On Fri, Apr 24, 2009 at 2:08 AM, Parul Vora <pvora(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hi all!
The Wikipedia Usability Initiative conducted a user research study with
SF based Bolt Peters in late March to uncover barriers new editors face.
We are in the process of completing a full report on our methodology,
process and analysis, but wanted to share with you some of the major
themes and findings in the meantime....
From what I read, the main problem is that new, eager,
serious
contributers surrender between our markup and an overwhelming flood of
descriptions.
I know a new GUI is being worked on. For the moment I hacked the
following JavaScript suggestion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Magnus_Manske/newbiehelp.js
This adds a "how?" link into the "edit" tab, and launches a floating
panel with some extremely general content:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edit_how.png
Never mind the wording, the color scheme, or important points I missed :-)
If that were added for all anons by default, it might save the willing
and able some grief.
Just a thought.
Cheers,
Magnus