Hoi, Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was learning from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in Tanzania showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new article. UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that make a difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only hurt what some call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a veteran user of software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
Our usability hurts all our projects. It hurts our smaller projects because they do not have enough content and contributors. It hurts our big projects because it excludes large demographies from contributing leading to bias and hurting the NPOV of many articles. When we want to reach out, there is no easier way then by making our software usable.
The CreatePage extension provides a first obvious step on the road towards a more usable MediaWiki. Implementing only this one extension is a start. When we have taken this direction towards more usability, many more issues will arise. The CreatePage extension is best used in combination with a change in the skin. The CreatePage extension allows for a user to select templates for specific types of new articles. There are ways in which you can make editing easier .....
What I propose is that those projects who are interested in improving their usability ask the WMF to work with them on this. Given that usable software should be understood, and given that this is somewhat experimental in nature as well, it makes sense that project should localise the extensions first before they qualify for an implementation. NB the CreatePage extension has only eight messages.
What I propose is to have many and frequent updates. We should learn from our experience and consequently move forward carefully but deliberately. It is not acceptable that so many of our projects are failing. The UNICEF studies explain why this is, the studies show how to improve on this. We just have to apply the lessons learned. We just have to show that we can apply the lessons learnt. Thanks, GerardM
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.comwrote:
Hoi, Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was learning from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in Tanzania showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new article. UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that make a difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only hurt what some call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a veteran user of software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
Do you know the demographics of the test subjects, and what exactly is intended with creating a new article? Is it just creating a new page or creating a page with correct formatting, categories, etc.?
Our usability hurts all our projects. It hurts our smaller projects because they do not have enough content and contributors. It hurts our big projects because it excludes large demographies from contributing leading to bias and hurting the NPOV of many articles. When we want to reach out, there is no easier way then by making our software usable.
The bigger projects started small, the pioneers helped the newbies explaining things, new people arrived, and the projects grew. The smaller projects don't thrive for a number of reasons, such as too few people interested, competition with a larger project (this happens with some regional languages, where often "native" speakers are equally native in another bigger language), digital divide,.. Of course this can be a vicious circle (being small does not motivate people to join, a pioneer can only do so much but if there are no followers it gets hard)
What I propose is that those projects who are interested in improving their usability ask the WMF to work with them on this. Given that usable software should be understood, and given that this is somewhat experimental in nature as well, it makes sense that project should localise the extensions first before they qualify for an implementation. NB the CreatePage extension has only eight messages.
I am convinced that the best way to learn to use MediaWiki is editing Wikipedia, possibly a large one. Reading the help pages, asking the more expert users, and so on. This helps forming the pioneers, the teachers. The the teachers go to the small projects, and teach the newbies there. Looking at how the source code of a page really is is much more helpful than reading software documentation, at least for people that don't come from the software world
What I propose is to have many and frequent updates. We should learn from our experience and consequently move forward carefully but deliberately. It is not acceptable that so many of our projects are failing. The UNICEF studies explain why this is, the studies show how to improve on this. We just have to apply the lessons learned. We just have to show that we can apply the lessons learnt.
Maybe some project just fail because they're not that useful, that's Darwinian selection. I agree that some project could make a big difference (a language like swahili, to say one), and it's definitely unacceptable that they struggle. Usability of the software is important, but I still don't believe it will make a difference alone.
Cruccone
Hoi, It is hardly relevant what the demographics of the test group is. 100% failure in Tanzania, well educated people in Austria failing to get to grips with Wikipedia, we get people informing us about our perceived security problem. The reason why it is hardly relevant is because the same studies show that the changes implemented made a measurable difference. There is no point finding fault at this. Even when a different demographic would be less disastrously bad, there is a solution that is known to improve the odds of finding people collaborating on a MediaWiki installation.
When you look at the bottom 80% of our projects, there are few people to learn things from. The notion that you best learn it on a Wikipedia negates the fact that I find 80% of our Wikipedia projects struggling. Now consider when our software is more usable, it becomes even easier to learn what there is to learn. There will be fewer reasons why people do not contribute because with improved usability, road blocks are removed.
People do not want to read documentation. They do not want to learn by example. It should be obvious. Now, I would prefer for the WMF to announce that they are going to develop WYSIWYG, but perfection is the enemy of the good. We can implement CreatePage now and WYSIWYG is likely to take more then a year to develop. So I advocate to do what can be done now.
