Mailing List Archive

On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>wrote:

> Hoi,
> Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved
> usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was learning
> from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in
> Tanzania
> showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new article.
> UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that make a
> difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only hurt what
> some
> call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a veteran user of
> software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.


Do you know the demographics of the test subjects, and what exactly is
intended with creating a new article? Is it just creating a new page or
creating a page with correct formatting, categories, etc.?

>
> Our usability hurts all our projects. It hurts our smaller projects because
> they do not have enough content and contributors. It hurts our big projects
> because it excludes large demographies from contributing leading to bias
> and
> hurting the NPOV of many articles. When we want to reach out, there is no
> easier way then by making our software usable.


The bigger projects started small, the pioneers helped the newbies
explaining things, new people arrived, and the projects grew. The smaller
projects don't thrive for a number of reasons, such as too few people
interested, competition with a larger project (this happens with some
regional languages, where often "native" speakers are equally native in
another bigger language), digital divide,.. Of course this can be a vicious
circle (being small does not motivate people to join, a pioneer can only do
so much but if there are no followers it gets hard)

>
> What I propose is that those projects who are interested in improving their
> usability ask the WMF to work with them on this. Given that usable software
> should be understood, and given that this is somewhat experimental in
> nature
> as well, it makes sense that project should localise the extensions first
> before they qualify for an implementation. NB the CreatePage extension has
> only eight messages.


I am convinced that the best way to learn to use MediaWiki is editing
Wikipedia, possibly a large one. Reading the help pages, asking the more
expert users, and so on. This helps forming the pioneers, the teachers. The
the teachers go to the small projects, and teach the newbies there. Looking
at how the source code of a page really is is much more helpful than reading
software documentation, at least for people that don't come from the
software world

>
>
> What I propose is to have many and frequent updates. We should learn from
> our experience and consequently move forward carefully but deliberately. It
> is not acceptable that so many of our projects are failing. The UNICEF
> studies explain why this is, the studies show how to improve on this. We
> just have to apply the lessons learned. We just have to show that we can
> apply the lessons learnt.
>

Maybe some project just fail because they're not that useful, that's
Darwinian selection. I agree that some project could make a big difference
(a language like swahili, to say one), and it's definitely unacceptable that
they struggle. Usability of the software is important, but I still don't
believe it will make a difference alone.

Cruccone
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Hoi,
It is hardly relevant what the demographics of the test group is. 100%
failure in Tanzania, well educated people in Austria failing to get to grips
with Wikipedia, we get people informing us about our perceived security
problem. The reason why it is hardly relevant is because the same studies
show that the changes implemented made a measurable difference. There is no
point finding fault at this. Even when a different demographic would be less
disastrously bad, there is a solution that is known to improve the odds of
finding people collaborating on a MediaWiki installation.

When you look at the bottom 80% of our projects, there are few people to
learn things from. The notion that you best learn it on a Wikipedia negates
the fact that I find 80% of our Wikipedia projects struggling. Now consider
when our software is more usable, it becomes even easier to learn what there
is to learn. There will be fewer reasons why people do not contribute
because with improved usability, road blocks are removed.

People do not want to read documentation. They do not want to learn by
example. It should be obvious. Now, I would prefer for the WMF to announce
that they are going to develop WYSIWYG, but perfection is the enemy of the
good. We can implement CreatePage now and WYSIWYG is likely to take more
then a year to develop. So I advocate to do what can be done now.

When you say that improvements in usability is not the only solution, you
are completely correct. Localisation is another factor that plays an
important role. Lack of infrastructure is another. However, usability is
something that *we can* tackle, the best news is that it will help all our
projects. Localisation is worked on with considerable success at Betawiki.
Having said this, Betawiki needs more help. There is a digital divide but
not all Africans or Asians suffers from it. We have to be ready for the
people who can contribute successfully to any MediaWiki project. We have to,
because this is how we can make a difference for all the projects that we
are currently failing.

If you find it unacceptable that the Swahili Wikipedia is struggling, then
just do not accept it, and let usdo what can be done .
Thanks,
GerardM

