1].
Hello Naoko. I believe the 80% number is failing to account for users which have responded to the beta by logging out and simply not logging back in.
While I do not intend to suggest that there is anything wrong with the beta— since non-logged-in users were solicited and most people have no cause to log into the wikimedia projects, I expect any metric generated by counting the preference would be incredibly inflated and 80% may, in fact be a very low number indicating a serious problem. To the extent that this is worth measuring, it's probably worth measuring correctly.
Hello, Gregory.
I agree that our data is not perfect. We had a similar concern back in October, so we asked Erik Zachte to provide us the stats on newly created accounts. We could not find any significant activities in account creation, so we did not dig deeper.
This is the chart of newly created accounts for English Wikipedia last year. The beta started on August 6. Please ignore the October column, as it is incomplete due to the cut-off date, which happened before the end of the month.
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Newly_created_accounts_from_Jan_to_...
Although there was an increase in account creation for roughly 20,000 accounts in the month of August and September, this increase does not look significant compare to the account creation increase earlier in 2009.
I also would like to supplement that average retention rate is cumulative.[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:PrefStats/skin&inc=672
[1] If you look at the retention rate in daily or weekly span, the opt-out rate is a lot higher. Opting out happens significantly within the first four weeks even within the day. However, the monthly retention rate does not show significant variance from culumative retention rate. http://biturl.cc/Jpr (Second sheet)
While there is no concrete evidence that users who created new accounts in order to try out the beta actually opt-out or just log out, the number who opted out from the beta is close to 40,000 users in the last four weeks (the number here is for English Wikipedia only). Even If we make an extreme assumption that the account creation increase (20,000 observed in August and September in 2009) was due to the beta trial, there is another 20,000 beta users who actually opt-out even under this extreme scenario.
So although the most recent account creation stats and Commons specific statistics for the account creation are needed, I am inclined to say that explict opting out from the beta is significant enough that beta users who created accounts just to try out the beta and stopped using it by logging out instead of opting out, does not require significant attention. I agree we can make the data more precise if we tracked the IP or http sesion data. But as this survey is meant for the short term, I hope the rough analysis is acceptable.
Thank you for the great question. My brain is twisted and exhausted now. :-)
- Naoko
Hello.
A quick update: The deployment of the new interface takes place at 06:00 UTC on April 6. (11pm PDT, April 5)
Updates during the deployment will be posted at twitter with the hashtag #wmvector
The questions and answers pages is still evolving, but the discussion page is dedicated to capture issues we couldn't surface from the conversations through the village pump and administrators' noticeboard.
http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/What%27s_new,_questions_and_answers
Administrators are putting together a site notice in multiple languages. If you speak a language other than English, German and French, please help out.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Sitenotice#Interface_change
Thanks!
- Naoko
On Thu, Mar 25, 2010 at 8:48 PM, Naoko Komura nkomura@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello.
The usability beta has been tried out by over 570,000 users across all Wikimedia projects and roughly 80% of those beta users continue using it [1]. As for Commons, about 7,500 users tried out the beta as of end of February and 86% of users are still using it. The usability team is planning to roll out the current beta interface including the new toolbar as the default interface in April and May; please refer to these blogs for more details.[2][3]
As the acceptance rate of the beta by Commons users is relatively high, we would like to make the switch for Commons at first in the second week of April. In order to facilitate the transition and to avoid critical issues, we would like to ask as many of you as possible to try Beta before that date, so that most issues are discovered and fixed before we go default. You can opt-in via the 'Try Beta' link at the top of your interface.
We appreciate that Commons heavily relies on custom user scripts and site-specific JavaScript; Our changes are not especially related to multimedia usability, but we need your help to make sure the most used tools are compatible with the new interface. If you encounter issues using the beta, please share your feedback on the dedicated page [4].
Many thanks in advance.
Naoko Komura and the User Experience Programs Team Wikimedia Foundation
[1] http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Beta_Feedback_Survey [2] http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/03/25/wikimedia-gets-ready-for-some-big-chang... [3] http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/03/the-change-in-interface-is-coming/ [4] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Usability_issues_and_ideas
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