Hello!
I recently made a "book" via the PediaPress Book Creator[1] prior to my trip to India, and it has been delightful to use and read on the flight and in my hotel room here. It had been awhile since I tried to make one, and I wanted to say great work and good job to PediaPress! Also, the integration with Kiwix was wonderful, and I love that it now shows up so seamlessly in my "Library" within Kiwix.
I am not sure if you are aware, but in the recent Readership survey of Wikipedia readers (from Sept 2011, which is only just now being analyzed), the *number one request by readers was saving of articles for offline use (as a PDF): *40% of readers said they would be MORE LIKELY to use Wikipedia if such a service was available (note: this % is even higher in target areas like India (50%) and Brazil (52%).* *This is fascinating, for it shows that we (a) have a broader desire for offline content than just those without Internet access, and (b) indicates there is great opportunity for marketing the "Book Creator" tool. * * I want to discuss the points needed to get to (b). The Book Creator tool is great, and I think is the exact right type of tool to meet the needs of our readers; but there is much room for improvements. Right now, I personally find the experience getting to and from the Book Creator tool to be not as straight forward as would be most beneficial. As this service has such a huge demand, I think there are some opportunities for the refining of the "book creator" tool and process. I'd love thoughts on the following and more:
- *Rebranding: *What are our thoughts on the title "Book Creator"? I wonder if the title itself is a bit confusing, since people are apparently unaware of the ability to download as PDF at all! Plus, I personally don't utilize the tools as a means for creating an actual book, though I recognize this was the initial purpose: I view it as a way to read a couple specific articles offline. I think using the word "collection," which we do informally anyway, is likely more appropriate here. Perhaps "Offline Collection Creator" or "Article Aggregator" (both terrible ideas, I know, but I'm just throwing things out there:)) - *Website placement: *I think it is obvious the space the Book Creator takes on the Left Hand tool bar is not enough to draw attention to the feature. I wonder if we should attempt to have some sort of a "Save for Offline Use" button on each article, which would then open a new window into the collection creator screen? This could look similar to the "Share this" links which exist on most information websites (for Facebook, Twitter, email, etc.). This could be next to the "Print" button. - *Marketing: *Once we feel a bit more confident about usability, it would be great to market the tool. We can do this in three phases: - Phase 1: emails to different mailing lists announcing the project, and asking for suggestions and feedback on the tools - Phase 2: "pilot" testing of the tool, with banner advertising to logged-in users - Phase 3: advertise this functionality via a banner at the top of Wikipedia! - *Measurement*: clearly, we should have careful tracking of *books created* and *downloads by file type* by day. @PediaPress: is this available yet?
I have some other ideas as well, but wanted to throw these out there for some immediate reactions. What are people's thoughts? Any other ideas? Anyone good with website design who could help with rearranging of the "Book Creator"?? :)
Looking forward to the discussion (which should be moved onto a wiki soon) - Jessie
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Book&bookcmd=book_crea...
On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 1:00 PM, Jessie Wild jwild@wikimedia.org wrote:
I am not sure if you are aware, but in the recent Readership survey of Wikipedia readers (from Sept 2011, which is only just now being analyzed), the *number one request by readers was saving of articles for offline use (as a PDF): *
Whoops - quick correction: it's the #2 request (but still 40%)[1]
[1] http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/11/05/search-translation-tools-for-readers/
Hi all,
thank you very much for this initiative, Jessie :-) Here at PediaPress, we have been thinking about ways to improve the Book creator / collection extension for quite some time and there are clearly a lot of things we can (and should) do better. Let's get this started...
Am 21.11.2011 um 08:30 schrieb Jessie Wild:
I want to discuss the points needed to get to (b). The Book Creator tool is great, and I think is the exact right type of tool to meet the needs of our readers; but there is much room for improvements. Right now, I personally find the experience getting to and from the Book Creator tool to be not as straight forward as would be most beneficial. As this service has such a huge demand, I think there are some opportunities for the refining of the "book creator" tool and process. I'd love thoughts on the following and more: Rebranding: What are our thoughts on the title "Book Creator"? I wonder if the title itself is a bit confusing, since people are apparently unaware of the ability to download as PDF at all! Plus, I personally don't utilize the tools as a means for creating an actual book, though I recognize this was the initial purpose: I view it as a way to read a couple specific articles offline. I think using the word "collection," which we do informally anyway, is likely more appropriate here. Perhaps "Offline Collection Creator" or "Article Aggregator" (both terrible ideas, I know, but I'm just throwing things out there:))
The title "Book Creator" is not carved in stone. We played around with other wordings like "save for reading later". But I think the collection feature needs more than better wording.