When you say that improvements in usability is not the only solution, you are completely correct. Localisation is another factor that plays an important role. Lack of infrastructure is another. However, usability is something that *we can* tackle, the best news is that it will help all our projects. Localisation is worked on with considerable success at Betawiki. Having said this, Betawiki needs more help. There is a digital divide but not all Africans or Asians suffers from it. We have to be ready for the people who can contribute successfully to any MediaWiki project. We have to, because this is how we can make a difference for all the projects that we are currently failing.
If you find it unacceptable that the Swahili Wikipedia is struggling, then just do not accept it, and let usdo what can be done . Thanks, GerardM
2008/12/2 Marco Chiesa chiesa.marco@gmail.com
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.comwrote:
Hoi, Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was
learning
from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in Tanzania showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new
article.
UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that make a difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only hurt what some call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a veteran user
of
software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
Do you know the demographics of the test subjects, and what exactly is intended with creating a new article? Is it just creating a new page or creating a page with correct formatting, categories, etc.?
Our usability hurts all our projects. It hurts our smaller projects
because
they do not have enough content and contributors. It hurts our big
projects
because it excludes large demographies from contributing leading to bias and hurting the NPOV of many articles. When we want to reach out, there is no easier way then by making our software usable.
The bigger projects started small, the pioneers helped the newbies explaining things, new people arrived, and the projects grew. The smaller projects don't thrive for a number of reasons, such as too few people interested, competition with a larger project (this happens with some regional languages, where often "native" speakers are equally native in another bigger language), digital divide,.. Of course this can be a vicious circle (being small does not motivate people to join, a pioneer can only do so much but if there are no followers it gets hard)
What I propose is that those projects who are interested in improving
their
usability ask the WMF to work with them on this. Given that usable
software
should be understood, and given that this is somewhat experimental in nature as well, it makes sense that project should localise the extensions first before they qualify for an implementation. NB the CreatePage extension
has
only eight messages.
I am convinced that the best way to learn to use MediaWiki is editing Wikipedia, possibly a large one. Reading the help pages, asking the more expert users, and so on. This helps forming the pioneers, the teachers. The the teachers go to the small projects, and teach the newbies there. Looking at how the source code of a page really is is much more helpful than reading software documentation, at least for people that don't come from the software world
What I propose is to have many and frequent updates. We should learn from our experience and consequently move forward carefully but deliberately.
It
is not acceptable that so many of our projects are failing. The UNICEF studies explain why this is, the studies show how to improve on this. We just have to apply the lessons learned. We just have to show that we can apply the lessons learnt.
Maybe some project just fail because they're not that useful, that's Darwinian selection. I agree that some project could make a big difference (a language like swahili, to say one), and it's definitely unacceptable that they struggle. Usability of the software is important, but I still don't believe it will make a difference alone.
Cruccone _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
It is hardly relevant what the demographics of the test group is. 100% failure in Tanzania, well educated people in Austria failing to get to grips with Wikipedia, we get people informing us about our perceived security problem. The reason why it is hardly relevant is because the same studies show that the changes implemented made a measurable difference. There is no point finding fault at this. Even when a different demographic would be less disastrously bad, there is a solution that is known to improve the odds of finding people collaborating on a MediaWiki installation.
Known to whom? I am testing the CreatePage extension on http://www.appropedia.org and I find it harder to use than the usual way of creating pages.
First I have to enter the page name and click on "Create Page" - OK, the usual.
But then I have to choose a layout. I have no idea what a layout is, what layout should I choose, nor how will the layout I choose look.
When I choose one at random, I get to the actual edit page. The only improvement I see here is that buttons above the edit field have textual description, which is something that, now that I see it, I find quite useful :) The form is several screens long which I find frightening, Save button is lost under the form, it is not obvious what a section is (of course, that is not obvious right now, but this doesn't help much), and there is no practical way to reorder the sections. To the right is a list of categories that, on a real Wikipedia, would be completely unusable (and by the way, Commons solved this problem when uploading a picture in a much better way).
Keep it wiki, keep it simple. People love to share their knowledge, not to fill forms.
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was learning from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in Tanzania showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new article. UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that make a difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only hurt what some call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a veteran user of software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
The problem for usability is that sometime there is not a better selection of users to have a "real" sampling.
