Hello, Hovercards, currently a beta feature, is nearing release. [0] We'd like to encourage communities to adopt Hovercards as a default option for logged-out readers. [1] Hovercards provide a preview of any linked article, giving readers a quick understanding of a related article without leaving the current page. The Reading web team recently completed a series of A/B tests to gather information on how Hovercards are used.
* April 2015 - Catalan and Greek A/B test results [2] * Summer/Fall 2016 Hungarian, Italian, and Russian Wikipedia A/B test results [3] * 2016 Reading team UX research [4]
As you can see the results of the tests were generally positive. A few key highlights:
* During the Catalan and Greek A/B test, 79% of respondents either Agreed or Strongly Agreed that Hovercards were easy to use, 76% of respondents either Agreed or Strongly Agreed that Hovercards were useful for their needs. * Users are viewing approximately 0.99 hovercards per session, and interacting with approximately 31% more pages each session. [5] * The disable rate was very low: the rate of clicking the settings cog for Hovercards was 0.02% for Hungarian, 0.034% for Italian, and 0.016% for Russian Wikipedia. The rates for disabling the feature were even lower. * In our qualitative tests, 13 out of 15 questionnaire participants reported positive experiences with Hovercards.
== Rollout plan == The next step for Hovercards is to develop a plan for rolling the feature out to all projects. We have created a draft proposal for which projects to discuss Hovercards with and approximate timeline for deployments. [6]
The Reading Web team will be reaching out to the communities in the order listed above to discuss how to implement the feature. We want to enable the feature by default for logged-out users and we will respect the current beta feature preferences for logged-in users.
Questions and feedback welcome at Beta Features/Hovercards. [7]
Thank you for your time.
[0] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Beta_Features/Hovercards [1] Logged-out users would see Hovercards by default on wikis that opt-in. Logged-out users may turn Hovercards off via the cog-icon displayed at the bottom of each Hovercard. Logged-in users see Hovercards if they have enabled the feature. New accounts created after the launch of Hovercards would have it on by default (mimicking the default for logged-out users) with the option to disable in Special:Preferences. [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Beta_Features/Hovercards/GreekCatalanTest [3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Beta_Features/Hovercards/2016_A/B_Tests [4] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Design_Research/Reading_Te... [5] With page interactions defined as the sum of average hovercards viewed per session and average pages viewed per session [6] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Beta_Features/Hovercards#Rollout_Plan [7] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Beta_Features/Hovercards
Yours, Chris Koerner Community Liaison - Discovery Wikimedia Foundation