Website placement: I think it is obvious the space the Book Creator takes on the Left Hand tool bar is not enough to draw attention to the feature. I wonder if we should attempt to have some sort of a "Save for Offline Use" button on each article, which would then open a new window into the collection creator screen? This could look similar to the "Share this" links which exist on most information websites (for Facebook, Twitter, email, etc.). This could be next to the "Print" button.
I totally agree with you that the space in the left hand tool bar is far from ideal. Moreover, the whole process for starting the "Book creator" is too cumbersome and wordy. How about something like the feedback box that could appear on the bottom of every page? But of course it would be nicer to have something that appears "above the fold".
So far I was not aware that there was a "Print" button in Wikipedia (new skin?). If such a button existed, it would probably also be a great place for the functionality.
Marketing: Once we feel a bit more confident about usability, it would be great to market the tool. We can do this in three phases: Phase 1: emails to different mailing lists announcing the project, and asking for suggestions and feedback on the tools
We could set up a little project team that takes the input from the community and creates some ui prototypes. Usually, you get more qualified feedback if you confront users with a wireframe or a rough draft. When we feel confident about the basic design we could implement the new features and go for tests with a wider audience just as you suggested.
Phase 2: "pilot" testing of the tool, with banner advertising to logged-in users Phase 3: advertise this functionality via a banner at the top of Wikipedia!
That would be great! But we should only do this, once we have a better UI in place. Otherwise it would be just a flash in the pan.
Measurement: clearly, we should have careful tracking of books created and downloads by file type by day. @PediaPress: is this available yet?
There are a few reports that are easily available (like total number of downloads) and some that are a little more difficult to retrieve (like downloads by file type). But so far none of this is available in public repositories. I think we should implement a reporting infrastructure where everybody can check the usage statistics (similar to http://stats.grok.se/). But before we set up a reporting system we should decide what our goals for the redesign are and how we could measure them.
I have some other ideas as well, but wanted to throw these out there for some immediate reactions. What are people's thoughts? Any other ideas? Anyone good with website design who could help with rearranging of the "Book Creator"?? :)
I would love to work on this project. Just as I said before - let's get this started... :-)
Best, Christoph
Looking forward to the discussion (which should be moved onto a wiki soon) - Jessie
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Book&bookcmd=book_crea... _______________________________________________ Offline-l mailing list Offline-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/offline-l
- *Website placement: *I think it is obvious the space the Book
Creator takes on the Left Hand tool bar is not enough to draw attention to the feature. I wonder if we should attempt to have some sort of a "Save for Offline Use" button on each article, which would then open a new window into the collection creator screen? This could look similar to the "Share this" links which exist on most information websites (for Facebook, Twitter, email, etc.). This could be next to the "Print" button.
I totally agree with you that the space in the left hand tool bar is far from ideal. Moreover, the whole process for starting the "Book creator" is too cumbersome and wordy. How about something like the feedback box that could appear on the bottom of every page? But of course it would be nicer to have something that appears "above the fold".
So far I was not aware that there was a "Print" button in Wikipedia (new skin?). If such a button existed, it would probably also be a great place for the functionality.
No button exists yet; I meant the "Print" button which appears on a lot of
other websites (though not ours at this time).
- *Marketing: *Once we feel a bit more confident about usability, it
would be great to market the tool. We can do this in three phases: - Phase 1: emails to different mailing lists announcing the project, and asking for suggestions and feedback on the tools
We could set up a little project team that takes the input from the community and creates some ui prototypes. Usually, you get more qualified feedback if you confront users with a wireframe or a rough draft. When we feel confident about the basic design we could implement the new features and go for tests with a wider audience just as you suggested.
I like this idea. It would be great if we could set up a space - maybe on MediaWiki.org - where we could flesh this out as a community. It would be great if you could take the lead on getting this set-up and sending all updates to this mailing list! Those of us most interested in being part of the input team could watch the pages on MediaWiki and contribute to this space. I think on this space we could also collaborate on the best workflow, as Emmanuel suggested.
