[WikiEN-l] Updated new search interface on the prototype

[William Pietri]

On 05/20/2010 07:57 AM, David Gerard wrote:
> On 20 May 2010 15:51, William Pietri<william at scissor.com>  wrote:
>
>    
>> But
>> assuming a 99:1 novice to expert ratio for our traffic, the current
>> approach must have saved an awful lot of extra clicks from novices.
>>      
>
> Ahh ... do we have numbers from our logs for that assertion?
>
>    

Good question. I should say that I have no inside knowledge on this 
project, and am speaking purely as a random Wikipedian who does web 
stuff for a living. That's just my educated guess, both on ratios and 
clicks.

Personally, I'd love to see more data, both as a driver for interface 
decisions and so that we can measure the results. But realistically, I 
can't hold Wikipedia to the same standards I hold my other clients.

Wikipedia was run on a shoestring for years, with the main goal being 
survival under massive load. It's easy enough for a low-traffic startup 
to add decent instrumentation, but adding it to an existing system 
that's been heavily optimized for high volume and incredibly low cost? 
Getting good data there will likely be a lot of work.

William