On Tue, Apr 15, 2014 at 7:12 PM, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.comwrote:
On Tue, Apr 15, 2014 at 9:59 AM, Gergo Tisza gtisza@wikimedia.org wrote:
- instead of guessing about user preferences, you could just create a
simple survey which shows them the same text with two different font stacks side by side, and ask them which is more readable. This is good for making aesthetic decisions more objective, and also for catching weird issues with old machines, CJK fonts etc: you can add a comment field to the
survey,
and if the browser is sufficiently modern to support canvas elements, you can even save a snapshot if the rendered text; you can skim through the survey replies which are different from what you have expected, and look for display problems.
Are you volunteering to build such a survey tool? ;-)
We don't have a powerful/easy to use/not annoying/privacy-respecting survey tool that can do side-by-side comparisons. This is why the feature was launched using Beta Features for five months first. Putting out in opt-in mode and gathering feedback via the channels we have now is the most efficient way to make a change that doesn't have a big WMF team assigned to like Multimedia or VisualEditor.
When it comes to using a survey to catch problems early and gauging preferences, a survey still very much suffers from the self-selection bias that all opt-in options have. It's just the name of the game. When you move something from opt-in to opt-out you reach a wider audience and encounter new complaints/questions/bugs.
What would be a good design for such a survey? Would it be a good idea to ask surveyees which scripts they regularly read, and for each of those scripts prepare a bit of text, including hard parts (combining characters and the such), style it with fontx, sans-serif, and ask questions about the qualities we are looking for?
If so, what would be the questions to ask? When I read the former tests, base questions seem to be
* How would you rate the readability of this font? very/completely unreadable - somewhat unreadable - not specifically readable or unreadable - well readable - very well readable * How would you rate the neutrality of this font? (I don't really know what this means exactly, so a different phrasing is probably better, maybe something like "do you think this font has a specific style", where less is better?) Very neutral/not a specific style at all - somewhat neutral/no of a specific style - not neutral or non neutral/not much of a specific style - somewhat non-neutral/a somewhat specific style - very non-neutral/a very specific style/you just showed me papyrus * Does this font look authoritative? Very authoritative - somewhat authoritative - neither authoritative nor non-authoritative - not very authoritative - not authoritative at all/I just told you you're showing me papyrus * Does this font seem to render correctly? yes - no
Is testing like this a road we want to go down at all? If so, is this specific format a good idea? Can we improve this idea to make it good?
I don't mind making this in the weekend if it is a good idea.
--Martijn
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