One thing Tomasz shared with me today is a UI project they are doing for Mobile WIkipedia. They have a space called "Athena" set-up where they are doing some prototypes. This is the sort of model I mean: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Athena
- *Measurement*: clearly, we should have careful tracking of *books
created* and *downloads by file type* by day. @PediaPress: is this available yet?
There are a few reports that are easily available (like total number of downloads) and some that are a little more difficult to retrieve (like downloads by file type). But so far none of this is available in public repositories. I think we should implement a reporting infrastructure where everybody can check the usage statistics (similar to http://stats.grok.se/ ). But before we set up a reporting system we should decide what our goals for the redesign are and how we could measure them.
Good point. But it would also be useful to get some relevant statistics now, to help inform what the user experience actually IS? What stats do we have that could inform this?
I would love to work on this project. Just as I said before - let's get
this started... :-)
Awesome! I hope others are excited and interested as well. This tool has *huge* potential to bring more information to people around the world!
Jessie
Hi all,
Am 01.12.2011 um 23:05 schrieb Jessie Wild:
Marketing: Once we feel a bit more confident about usability, it would be great to market the tool. We can do this in three phases: Phase 1: emails to different mailing lists announcing the project, and asking for suggestions and feedback on the tools
We could set up a little project team that takes the input from the community and creates some ui prototypes. Usually, you get more qualified feedback if you confront users with a wireframe or a rough draft. When we feel confident about the basic design we could implement the new features and go for tests with a wider audience just as you suggested.
I like this idea. It would be great if we could set up a space - maybe on MediaWiki.org - where we could flesh this out as a community. It would be great if you could take the lead on getting this set-up and sending all updates to this mailing list! Those of us most interested in being part of the input team could watch the pages on MediaWiki and contribute to this space. I think on this space we could also collaborate on the best workflow, as Emmanuel suggested.
I created a space on MediaWiki.org where I fleshed out my/our ideas for a new version of the collection extension. The page contains: - an analysis of ~250 days of collection usage (based on HTTP logs), - a little discussion of the collection metaphor, - suggestions for a new user flow, and - some wireframes for a new collection extension.
Your comments and feedback are highly appreciated. I hope that our efforts will lead to a much more accessible and useful collection/offline feature. What do you think?
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Collection_Extension_2
Best, Christoph
Thanks for posting this, Cristoph! I just left some more feedback. It would be great to hear from others on this list as well! http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Collection_Extension_2
Jessie
On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 12:40 PM, Christoph Kepper < christoph.kepper@pediapress.com> wrote:
Hi all,
Am 01.12.2011 um 23:05 schrieb Jessie Wild:
- *Marketing: *Once we feel a bit more confident about usability, it
would be great to market the tool. We can do this in three phases: - Phase 1: emails to different mailing lists announcing the project, and asking for suggestions and feedback on the tools
We could set up a little project team that takes the input from the community and creates some ui prototypes. Usually, you get more qualified feedback if you confront users with a wireframe or a rough draft. When we feel confident about the basic design we could implement the new features and go for tests with a wider audience just as you suggested.
I like this idea. It would be great if we could set up a space - maybe on MediaWiki.org - where we could flesh this out as a community. It would be great if you could take the lead on getting this set-up and sending all updates to this mailing list! Those of us most interested in being part of the input team could watch the pages on MediaWiki and contribute to this space. I think on this space we could also collaborate on the best workflow, as Emmanuel suggested.
I created a space on MediaWiki.org where I fleshed out my/our ideas for a new version of the collection extension. The page contains:
- an analysis of ~250 days of collection usage (based on HTTP logs),
- a little discussion of the collection metaphor,
- suggestions for a new user flow, and
- some wireframes for a new collection extension.
Your comments and feedback are highly appreciated. I hope that our efforts will lead to a much more accessible and useful collection/offline feature. What do you think?
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Collection_Extension_2
Best, Christoph
-- Christoph Kepper PediaPress GmbH Boppstraße 64 55118 Mainz Phone: +49 (0)6131 3271809
Offline-l mailing list Offline-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/offline-l
On 01/02/2012 20:28, Jessie Wild wrote:
Thanks for posting this, Cristoph! I just left some more feedback. It would be great to hear from others on this list as well! http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Collection_Extension_2
I'm really late... but I finally took time to read this proposal. I have only one word: Great!
