I'm conducting some usability testing for TWA, as part of an IEG grant and also for a Coursera course on Human-Computer Interaction Design. I thought I'd share the highlights with this list. The second interview has some feedback on the new Getting Started flow. --Jake (Ocaasi)

INTERVIEW ONE

Thoughts on vandalism in articles: "You know it's going to be fixed eventually."

If you edit: "I'm kind of old, using Wikipedia for a long time, not like I can interact with it...It's like an encyclopedia for me. I know I can edit it, but..."

What you'd fix: Wouldn't fix a joke (vandalism) but would fix an error

Sign-up: "Creating an account annoys me"

Userpage: "Creating a userpage is confusing"

First impression: "I could totally get obsessed with this. This could definitely suck me in. This could be bad."

Reliability: "If you look it up [the citation] you find out--it's real. My little sister and brother can use Wikipedia [in school]

Likelihood you'd edit in the next week knowing what you know now (1-10): 8

Could you figure it out on your own: "I'm not that tech savvy. I'm not a computer person. I'm not that confident...I feel like I'm smart enough to edit it. Unsure what would happen if I clicked edit...uncertainty."

-25 year old male from Philadelphia suburbs

INTERVIEW TWO

How you knew you could edit: "Because it's Wikipedia"

Would you edit: "A huge amount of motivation would be needed to edit it" Not a typo, not an incomplete section, not an incorrect fact, not bias about a subject or about a topic of interest. "Only an article that impacted me personally, my company or product...something I'm personally invested in. "I'm generally a lurker."

Expectations: "I would hope that it's easy to edit."

Register an account: "I wouldn't read the sign-up instructions. I'd read as little as necessary." Username was already taken but no warning was given. "Captcha is annoying. I've seen better login flows."

Getting started tour: It doesn't mention the word edit, or 'here's how you can help'. Doesn't feel like an invitation to edit or participate.

Creating a userpage: Clicked the [start userpage link]. "Legal jargon" at the top, looks like "nothing vulgar or obscene and anything you put on Wikipedia is up for grabs for anyone". Notice the 'html' tags when bolding a word. Would prefer a WYSIWY editor. "It feels like it could reassure me a little bit along the way. I'm not confused but I'm more engaged than I want to be. It's forcing me to pay attention and to read directions. I'm mildly disappointed in the interface. It's not the worst thing in the world. It's eh, meh. It's not like I'm going to break up with you, but... I'm not sure how long this is going to last."

Searching for a user's talk page: Search for username leads to articles not userpages. Forced to explore the navigation options. "At this point I'm lost in the abyss. This is stupid."

Leaving a message on a user talk page: "Again I'm becoming confused. I expect a "message button or a send button or a compose button." Tried the [edit] link leading to the full page markup: "I don't feel welcome here. This feels insane." Went back to talk page. "I would like to redesign this thing. 'New section' is not working for me. Put a 'send' button near the username, or at the bottom. I'm comparing this to an email model but I want this to operate like a blog comments section."

Signing a post: "In a million years would never have found the [~~~~] instructions. Tried to sign using markup format with ~~~~ on both sides of the text. Previewed to see that it led to a double signature and removed one. "Having to sign your own posts is ne more thing that you'd say, 'Why hasn't [Wikipedia] figured that out yet."

Article talk pages: "The talk page header makes me feel like something went wrong....I see that this is not a discussion about content but about *improving* the content. But getting that out of this was like pulling teeth". "I have no idea what 'no original research means'... oh, it's giving me instructions, guidelines."

On NPOV policy page: "I would go for the nutshell... 'objectivity' should be the goal.

How feasible would it be to do this without a guide: "Someone would have to pay me to get as far as I did. Makes me thing this is some sort of non-profit thing that doesn't have resources to dive deeply into their UX.

On lack of advertisements: Prefer banner donations to "super annoying ads watching me and tracking me. Non-profit makes it a more "trustworthy 'brand'".

-20 to 30 year old male from New York