Hi folks,
I just did 3 quick user-tests of the new mobile site layout with some Android testers. I've got another 3 tests with iPhone users pending. The mobile testing feature of usertesting.com is pretty fun & useful, and I would strongly encourage constant use, especially when we deploy any significant change to production. It's good for usability testing, and it can also occasionally surface some nasty bugs that we've not been able to capture locally or in the wild.
The one downside is that it doesn't seem to give you very detailed device info, or indeed any device info. All I see in the tester profile is "Android", which is pretty useless for debugging. I've asked them if more detailed info is accessible somehow and will let you know.
Here are my test videos from the Android test. I've added annotations to each one for some notable moments.
https://accounts.usertesting.com/TestResults.aspx?l6e6u3t7y8i6t3f6
Highlights/summary:
1) It's really frustrating for users when the search essentially just gives up on anything that's not an exact match. One user repeatedly tried to do full text search, but was confused by the search button (the magnifying glass) disappearing in full-screen mode (it gets replaced by the "X" that clears the search field). She expected the search button to perform a full text search, and accidentally cleared her search instead by tapping the "X" button.
2) Although it's not articulated verbally by the testers, 2 of 3 have problems tapping the tiny "Desktop | Mobile" switcher, especially given that it's so close to the "Terms of Use" link. We should really consider increasing the font size here somewhat as they're extremely hard to tap at the small font size.
3) One tester, using what looks like an early gen Android phone, is having serious trouble with the section expand/collapse on a medium-sized page. Here's a clip specifically of that experience:
https://accounts.usertesting.com/ViewClip.aspx?file=iZFnw8acTqMBOpi11hrVow%3...
Notice how it collapses the sections waaaay into his reading experience. Is this a known issue on slower/older phones? If so perhaps we can degrade a bit more gracefully on those devices.
4) All testers point out the missing infoboxes in the mobile version, and two explicitly name it as something they want (one tester says that she was looking up someone's birthdate earlier the same day, and was not able to find it due to the collapsed infobox). This appears to be a current bug in production, filed at https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=36627
5) One tester used swipe gestures to type, which really does not interact well with our search box. Not sure we can do much about that one, except that at least with one of his attempts it could have brought up a "Did you mean" suggestion.
I enjoyed one tester's attempts to use voice input. :) It's also nice to see the different type of corrections people attempt to do with different input method.
Hope this is useful; will follow up with iPhone results shortly.
All best, Erik