Naturally if this sampling is formed by users with a poor or no knowledge of computers, probably they will not have problems with Wikipedia because they would not able to switch on a computer. The usability, in this case is the minor problem.
Probably is better to know if they were not able to use the edit button because the edit button is not "usable" or if they were not able because they don't have seen an "edit" button in the past.
Ilario
Hoi, You do not create a new article by finding the "edit" button. The task all these people failed at was creating a whole new article. Thanks, GerardM
2008/12/2 Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was
learning
from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in
Tanzania
showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new
article.
UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that make a difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only hurt what
some
call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a veteran user
of
software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
The problem for usability is that sometime there is not a better selection of users to have a "real" sampling.
Naturally if this sampling is formed by users with a poor or no knowledge of computers, probably they will not have problems with Wikipedia because they would not able to switch on a computer. The usability, in this case is the minor problem.
Probably is better to know if they were not able to use the edit button because the edit button is not "usable" or if they were not able because they don't have seen an "edit" button in the past.
Ilario
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Hello,
I was recently at a conference for Swedish information specialists (yes, I had a talk there). There I met a woman who taught at a university. The subject: information architecture. They had groups of students improving the websites of several well known Swedish companies and organisations. Now, they were seeking new websites to improve. We talked about them getting to work on Wikipedia (of course without any commitments or strings attached) and will continue to see if this is a feasible project. I will update this thread as soon as I know more, but we should try everything we can to make the threshold of Wikipedia and MediaWiki as low as possible.
Best wishes,
Lennart
Hoi, There are many people who have been struggling with poor usability of MediaWiki inside and outside of the Wikimedia Foundation. When the people from this university are interested in working on usability, they will find many people who have half ready solutions. They will find that improving usability is not easy because it is a truly international environment. They will find many people and organisations that will gladly work together, experiment and learn what works best.
It would be lovely to increase the group of people who concentrate on the usability of our beloved software. Thanks, GerardM
2008/12/2 Lennart Guldbrandsson wikihannibal@gmail.com
Hello,
I was recently at a conference for Swedish information specialists (yes, I had a talk there). There I met a woman who taught at a university. The subject: information architecture. They had groups of students improving the websites of several well known Swedish companies and organisations. Now, they were seeking new websites to improve. We talked about them getting to work on Wikipedia (of course without any commitments or strings attached) and will continue to see if this is a feasible project. I will update this thread as soon as I know more, but we should try everything we can to make the threshold of Wikipedia and MediaWiki as low as possible.
Best wishes,
Lennart
-- Lennart Guldbrandsson, chair of Wikimedia Sverige and press contact for Swedish Wikipedia // ordförande för Wikimedia Sverige och presskontakt för svenskspråkiga Wikipedia
2008/12/2 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
Hoi, You do not create a new article by finding the "edit" button. The task
all
these people failed at was creating a whole new article. Thanks, GerardM
2008/12/2 Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was
learning
from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in
Tanzania
showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new
article.
UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that
make
a
difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only hurt
what
some
call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a veteran
user
of
software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
The problem for usability is that sometime there is not a better selection of users to have a "real" sampling.
Naturally if this sampling is formed by users with a poor or no knowledge of computers, probably they will not have problems with Wikipedia because they would not able to switch on a computer. The usability, in this case is the minor problem.
Probably is better to know if they were not able to use the edit button because the edit button is not "usable" or if they were not able because they don't have seen an "edit" button in the past.
Ilario
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Where did they fail? Did they fail to find a red link to create an article? (those seem to be getting increasingly rare) Could they not find a subject to start a new article on? Were they unable to type text into the appropriate box and submit it? Were they unable to structure the article well enough? Were they unable to wikify it? Were they unable to categorize it? Did they fail to add an infobox or a picture? Were they unable to get it to GA/FA status?
There's lots of failure points; which ones caused the problems, and are there simple tweaks that can be made to sort out the problems?
Mike
On 2 Dec 2008, at 13:23, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, You do not create a new article by finding the "edit" button. The task all these people failed at was creating a whole new article. Thanks, GerardM
2008/12/2 Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was
learning
from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in
Tanzania
showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new
article.
UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that make a difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only hurt what
some
call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a veteran user
of
software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
The problem for usability is that sometime there is not a better selection of users to have a "real" sampling.
Naturally if this sampling is formed by users with a poor or no knowledge of computers, probably they will not have problems with Wikipedia because they would not able to switch on a computer. The usability, in this case is the minor problem.
Probably is better to know if they were not able to use the edit button because the edit button is not "usable" or if they were not able because they don't have seen an "edit" button in the past.
Ilario
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Michael Peel wrote:
Where did they fail? Did they fail to find a red link to create an article? (those seem to be getting increasingly rare) Could they not find a subject to start a new article on? Were they unable to type text into the appropriate box and submit it? Were they unable to structure the article well enough? Were they unable to wikify it? Were they unable to categorize it? Did they fail to add an infobox or a picture? Were they unable to get it to GA/FA status?
To sum it all: is the study published, and what's its URL?
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 8:40 AM, Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:
Where did they fail? Did they fail to find a red link to create an article? (those seem to be getting increasingly rare) Could they not find a subject to start a new article on? Were they unable to type text into the appropriate box and submit it? Were they unable to structure the article well enough? Were they unable to wikify it? Were they unable to categorize it? Did they fail to add an infobox or a picture? Were they unable to get it to GA/FA status?
There's lots of failure points; which ones caused the problems, and are there simple tweaks that can be made to sort out the problems?
Mike
Exactly. It helps to know *what* is wrong before trying to set about fixing it. Saying they couldn't get from A to Z isn't enough, as (like you said) there's many places to stumble along the way.
If these are general usability issues with the core MediaWiki (lack of titles for buttons, bad page layouts), then those need to be fixed in the software, not via extensions to circumvent the current process. If the process itself has problems, then either the process needs changing or an extension can supplement the usual way of doing things.
Bugs can be fixed, we just need to know exactly what the bugs are :)
-Chad
Hoi, There are indeed issues with the core MediaWiki software. There is existing software that is build as an extension. The basic CreatePage extension can easily be implemented, it does require no templates or buttons. These are separate opportunities. Opportunities that take a bit more consideration.
When we are to learn what new functionality improves our core software, it makes sense to first experience the results by tweaking the system with extensions. When we are confident of the results, we can progress and integrate it in the core.
When you consider changes to the usability, you do not fix bugs. The system is not buggy in the sense that it works as per the specification. The issue is that usability can only be improved with a different specification. There will be projects who will be eager to experiment with the UNICEF extensions. The Swahili wikipedia would be an obvious choice because they have already localised the eight messages of the CreatePage extension. Thanks, GerardM
2008/12/2 Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 8:40 AM, Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:
Where did they fail? Did they fail to find a red link to create an article? (those seem to be getting increasingly rare) Could they not find a subject to start a new article on? Were they unable to type text into the appropriate box and submit it? Were they unable to structure the article well enough? Were they unable to wikify it? Were they unable to categorize it? Did they fail to add an infobox or a picture? Were they unable to get it to GA/FA status?
There's lots of failure points; which ones caused the problems, and are there simple tweaks that can be made to sort out the problems?
Mike
Exactly. It helps to know *what* is wrong before trying to set about fixing it. Saying they couldn't get from A to Z isn't enough, as (like you said) there's many places to stumble along the way.
If these are general usability issues with the core MediaWiki (lack of titles for buttons, bad page layouts), then those need to be fixed in the software, not via extensions to circumvent the current process. If the process itself has problems, then either the process needs changing or an extension can supplement the usual way of doing things.
Bugs can be fixed, we just need to know exactly what the bugs are :)
-Chad _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 10:12 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.comwrote:
Hoi, There are indeed issues with the core MediaWiki software. There is existing software that is build as an extension. The basic CreatePage extension can easily be implemented, it does require no templates or buttons. These are separate opportunities. Opportunities that take a bit more consideration.
Indeed. I am not opposed to extensions that improve on core ideas, as long as they're thoroughly tested and proven to have a noticeable improvement in userland.
When we are to learn what new functionality improves our core software, it makes sense to first experience the results by tweaking the system with extensions. When we are confident of the results, we can progress and integrate it in the core.
