[Foundation-l] [Announcement] Extension of user experience work

[Erik Moeller]

Hello all,

our very positive revenue perspective (we have already exceeded our
fundraising targets for the fiscal year, and received the additional
$2M from Google) allows us to do something we've hoped to be able to
do: make our investment in user experience work permanent, as opposed
to releasing most of the current user experience team and ending the
project.

It makes obvious sense for any major website to have a permanent team
focused on user experience improvements in the broadest sense. This
includes eliminating obvious barriers to entry, but beyond that, we
want to improve the experience as a whole for both readers and
editors.

We're now referring to this work as "user experience" (UX) work, which
includes usability.

Naoko will be Head of UX Programs, while Trevor will be the lead
front-end developer on the team. Congratulations to both of them. :-)
Naoko is currently assessing the remaining contracts and will share
further information as these decisions are finalized.

In the immediate future post-April, we'll be concerned with tying up
loose ends from the usability initiative, and finishing functionality
that we had to put in the parking lot. We'll work on a roadmap and
staffing plan for 2010-11 and beyond as part of our business planning
process.

Our long-term focus will be determined in significant part based on
the recommendations from the strategic planning process; see
especially the community health recommendations:

http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Recommendations/Community_health

While we haven't finalized priorities, the single biggest piece of
work is likely going to be the transition to a rich-text editor as the
default editing environment for all Wikimedia Foundation wikis. But,
user experience to us also means assessing how people self-organize
and communicate in Wikimedia projects, how they get stuff done, and
how they read and navigate our projects. Even among the areas of work
we've already identified, there's enough to keep us busy for many
years. :-)

Please note that the original usability initiative hasn't concluded
yet. The team is working on its final release, which will include some
of the most-anticipated changes, including collapsing of templates to
simplify the editing interface, and the production release of the new
feature-set to all users. As always, we'll continue to communicate
progress through <http://blog.wikimedia.org/> and
<http://techblog.wikimedia.org/>, and feedback and participation is
welcome at <http://usability.wikimedia.org/>.

All best,
Erik
-- 
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate