Hi Stéphane, 

Congrats on this achievement! Do keep us posted on how the new app works out. This new mini-version is definitely a very interesting concept to test out.

Abrazo,

Jorge

On Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 12:38 AM, Stephane Coillet-Matillon <stephane@kiwix.org> wrote:

[Cross-post]

A quick note to announce that Kiwix released this morning a new version of the Wikimed App called Wikimed Mini [1]. It basically complements the earlier app in that it is 90% smaller and should therefore make it easier to download and store by users who need it most (50% of installs for the English version happen on the Indian subcontinent; for the French one, 80% are in Africa).

But apart from this PSA I wanted to share the thinking that went behind the design of this particular app, as I’ve been told it could be of interest to this list:

There basically were three reasons for this "mini" version:

1. When connectivity is an issue, size does matter. If you look at the 20+ main offline medical apps out there, you'll see that they all range in the 25-40Mb (the largest being 120Mb). Several of them have 1M+ downloads, and even if I am no physician I'd say their content is rather minimal and that WP content is far better: yet people download the other, smaller apps rather than our gigantic, all-encompassing 1.2 Gb one;

2. You may have heard that thing about 60% of mobile readers not going past the Lead section [2]. We did too, and took the drastic step of removing everything below that - basically keeping only the lead part and infobox. That saved us about 60%;

3. Then we looked at what was left and figured that infobox illustrations weren't that helpful: either because they look good but are not very informative, or because if they are in fact informative offline limitations make it impossible to see more than a thumbnail. Don't get me wrong: the ability to see high-res images comes high on the list of requests, but a choice was to be made and that one was a low-hanging fruit. So we removed the illustations as well, and now we're left with a 90% smaller app.

In spite of its size, the current Wikimed is rated higher (4.7) and kept longer (75% retention at D30) that most apps (4.2/20%, respectively on average): we’ll keep you posted on how the new app fares in comparison to that.

Cheers,

Stephane

[1]  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.kiwix.kiwixcustomwikimedmini 

[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Which_parts_of_an_article_do_readers_read 

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Jorge Vargas
Head of Strategic Partnerships - LATAM
Wikimedia Foundation

jvargas@wikimedia.org

+1 415.404.9536

Skype: jorge.a.vargas.p

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