Not necessarily. It comes back to my original statement: is it a problem with how we do things nor, or is this an alternate way some people might like/need? If it's the former, then we most certainly need to fix it in core. However, there is always the opportunity for the latter. Some things just shouldn't be in the core software, because it has a very specific user-case (even if that use-case is WM-wide), and we don't want to burden those who lack these specific scenarios but extra features (and associated configuration).
When you consider changes to the usability, you do not fix bugs. The system is not buggy in the sense that it works as per the specification. The issue is that usability can only be improved with a different specification. There will be projects who will be eager to experiment with the UNICEF extensions. The Swahili wikipedia would be an obvious choice because they have already localised the eight messages of the CreatePage extension. Thanks, GerardM
Yes and no. Usability issues can most certainly be bugs. If we have a page like the upload form that is poorly implemented and creates a barrier to contribution, then we need to fix it. Same thing for image alt text, language support, and
fallback support for non-traditional browsers. This kind of thing needs to be supported in core and issues with it need to be fixed. Extensions add functionality, they shouldn't be fixing current functionality problems.
-Chad
Hoi, They failed their task. Their task was to create a new article. There are many people who fail at this.
When you state that "those seem to be getting increasingly rare", I wonder if you have experience with small and starting projects. It is a recurring theme and it is a major reason for the failure of projects. I completely agree with you that there are many more pain points. The trick is to solve the issues that are easy to solve first. From this we can progress to a next issue. Thanks, GerardM
2008/12/2 Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
Where did they fail? Did they fail to find a red link to create an article? (those seem to be getting increasingly rare) Could they not find a subject to start a new article on? Were they unable to type text into the appropriate box and submit it? Were they unable to structure the article well enough? Were they unable to wikify it? Were they unable to categorize it? Did they fail to add an infobox or a picture? Were they unable to get it to GA/FA status?
There's lots of failure points; which ones caused the problems, and are there simple tweaks that can be made to sort out the problems?
Mike
On 2 Dec 2008, at 13:23, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, You do not create a new article by finding the "edit" button. The task all these people failed at was creating a whole new article. Thanks, GerardM
2008/12/2 Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was
learning
from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in
Tanzania
showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new
article.
UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that make a difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only hurt what
some
call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a veteran user
of
software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
The problem for usability is that sometime there is not a better selection of users to have a "real" sampling.
Naturally if this sampling is formed by users with a poor or no knowledge of computers, probably they will not have problems with Wikipedia because they would not able to switch on a computer. The usability, in this case is the minor problem.
Probably is better to know if they were not able to use the edit button because the edit button is not "usable" or if they were not able because they don't have seen an "edit" button in the past.
Ilario
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On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 3:00 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, They failed their task. Their task was to create a new article. There are many people who fail at this.
From our internal lab/project wiki, I can confirm that people
(including PhDs and professors) keep looking for a "start a new page" button (or something). Editing a page to create a redlink and then follow that does not occur to them; it is apparently counter-intuitive to most. I usually recommend to search for the new article, then click on the "create an article" link.
Cheers, Magnus
Van: Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com Beantwoorden - Aan: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Datum: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 15:16:54 +0000 Aan: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Onderwerp: Re: [Foundation-l] Moving towards a more usable MediaWiki
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 3:00 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, They failed their task. Their task was to create a new article. There are many people who fail at this.
From our internal lab/project wiki, I can confirm that people (including PhDs and professors) keep looking for a "start a new page" button (or something). Editing a page to create a redlink and then follow that does not occur to them; it is apparently counter-intuitive to most. I usually recommend to search for the new article, then click on the "create an article" link.
For the past 3,5 years, I have worked with Kennisnet, setting up educational projects using MediaWiki. I also work for the ICT department of a big bank, implementing their internal corporate wiki, based on MediaWiki.
Over the years, I've worked with young people, old people, people that are computer literate and total computer noobs. Most of them have trouble understanding how to create a new page. Especially if they're not literally pointed in the right direction by someone standing right beside them.
For people not working with MediaWiki outside Wikipedia, it is hard to imagine what learning curve you went through when you first started editing. It's the curse of knowledge; you cannot unlearn it. That's what made my work hard in the beginning: I had trouble understanding why people had difficulties editing a wiki. I found it so easy!
If you are an editor at a very new project, it's hard to get things going. When you start a new project, your MediaWiki installation has *no* pages. And there's no community yet to help you out. There are not even any red links to click.
