I like the video, Sage. Good text, crisp clear delivery, decent video appearance.
One thing I'd change is, watch again the bit around 1:25 - 1:37 covering "stuff you might want to know about before editing". A new user hearing that long list could well go "oh my god" and be discouraged. A link to a long text page like "ABOUT" has become, is also not easy for most newcomers (users here are not typical of newcomers).
Overall it's *crucial* to keep the "list of stuff to learn" easy and light. I think MediaWiki needs a built-in generic popup-and-dismiss function, so that information pages can have icons and text where more information appears only if needed (with a "close" icon), allowing lower text density.
This could be a useful resource too:- I wrote [[Wikipedia:Expectations and norms of the Wikipedia communityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Expectations_and_norms_of_the_Wikipedia_community]] as a quick attempt to explain the basis of how we work, and our norms *as a community* in concise form, in a style specifically to make sense to newcomers.
It covers almost all usual expectations and the rational foundation of the community, in a reasonable space. If it could be made even easier (less text? graphical? popups for detail?) then it could be useful material for this discussion.
FT2
On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 8:19 PM, Sage Ross ragesoss+wikipedia@gmail.comwrote:
Since it's a WMF holiday and I can do whatever I want with my time, I made one too. ;)
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Account_Creation_Improvement_Project/Test...
Like FT2, I welcome any edits to make it look better. And feedback about the content is of course welcome too. I can always do more takes with revised scripts.
-Sage
On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 9:16 AM, Lennart Guldbrandsson wikihannibal@gmail.com wrote:
This is good. I'll make sure we'll test this as well.
Best wishes,
Lennart
2011/2/21 FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com
I'm not usually one for graphic design, so this could probably do with improving and relevant links adding.
I've added a version that could be helpful at
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Account_Creation_Improvement_Project/Test...
What I'm hoping to address are:
- Layouts "original version" and "redesign" are too close to "wall of
text" for many newcomers. Even though they are simple short bullet
lists
with icons, I'm concerned they'll skip it. A better layout and a few brief bullets may do better and also be more informative.
- The audience is people who want to get involved, so an overview
they
can come back to might be helpful. I have assumed this page is linked from the toolkit so they can always find it.
- It might be better to have a link for "editing", and save the
mention
of policies there. At the start a user needs to know the basics, that some stuff will be ok and some won't, and "click here to find out which".
Then
they are reading it *by choice* and it'll probably be more "sticky" as
a
result.
Words like "policies" may tend to overwhelm or frighten many of those
we
want to engage.
- The section for "readers" also includes* "Reading, or want to make
improvements and corrections?" *The *unstated thought *is that a
reader
will also be someone who might want to make a small correction. Gut
feel
says that a major route is readers who are then tempted to make their first correction, or who need to know they *can *think of it. I'd like to
see
the effect of including "making a small improvement or correction" *as part of info for end-users*, not just keeping it separate.
Not technically accurate but may be effective this way, as "editing" could be felt as overwhelming (initially) where "make a small
correction"
may be perceived as empowering. Many people may think "someone should fix that" and despite all our pages, not fully realize the "someone" is allowed to be *them*.
- *I have not put links in yet.* I would not make individual words,
lines, or sentences a link. Link proliferation is a distraction, we
found
that out in the record 2010 fundraiser. Make each section (except the last) to be *one* link clickable anywhere. Unfortunately (bug 18640https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18460) the <a href...> html tag can't be used yet in markup, otherwise I'd
make
the entirety of each cell a single link to some (short) relevant subpage.
I'd actually like it done via a popup, that appears when you click a
cell
for information. That's more classy and suited to the richer interface
of
other modern websites, but outside my skills. Anyone else know where I can find a basic "click this and get a dismissible popup" DIV class? :)
- Should contain something interesting and engaging too :)
Feedback and any design-related questions welcomed! Not sure where to link this from/to though.
FT2 _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- Lennart Guldbrandsson, Fellow of the Wikimedia Foundation and chair of Wikimedia Sverige // Wikimedia Foundation-stipendiat och ordförande för Wikimedia Sverige _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l