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

[Naoko Komura]

Just a quick update:

Updated search interface was rolled-out to English Wikipedia earlier 
today. Thank you all for your quick feedback.

Regarding the search location, we understand the inconvenience and the 
sense of disorientation when the frequently used tool is moved around. 
However, we found from the usability study that the interaction to 
search field/interface increased significantly when the search location 
was moved to the top right. Improvement of the search experience was 
also contributed by the improvement of the search engine (lucene), and 
the clean-up of the search result page where the relevant results 
received high-priority in ranking than missing pages or error messages. 
We are monitoring the search query volume before and after the Vector 
launch to compare if the search location change had an impact on the 
search query volume. We hope to publish the stats next week.

Regarding the default behavior whether it should go to an article or 
full-text search when an enter key is hit, it is a bigger discussion. 
Based on the feedback during early prototype phase, we dropped the idea 
of reversing the search behavior to give full-text search instead of 
article search, as article search and serving matched article is unique 
to Wikimedia projects and it showcases how many topics we cover. The new 
search interface gives user an option to chose from the article name 
space or full-text search from the drop down menu.

So, will you give another try?

- Naoko


Naoko Komura wrote:
> Hi, everyone.
>
> We have received problem reports and feedback that search queries were 
> truncated sometimes and the search suggestions were hard to read or 
> chose due to the limited width. We apologize for introducing broken 
> behaviors in using the search.  In order to mitigate spreading the 
> problem, the new search function was disabled on May 15, and the search 
> field was increased by fifty percent on May 18. We are aware that this 
> temporary fix still does not accommodate the search for long article 
> names.  
>
> We have updated the new search interface to address the issues above and 
> it is currently staged on the the prototype [1]. This update addresses 
> the reported issues such as truncation of search queries [2] and the 
> search suggestions are cut-off [3]. Prototypes in various languages are 
> also available here[4].
>
> Please give it a spin and let us know your feedback. If the 
> functionality is confirmed solid, we would like to re-enable the new 
> search feature later this week.
>
> Thanks a bunch in advance,
>
>
> - Naoko
>
> User Experience Programs @ WMF
>
>
> [1] http://prototype.wikimedia.org/en.wikipedia.org
>
> [2] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23498
>
> [3] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23558
>
> [4] http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Prototype
>
>
>   


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