If we strongly feel that VE is the future of wikipedia and are making it
the default editor than we should be consistent at an article or section
level.
The thing that I feel is paralysis of choice, we already have enough users
that don't understand the concept of editing much less the confidence to go
edit. I think that Visual Editor goes a long way to help reduce the fear
associated with editing. We will be taking a step back if we make the user
decide between two methods of editing, increasing the steps and cognitive
barrier to editing.
I've quickly mocked up 3 options based on a conversation we had in the UX
group for placement of a single edit action, that would point to the
default editor environment for the user. The last one would be better if
the left margin on the body copy was a bit wider.
[image: Inline image 1]
To address the issue of users wanting choice, I would postpone that choice
rather than making it a barrier into the edit environment.
A quick sketch of access point for opening the wikitext editor from within
the visual editor environment.
[image: Inline image 2]
By deemphasizing wikitext editor we both send the clear message about our
intentions to have VE be the default edit environment.
Again, in this particular instance I think choice, even though requested by
some users is antithetical to our overall goals of a seamless experience
for getting users, especially new users between read and edit environments.
*
*
*
*
*Jared Zimmerman * \\ Director of User Experience \\ Wikimedia
Foundation
M : +1 415 609 4043 | : @JaredZimmerman<https://twitter.com/JaredZimmerman>
On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 9:40 AM, Trevor Parscal <tparscal(a)wikimedia.org>wrote;wrote:
VisualEditor has the option to take over section edit
links. We find this
is probably going to be unpopular for people who want to at least sometimes
edit wikitext, but don't want to loose them as VisualEditor users. After
discussing a few different options, including showing both links (really
cluttered and horribly long in some languages) and using icons (no icon
would really convey what we want here).
We have decided that it's probably best to make the edit link show an
alternative in a menu on hover. There's a prototype of this (somewhere)
that MatmaRex has hacked together (screenshot attached) which is close. I
mocked something up that is similar but perhaps a little better looking.
Max brings up a good point about my mockup, which is that it doesn't quite
fit with other vector-isms. Given that Vector is something we want to
evolve, we shouldn't get too caught up in that, but it's something worth
considering since deviation from what vector is today should probably only
be done if it's in the direction of what Vector should be in the future.
I'm hoping that others on the list could perhaps make suggestions, offer
ideas, make simple mockups or prototypes and help make this feature as good
as possible.
We need to have this solved quickly since we are releasing in a couple of
weeks.
- Trevor
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