Re: [WikimediaMobile] Interesting WSJ article: "The Rise of Phone Reading"

We have to stop thinking in such strict boundaries though. Yes, we are lacking in editing support on mobile, but just plugging those holes, is not actually going to solve the problem, because editing on a mobile device will still be sub par no matter what you do. I think most people will come away disappointed in what that effort will bring us. Some important things that I have learned in mobile is that engagement is everything and flexibility is key. The user has dozens of apps screaming for his attention. There has to be a reason for a user to open the app. A trigger. Traditionally a user looking something up, but Google is taking even that from us. And once that app is open, you have to trigger the user to make sure he keeps it open, just ever so slightly then the user had planned to keep it open... And if there is something that he wants to do, but he doesn’t want to right now, then he needs to be able to carry over that context that he currently has to another time/place/device/databundel, without even having to think about it. I’m thinking more along the lines of: * As a mobile user, you answer a quick question on a topic (1/5 reads?). The answers feeds an analytics system that then builds a queue for a desktop editor to do some work that is more suited for a larger screen. * You are reading on your mobile and u use something like Apple’s Continuity to start editing on a Desktop * The system knows you read an article on Space Shuttle Atlantis, and will move space related topics higher into your ‘work/gnome' queue on desktop/mobile. * You flip through some photo’s on mobile and select the one you like best, again feeding other systems that build galleries or a lead image etc. * Review edits/vandalism in the app, and have visual representations of how “successful” you and fellow app users are at fending off the ‘bad guys’. You have defended 15 articles and helped 2000 readers. The vandalisme pressure is down 5% since you started helping out. graph. * You are on desktop and the system asks if you can help expand the metadata of the image that you earlier picked as a favorite when flipping through a set on mobile. * You receive a push message that a certain article in the purview of the wikiproject that your are part of, is trending. Clicking it opens the app and the changes scroll by and you can mark ones that are suspicious. Editors on larger screens get these fed into their ‘investigation queue’. * Highlight a spot in an article on mobile allows you to point out that it requires a citation. A desktop user that is reading the same article will see a popup in his screen noting this ‘event’ and can immediately help fulfill the request. * The user on mobile get’s a push notification that his request was fulfilled if that happened within the past hour. Basically, for every single action, think of a trigger that will move him one step into the next direction. And as a platform, be where the user is. Move with him from desktop to couch, from mobile to busstop. An immersive experience. Don’t get me wrong, all the other stuff is needed, but it’s all prep in order to make ^^ work and only THEN will we be able to truly make headway into the mobile space for editors I suspect. DJ