We have updated the new search interface to address the issues above and it is currently staged on the the prototype [1]. This update addresses the reported issues such as truncation of search queries [2] and the search suggestions are cut-off [3]. Prototypes in various languages are also available here[4].

Not bad in terms of function, except for the small size of the search box, which should be twice the current size there.   But it would still be better on the left side, under the logo.

But assuming a 99:1 novice to expert ratio for our traffic, the current approach must have saved an awful lot of extra clicks from novices.

Well, according to Google, there are somewhere between 1.5 and 1.8 billion internet users in the world.  If we ignore those numbers and say only 1B use the internet, then according to Alex wikipedia.org gets about 13.5% of internet users.  That's 135 million users.  We definitely don't have anywhere near even 1 million "expert" users.  Of course, it depends how you define expert but if we have 10,000 expert users/editors, then that pales in comparison to the somewhere between 200 and 240 million people viewing the website. ~A On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 10:57, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On 20 May 2010 15:51, William Pietri<william(a)scissor.com> wrote: Ahh ... do we have numbers from our logs for that assertion?

The community of editors definitely make this place what it is, but our shared goal is to serve readers, and I think that should be paramount in our minds. Especially in situations like interface design, where a classic and incredibly common mistake is for internal stakeholders to make self-serving choices.

On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 04:15, Naoko Komura <nkomura(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: Thanks. If it won't take too much time, could you please set up a prototype in Hebrew, to test RTL issues? I tried Arabic and it seems OK, but there are a couple of features that are unique to Hebrew.

On 20 May 2010 16:17, Amory Meltzer <amorymeltzer(a)gmail.com> wrote: No, I mean actual data from the actual use of our site. Putting the search box in the same place as other popular sites is on the assumption that people will find this more familiar. But what's the actual data say about the change? I assume someone gathered some before and plans to gather some after. - d.

Just a quick update: Updated search interface was rolled-out to English Wikipedia earlier today. Thank you all for your quick feedback. Regarding the search location, we understand the inconvenience and the sense of disorientation when the frequently used tool is moved around. However, we found from the usability study that the interaction to search field/interface increased significantly when the search location was moved to the top right. Improvement of the search experience was also contributed by the improvement of the search engine (lucene), and the clean-up of the search result page where the relevant results received high-priority in ranking than missing pages or error messages. We are monitoring the search query volume before and after the Vector launch to compare if the search location change had an impact on the search query volume. We hope to publish the stats next week. Regarding the default behavior whether it should go to an article or full-text search when an enter key is hit, it is a bigger discussion. Based on the feedback during early prototype phase, we dropped the idea of reversing the search behavior to give full-text search instead of article search, as article search and serving matched article is unique to Wikimedia projects and it showcases how many topics we cover. The new search interface gives user an option to chose from the article name space or full-text search from the drop down menu. So, will you give another try? - Naoko Naoko Komura wrote: -- Support Free Knowledge:  http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Just a quick update: Updated search interface was rolled-out to English Wikipedia earlier today. Thank you all for your quick feedback.

Yeah, but are they using the search box or using Google?

Not so. The search box in classic is on the top left (as well as the second one at the the end of the page). As far as I'm aware this requies no changes from monobook.

We have a rough proxy for use of search, I believe, by seeing the traffic to special:search. We could try seeing if this exhibits any noticeable difference after the chance.

On the other hand, you could interpret any such change in about seven different ways, so it may not help much... ;-)