Believe me, I've looked for the simple tweaks. I've written manuals, given workshops. But MediaWiki is just really hard to explain. The best solution to most of the problems I encounter when teaching people to work with a wiki, are these Uniwiki extensions. Creating pages is only one of the difficulties. Uploading images and putting them on a page is another. That's also a problem the Uniwiki extensions can solve.
MediaWiki is very difficult software for people not used to it. I see that every day in my work. That's why I'm all for supporting every effort made to improve the usability of MediaWiki. In the end, it will help the Wikimedia projects as well. The more people are at ease working with wikis, the more the projects will benefit.
Wikipedia is a huge success, but that is *not* thanks to its easy software. It is thanks to the patient community members and the perseverance of the newcomers. Imagine how much the projects would benefit if it became simply easier to edit and create pages and to upload and use images.
Best regards,
Marjon Bakker
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Gerard,
You seem to have completely missed my point. At which stage in the process did they fail?
It's like answering the question "why do cars crash?" with "they failed to not crash."...
No, I don't have experience with small projects. That comment was based on my experience with en.wp, where red links seem to have gone out of fashion (and not because they're unnecessary).
Mike
On 2 Dec 2008, at 15:00, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, They failed their task. Their task was to create a new article. There are many people who fail at this.
When you state that "those seem to be getting increasingly rare", I wonder if you have experience with small and starting projects. It is a recurring theme and it is a major reason for the failure of projects. I completely agree with you that there are many more pain points. The trick is to solve the issues that are easy to solve first. From this we can progress to a next issue. Thanks, GerardM
2008/12/2 Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
Where did they fail? Did they fail to find a red link to create an article? (those seem to be getting increasingly rare) Could they not find a subject to start a new article on? Were they unable to type text into the appropriate box and submit it? Were they unable to structure the article well enough? Were they unable to wikify it? Were they unable to categorize it? Did they fail to add an infobox or a picture? Were they unable to get it to GA/FA status?
There's lots of failure points; which ones caused the problems, and are there simple tweaks that can be made to sort out the problems?
Mike
On 2 Dec 2008, at 13:23, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, You do not create a new article by finding the "edit" button. The task all these people failed at was creating a whole new article. Thanks, GerardM
2008/12/2 Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was
learning
from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in
Tanzania
showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new
article.
UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that make a difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only hurt what
some
call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a veteran user
of
software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
The problem for usability is that sometime there is not a better selection of users to have a "real" sampling.
Naturally if this sampling is formed by users with a poor or no knowledge of computers, probably they will not have problems with Wikipedia because they would not able to switch on a computer. The usability, in this case is the minor problem.
Probably is better to know if they were not able to use the edit button because the edit button is not "usable" or if they were not able because they don't have seen an "edit" button in the past.
Ilario
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Hoi, They were requested to start a new article.. Nothing fancy.. an article with a few lines of text. The car did not crash, it never got moving. Thanks, GerardM
2008/12/2 Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
Gerard,
You seem to have completely missed my point. At which stage in the process did they fail?
It's like answering the question "why do cars crash?" with "they failed to not crash."...
No, I don't have experience with small projects. That comment was based on my experience with en.wp, where red links seem to have gone out of fashion (and not because they're unnecessary).
Mike
On 2 Dec 2008, at 15:00, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, They failed their task. Their task was to create a new article. There are many people who fail at this.
When you state that "those seem to be getting increasingly rare", I wonder if you have experience with small and starting projects. It is a recurring theme and it is a major reason for the failure of projects. I completely agree with you that there are many more pain points. The trick is to solve the issues that are easy to solve first. From this we can progress to a next issue. Thanks, GerardM
2008/12/2 Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
Where did they fail? Did they fail to find a red link to create an article? (those seem to be getting increasingly rare) Could they not find a subject to start a new article on? Were they unable to type text into the appropriate box and submit it? Were they unable to structure the article well enough? Were they unable to wikify it? Were they unable to categorize it? Did they fail to add an infobox or a picture? Were they unable to get it to GA/FA status?
There's lots of failure points; which ones caused the problems, and are there simple tweaks that can be made to sort out the problems?
Mike
On 2 Dec 2008, at 13:23, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, You do not create a new article by finding the "edit" button. The task all these people failed at was creating a whole new article. Thanks, GerardM
2008/12/2 Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was
learning
from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in
Tanzania
showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new
article.
UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that make a difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only hurt what
some
call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a veteran user
of
software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
The problem for usability is that sometime there is not a better selection of users to have a "real" sampling.
Naturally if this sampling is formed by users with a poor or no knowledge of computers, probably they will not have problems with Wikipedia because they would not able to switch on a computer. The usability, in this case is the minor problem.
Probably is better to know if they were not able to use the edit button because the edit button is not "usable" or if they were not able because they don't have seen an "edit" button in the past.
Ilario
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On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 08:10, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, They were requested to start a new article.. Nothing fancy.. an article with a few lines of text. The car did not crash, it never got moving.
You're still missing the point: *HOW* did they fail? What step in the process of creating an article did not happen? Once this is known, it becomes possible to devise a solution; conversely, as long as it it unknown, any attempts at solving the problem will fail.
Mark Wagner hett schreven:
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 08:10, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, They were requested to start a new article.. Nothing fancy.. an article with a few lines of text. The car did not crash, it never got moving.
You're still missing the point: *HOW* did they fail? What step in the process of creating an article did not happen? Once this is known, it becomes possible to devise a solution; conversely, as long as it it unknown, any attempts at solving the problem will fail.
They were placed in front of a opened wiki and got told to create an article, start a new page (I guess, it was _not_ the English wikipedia, if you assumed that, but more likely a UNICEF wiki). They didn't manage to create a page, cause they were not able to find the right place to place their article. And that was the very straightforwardly reason to create the CreatePage extension, I guess.
Marcus Buck
Hoi, THANK YOU, yes indeed. Thanks. GerardM
2008/12/3 Marcus Buck me@marcusbuck.org
Mark Wagner hett schreven:
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 08:10, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
wrote:
Hoi, They were requested to start a new article.. Nothing fancy.. an article
with
a few lines of text. The car did not crash, it never got moving.
You're still missing the point: *HOW* did they fail? What step in the process of creating an article did not happen? Once this is known, it becomes possible to devise a solution; conversely, as long as it it unknown, any attempts at solving the problem will fail.
They were placed in front of a opened wiki and got told to create an article, start a new page (I guess, it was _not_ the English wikipedia, if you assumed that, but more likely a UNICEF wiki). They didn't manage to create a page, cause they were not able to find the right place to place their article. And that was the very straightforwardly reason to create the CreatePage extension, I guess.
Marcus Buck
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2008/12/3 Marcus Buck me@marcusbuck.org:
Mark Wagner hett schreven:
You're still missing the point: *HOW* did they fail? What step in the process of creating an article did not happen? Once this is known, it becomes possible to devise a solution; conversely, as long as it it unknown, any attempts at solving the problem will fail.
They were placed in front of a opened wiki and got told to create an article, start a new page (I guess, it was _not_ the English wikipedia, if you assumed that, but more likely a UNICEF wiki).
Did this experiment the motivation to create a page? Or did the UNICEF guys just asked the testees to create a page?
For most people the first and last thought about such an experiment would be: "Why on Earth would i *want* to create a page on the UNICEF wiki"?
Wikipedia is completely different. Did you ever give a thought to the fact that the first sentence of nearly every WP article is "X is Y". Thousands of people created millions of pages in Wikipedia, because they had the motivation to tell that their favorite subject IS something.
(I invite everyone here to take a look at [[Predication]] and [[E-Prime]] to get an idea about the importance of the "is" in "X is Y".)
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 2:23 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, You do not create a new article by finding the "edit" button. The task all these people failed at was creating a whole new article. Thanks, GerardM
Ok, it's a real problem... but we know that any wiki has got a syntax.
It's better to know the curve of learning of these users.
For example: * they were not able to write an article at start * after a quick training the 50% was able * with a small handbook the 40% was able
IMHO it's better to learn a syntax instead of HTML.
Ilario
Ilario Valdelli schrieb:
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was learning from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in Tanzania showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new article. UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that make a difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only hurt what some call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a veteran user of software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
The problem for usability is that sometime there is not a better selection of users to have a "real" sampling.
Naturally if this sampling is formed by users with a poor or no knowledge of computers, probably they will not have problems with Wikipedia because they would not able to switch on a computer. The usability, in this case is the minor problem.