I agree with almost everything... I would do just one addition, we have to introduce Epub support.
What is the status of this project?
Regards Emmanuel
On 06.08.2012, at 00:38, Emmanuel Engelhart wrote:
On 01/02/2012 20:28, Jessie Wild wrote:
Thanks for posting this, Cristoph! I just left some more feedback. It would be great to hear from others on this list as well! http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Collection_Extension_2
I'm really late... but I finally took time to read this proposal. I have only one word: Great!
I agree with almost everything... I would do just one addition, we have to introduce Epub support.
What is the status of this project?
We plan to get this deployed until early September.
Heiko
On 06/08/2012 16:45, Heiko Hees wrote:
On 06.08.2012, at 00:38, Emmanuel Engelhart wrote:
On 01/02/2012 20:28, Jessie Wild wrote:
Thanks for posting this, Cristoph! I just left some more feedback. It would be great to hear from others on this list as well! http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Collection_Extension_2
I'm really late... but I finally took time to read this proposal. I have only one word: Great!
I agree with almost everything... I would do just one addition, we have to introduce Epub support.
What is the status of this project?
We plan to get this deployed until early September.
Really great! Congratulations... I'm impatient to test the new workflow.
Emmanuel
Dear Emmanuel,
Our team tried installing kiwix etc in Ubuntu 12.04. After 5 days of frustrated effort, he left it. Further, for every PC/laptop one has to repeat the process (which means I need to get 27000 iterations of this long exercise).
It has been for last two years that we are trying to provide offline wiki content to our children, but we have failed. I was told that installing is breeze on MS Windows. This was a real painful surprise for me. The likes of Google and Yahoo have done it in the past (all their innovative applications are launched for MS Windows, and then they plan for the next millennium, if possible, a migration for LInux users!!!) We all have seen and known it. I feel like saying "Eu tu, Brute?" to wikimedia at this point of time.
Could somebody come up with a solutions. We have lost the chance this time. may be hoping something better next time, if there is going to be one... Yours, MK Yadava --------------------------- Please exchange editable Office documents only in ODF Format. No other format is acceptable. Sending such information in other formats is at your own risk. Please be assured that non ODF formats will not be opened.
To get a free editor supporting ODF, please visit http://www.openoffice.org/ --------------------------------------- Visit my blogs at http://letsbetteroursociety.blogspot.com/ ------------------------------------------------
On 06/08/2012 16:45, Heiko Hees wrote:
On 06.08.2012, at 00:38, Emmanuel Engelhart wrote:
On 01/02/2012 20:28, Jessie Wild wrote:
Thanks for posting this, Cristoph! I just left some more feedback. It would be great to hear from others on this list as well! http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Collection_Extension_2
I'm really late... but I finally took time to read this proposal. I have only one word: Great!
I agree with almost everything... I would do just one addition, we have to introduce Epub support.
What is the status of this project?
We plan to get this deployed until early September.
Really great! Congratulations... I'm impatient to test the new workflow.
Emmanuel
Offline-l mailing list Offline-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/offline-l
On 07/08/2012 02:58, M K Yadava IFS wrote:
Dear Emmanuel,
Our team tried installing kiwix etc in Ubuntu 12.04. After 5 days of frustrated effort, he left it. Further, for every PC/laptop one has to repeat the process (which means I need to get 27000 iterations of this long exercise).
It has been for last two years that we are trying to provide offline wiki content to our children, but we have failed. I was told that installing is breeze on MS Windows. This was a real painful surprise for me. The likes of Google and Yahoo have done it in the past (all their innovative applications are launched for MS Windows, and then they plan for the next millennium, if possible, a migration for LInux users!!!) We all have seen and known it. I feel like saying "Eu tu, Brute?" to wikimedia at this point of time.
Could somebody come up with a solutions. We have lost the chance this time. may be hoping something better next time, if there is going to be one... Yours, MK Yadava
Dear M K Yadava,
As indicated on the dedicated page on the Kiwix Website, Ubuntu does not provide the mandatory "xulrunner" package anymore. For this reason we do not provide anymore, at least for now, packages for recent Ubuntu releases for this reason: http://www.kiwix.org/index.php/Ubuntu_PPA
You have two options left:
* Compiling and installing Kiwix by yourself, following the standard gnu autotools approach, from the source: http://www.kiwix.org/index.php/Compilation
* Download the static compiled version (from the homepage), unpack it and start the script "kiwix". For this version, we do not have an installer (we have a feature request for that: https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=3193697&gr...). So you will have to make a small installation script on your own. If this is the key problem, I can make an effort to fix that for the next release.
