The Readers web team will be deploying a new feature this week to make it
easier to download PDF versions of articles on the mobile website. [0]
Providing better offline functionality was one of the highlighted areas of
focus based on the generative research done by the New Readers team in
Mexico, Nigeria, and India. Over the past year, the New Readers and
Readers Web teams created a prototype for mobile PDFs which was evaluated
by user research and community feedback [1]. As the prototype evaluation
received positive feedback and results, we went forward with development.
[2]
For the initial deployment, the feature will be available to Google Chrome
browsers on Android with support for other mobile browsers to come in the
future. For Chrome, the feature will use the native Android print
functionality where users can choose to download a webpage as a PDF.
Mobile print styles will be used for these PDFs to ensure optimal
readability for smaller screens. [3]
The feature will be available starting Wednesday, Nov 15. For more
information, see the project page on
MediaWiki.org. [0]
[0]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Projects/Mobile_PDFs
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers/Offline
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers/Offline#Concept_testing_for_mob…
[3]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Projects/Print_Styles#Mobile_Pri…
--
Olga Vasileva // Product Manager // Reading Web Team
https://wikimediafoundation.org/