Probably is better to know if they were not able to use the edit button because the edit button is not "usable" or if they were not able because they don't have seen an "edit" button in the past.
Great.
Wikipedia is a software made by programmers for computer nerds, it is far from being usable to normal people. But the first two answers come from nerds who tell us that the software isn't the problem.
Of course there is a problem with the sample, but with the sample of wikipedia-users, which do not nearly represent our possible contributors of content.
Harald Krichel
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We're already aware of the UNICEF study & extensions and will be reviewing them alongside other ongoing usability testing and development projects throughout 2009.
- -- brion
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 9:46 AM, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
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[snip]
We're already aware of the UNICEF study & extensions and will be reviewing them alongside other ongoing usability testing and development projects throughout 2009.
- -- brion
Lovely. Usability in general is an important topic, and it goes beyond any particular task or set of projects; there are many things in MediaWiki that could be improved. (My vote would be for working on an easier referencing system, which has also been discussed many times).
Is there a current page on Meta or elsewhere for this list of potential usability projects, adding suggestions, and discussion of them?
-- Phoebe
phoebe ayers wrote:
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 9:46 AM, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
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[snip]
We're already aware of the UNICEF study & extensions and will be reviewing them alongside other ongoing usability testing and development projects throughout 2009.
- -- brion
Lovely. Usability in general is an important topic, and it goes beyond any particular task or set of projects; there are many things in MediaWiki that could be improved. (My vote would be for working on an easier referencing system, which has also been discussed many times).
Is there a current page on Meta or elsewhere for this list of potential usability projects, adding suggestions, and discussion of them?
-- Phoebe
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Yes there is: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability
Ting
Indeed -- and the [[usability group]] is still the first link on that page to people working on the topic. But I see only four interested members there and the page is stale.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability_group
SJ
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 4:26 PM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
phoebe ayers wrote:
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 9:46 AM, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
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[snip]
We're already aware of the UNICEF study & extensions and will be reviewing them alongside other ongoing usability testing and development projects throughout 2009.
- -- brion
Lovely. Usability in general is an important topic, and it goes beyond any particular task or set of projects; there are many things in MediaWiki that could be improved. (My vote would be for working on an easier referencing system, which has also been discussed many times).
Is there a current page on Meta or elsewhere for this list of potential usability projects, adding suggestions, and discussion of them?
-- Phoebe
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Yes there is: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability
Ting
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Yes, indeed. If I recall right, the group started after Delphine posted her thread "Can anyone really edit Wikipedia?" at Sep. 25.
Delphine, who is surely a veteran wikipedian, failed to edit the article "Facebook" because she could not find the right place for her edit through all the templates and refs. I think her example showed very good our problem. The usability problem is not only a newbies problem, but a general problem. I can very good understand Delphines difficulty and I myself have more than once sitting before an article and feeling like I am working through some other peoples code on my job.
But back to the page. As always on meta and here on the list, a topic get hot and cools down again. But in the last time the topic usability is coming hot quite often. After Alexandria I this is already the fifth or sixth thread I read about this topic. So I think there is a really common feeling in the community that the problem is pressing. Maybe we should link that page direct on a prominant place on the start page of meta?
Ting
Samuel Klein wrote:
Indeed -- and the [[usability group]] is still the first link on that page to people working on the topic. But I see only four interested members there and the page is stale.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability_group
SJ
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 4:26 PM, Ting Chen wing.philopp@gmx.de wrote:
phoebe ayers wrote:
On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 9:46 AM, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
[snip]
We're already aware of the UNICEF study & extensions and will be reviewing them alongside other ongoing usability testing and development projects throughout 2009.
- -- brion
Lovely. Usability in general is an important topic, and it goes beyond any particular task or set of projects; there are many things in MediaWiki that could be improved. (My vote would be for working on an easier referencing system, which has also been discussed many times).
Is there a current page on Meta or elsewhere for this list of potential usability projects, adding suggestions, and discussion of them?
-- Phoebe
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Yes there is: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability
Ting
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Hello,
I wanted to point out that there're way more directions where usability efforts can go to benefit not only small-slow-projects, but also the major ones. Better tools for communication (talk pages!), in-place/paragraph editing, etc - community building isn't just "write an article", it is way more about "collaborate on it".
And better collaboration tools we need (though MediaWiki even now is the industry darling for anything like that ;-)
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