[Foundation-l] Usability study in progress

[John at Darkstar]

One additional note, in Norway a lot of the newspapers used a layout
like Monobook (sort of) but has lately dismissed the solution in favor
of radically much simpler designs. Especially the list of links in a
left bar has been abandoned in favor of more directed approaches with
horizontal menus in the top of the pages. Some of the newspapers has
reported instantaneous increase in click rates.

It is thought provocative as most of the left bar is for wikipediams,
and therefore is usable to only a small percentile of the total users
(in page views). The rest of the users need navigational aids for the
main space.

John

Hay (Husky) skrev:
> Ten is a low number indeed, however, if those people are indeed
> 'typical users' instead of Wikipedians and you given them a few
> specific tasks (say, searching for an article on a topic they are
> interested in and editing it to add some information) you will
> probably encounter lots of problems soon enough.
> 
> On a different note: i'm not sure if this has been discussed before
> but will the usability study also take uploading media on Commons in
> account? Editing text is one thing, but adding media (and hence, using
> Commons) is almost as common and could also use *lots* of work on
> increasing usability.
> 
> -- Hay
> 
> On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 11:55 AM, John at Darkstar <vacuum at jeb.no> wrote:
>> Wikipedians should not be used to asses usabillity problems with
>> Wikipedia, this is rule number one if you want to get information about
>> why a newbie has problems with a system. A typical wikipedian is simply
>> not a valid newbie. Ten participants are not nearly enough, they can
>> only give you some clue about the real problem.
>>
>> John
>>
>> Naoko Komura skrev:
>>> Howdy.
>>> (adding wikien-l folks to this thread.  my apology for not including
>>> wikien-l with my initial email.)
>>>
>>> The usability study has started today as scheduled.  The usability team
>>> is monitoring the interviews and how ten test participants interact with
>>> Wikipedia when they are asked to edit an article at the lab facility in
>>> San Francisco today and tomorrow.  The remote usability study on
>>> Thursday (March 26 PDT) will be done remotely, which means we recruit
>>> participants from Wikipedia through the site notice, and connect with
>>> them through web conferencing.  Therefore the site notice for
>>> recruitment will appear again on Thursday.  We expect to compile the
>>> results in a few weeks and the findings with you.
>>>
>>> Naoko Komura
>>> Program Manager, Wikimedia Foundation
>>>
>>>
>>> Naoko Komura wrote:
>>>> One of the important components of the usability initiative is to
>>>> conduct multiple rounds of usability tests.  The plan is to conduct at
>>>> least three rounds of tests for qualitative usability evaluation over
>>>> the span of twelve months, i) the initial evaluation, ii) the progress
>>>> evaluation, and iii) the final evaluation.  The initial usability test
>>>> is scheduled on March 24, 25th and 26th.  In-person lab tests are
>>>> conducted in San Francisco at the first two days, and remote tests will
>>>> be conducted on the third day.
>>>>
>>>> As a preparation for the initial usability test, we incorporated the
>>>> recruiting tool into English Wikipedia's site notice. You might have
>>>> encountered site notice inviting for the participation. The target
>>>> audience of testers are Wikipedia readers who have little or no
>>>> experience in editing the Wikipedia articles.  The banner is displayed
>>>> within the range of 1:400 to 1:100 page views, and it will continue till
>>>> early next week.
>>>>
>>>> We look forward to learning from the usability tests and sharing the
>>>> result with you.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks.
>>>>
>>>> Naoko ... on behalf of the usability team.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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