As this seemed to be a particular issue, I propose you to continue this discussion privately per email or on the bug tracker.
I provide an active support to Kiwix. Please use our bug tracker our write-me directly: * http://reportabug.kiwix.org * http://requestafeature.kiwix.org
If I do not have give you the answer you needed, please tell me more about: * What you do * What you obtain * What you wanted to obtain
Regards Emmanuel
Hi Kelson
Is possible include the xulrunner in a kiwix package of ppa?
On 07/08/2012 20:02, Jorge Gonzalez wrote:
Hi Kelson
Is possible include the xulrunner in a kiwix package of ppa?
Yes. It's possible and it's what we want to do. Unfortunately, it's not so trivial to do it in the right way. If it works, we will push to move on the package in the official Ubuntu package repository (and have it installed per default on Edubuntu) like we have done with Debian.
We really need help of additional people to speed-up the integration/packaging of Kiwix in main GNU/Linux Distribution: http://www.kiwix.org/index.php/Volunteers_program#Packaging
In any case, we need to distribute an installer script for the static version. Jorge, I think you made something in the art in the past... need to have a look to your work.
Emmanuel
Dear mk yadava,
Would you be so kind to provide a little information what you mean by 1. "your children" 2. "try to provide ... for 2 years" - ubuntu 12.04 is not here that long, but already long enough to note this earlier. 3. "repeat 27000 times"
Warm regards
Rupert Am 07.08.2012 02:59 schrieb "M K Yadava IFS" md@amtron.in:
Dear Emmanuel,
Our team tried installing kiwix etc in Ubuntu 12.04. After 5 days of frustrated effort, he left it. Further, for every PC/laptop one has to repeat the process (which means I need to get 27000 iterations of this long exercise).
It has been for last two years that we are trying to provide offline wiki content to our children, but we have failed. I was told that installing is breeze on MS Windows. This was a real painful surprise for me. The likes of Google and Yahoo have done it in the past (all their innovative applications are launched for MS Windows, and then they plan for the next millennium, if possible, a migration for LInux users!!!) We all have seen and known it. I feel like saying "Eu tu, Brute?" to wikimedia at this point of time.
Could somebody come up with a solutions. We have lost the chance this time. may be hoping something better next time, if there is going to be one... Yours, MK Yadava
Please exchange editable Office documents only in ODF Format. No other format is acceptable. Sending such information in other formats is at your own risk. Please be assured that non ODF formats will not be opened.
To get a free editor supporting ODF, please visit http://www.openoffice.org/
Visit my blogs at http://letsbetteroursociety.blogspot.com/
On 06/08/2012 16:45, Heiko Hees wrote:
On 06.08.2012, at 00:38, Emmanuel Engelhart wrote:
On 01/02/2012 20:28, Jessie Wild wrote:
Thanks for posting this, Cristoph! I just left some more feedback. It would be great to hear from others on this list as well! http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Collection_Extension_2
I'm really late... but I finally took time to read this proposal. I have only one word: Great!
I agree with almost everything... I would do just one addition, we have to introduce Epub support.
What is the status of this project?
We plan to get this deployed until early September.
Really great! Congratulations... I'm impatient to test the new workflow.
Emmanuel
Offline-l mailing list Offline-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/offline-l
Offline-l mailing list Offline-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/offline-l
On 11/21/2011 01:00 PM, Jessie Wild wrote:
- *Website placement: *I think it is obvious the space the Book Creator takes on the Left Hand tool bar is not enough to draw attention to the feature. I wonder if we should attempt to have some sort of a "Save for Offline Use" button on each article, which would then open a new window into the collection creator screen? This could look similar to the "Share this" links which exist on most information websites (for Facebook, Twitter, email, etc.). This could be next to the "Print" button.
* *I agree, we could probably find a better workflow. What about something working like the "cart" in an online shop?
Steps would be: * Simply add current article do the "cart" (without exiting the page) * At the end "Print" the "cart" * Choose to defines a few things like format (PDF, ZIM, ...), Title..... * Save the file
Emmanuel
**