2008/12/2 Marco Chiesa <chiesa.marco@gmail.com>

> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen
> <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > Hoi,
> > Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved
> > usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was
> learning
> > from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in
> > Tanzania
> > showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new
> article.
> > UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that make a
> > difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only hurt what
> > some
> > call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a veteran user
> of
> > software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
>
>
> Do you know the demographics of the test subjects, and what exactly is
> intended with creating a new article? Is it just creating a new page or
> creating a page with correct formatting, categories, etc.?
>
> >
> > Our usability hurts all our projects. It hurts our smaller projects
> because
> > they do not have enough content and contributors. It hurts our big
> projects
> > because it excludes large demographies from contributing leading to bias
> > and
> > hurting the NPOV of many articles. When we want to reach out, there is no
> > easier way then by making our software usable.
>
>
> The bigger projects started small, the pioneers helped the newbies
> explaining things, new people arrived, and the projects grew. The smaller
> projects don't thrive for a number of reasons, such as too few people
> interested, competition with a larger project (this happens with some
> regional languages, where often "native" speakers are equally native in
> another bigger language), digital divide,.. Of course this can be a vicious
> circle (being small does not motivate people to join, a pioneer can only do
> so much but if there are no followers it gets hard)
>
> >
> > What I propose is that those projects who are interested in improving
> their
> > usability ask the WMF to work with them on this. Given that usable
> software
> > should be understood, and given that this is somewhat experimental in
> > nature
> > as well, it makes sense that project should localise the extensions first
> > before they qualify for an implementation. NB the CreatePage extension
> has
> > only eight messages.
>
>
> I am convinced that the best way to learn to use MediaWiki is editing
> Wikipedia, possibly a large one. Reading the help pages, asking the more
> expert users, and so on. This helps forming the pioneers, the teachers. The
> the teachers go to the small projects, and teach the newbies there. Looking
> at how the source code of a page really is is much more helpful than
> reading
> software documentation, at least for people that don't come from the
> software world
>
> >
> >
> > What I propose is to have many and frequent updates. We should learn from
> > our experience and consequently move forward carefully but deliberately.
> It
> > is not acceptable that so many of our projects are failing. The UNICEF
> > studies explain why this is, the studies show how to improve on this. We
> > just have to apply the lessons learned. We just have to show that we can
> > apply the lessons learnt.
> >
>
> Maybe some project just fail because they're not that useful, that's
> Darwinian selection. I agree that some project could make a big difference
> (a language like swahili, to say one), and it's definitely unacceptable
> that
> they struggle. Usability of the software is important, but I still don't
> believe it will make a difference alone.
>
> Cruccone
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved
> usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was learning
> from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in Tanzania
> showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new article.
> UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that make a
> difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only hurt what some
> call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a veteran user of
> software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
>

The problem for usability is that sometime there is not a better
selection of users to have a "real" sampling.

Naturally if this sampling is formed by users with a poor or no
knowledge of computers, probably they will not have problems with
Wikipedia because they would not able to switch on a computer. The
usability, in this case is the minor problem.

Probably is better to know if they were not able to use the edit
button because the edit button is not "usable" or if they were not
able because they don't have seen an "edit" button in the past.

Ilario

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Hoi,
You do not create a new article by finding the "edit" button. The task all
these people failed at was creating a whole new article.
Thanks,
GerardM

2008/12/2 Ilario Valdelli <valdelli@gmail.com>

> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen
> <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved
> > usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was
> learning
> > from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in
> Tanzania
> > showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new
> article.
> > UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that make a
> > difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only hurt what
> some
> > call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a veteran user
> of
> > software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
> >
>
> The problem for usability is that sometime there is not a better
> selection of users to have a "real" sampling.
>
> Naturally if this sampling is formed by users with a poor or no
> knowledge of computers, probably they will not have problems with
> Wikipedia because they would not able to switch on a computer. The
> usability, in this case is the minor problem.
>
> Probably is better to know if they were not able to use the edit
> button because the edit button is not "usable" or if they were not
> able because they don't have seen an "edit" button in the past.
>
> Ilario
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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Ilario Valdelli schrieb:
> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen
> <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>> Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved
>> usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was learning
>> from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in Tanzania
>> showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new article.
>> UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that make a
>> difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only hurt what some
>> call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a veteran user of
>> software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
>>
>>
>
> The problem for usability is that sometime there is not a better
> selection of users to have a "real" sampling.
>
> Naturally if this sampling is formed by users with a poor or no
> knowledge of computers, probably they will not have problems with
> Wikipedia because they would not able to switch on a computer. The
> usability, in this case is the minor problem.
>
> Probably is better to know if they were not able to use the edit
> button because the edit button is not "usable" or if they were not
> able because they don't have seen an "edit" button in the past.
>
Great.

Wikipedia is a software made by programmers for computer nerds, it is
far from being usable to normal people.
But the first two answers come from nerds who tell us that the software
isn't the problem.

Of course there is a problem with the sample, but with the sample of
wikipedia-users, which do not nearly represent our possible contributors
of content.


Harald Krichel
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Hello,

I was recently at a conference for Swedish information specialists (yes, I
had a talk there). There I met a woman who taught at a university. The
subject: information architecture. They had groups of students improving the
websites of several well known Swedish companies and organisations. Now,
they were seeking new websites to improve. We talked about them getting to
work on Wikipedia (of course without any commitments or strings attached)
and will continue to see if this is a feasible project. I will update this
thread as soon as I know more, but we should try everything we can to make
the threshold of Wikipedia and MediaWiki as low as possible.

Best wishes,

Lennart

--
Lennart Guldbrandsson, chair of Wikimedia Sverige and press contact for
Swedish Wikipedia // ordförande för Wikimedia Sverige och presskontakt för
svenskspråkiga Wikipedia



2008/12/2 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>

> Hoi,
> You do not create a new article by finding the "edit" button. The task all
> these people failed at was creating a whole new article.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
> 2008/12/2 Ilario Valdelli <valdelli@gmail.com>
>
> > On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen
> > <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hoi,
> > > Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved
> > > usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was
> > learning
> > > from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in
> > Tanzania
> > > showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new
> > article.
> > > UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that make
> a
> > > difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only hurt what
> > some
> > > call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a veteran
> user
> > of
> > > software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
> > >
> >
> > The problem for usability is that sometime there is not a better
> > selection of users to have a "real" sampling.
> >
> > Naturally if this sampling is formed by users with a poor or no
> > knowledge of computers, probably they will not have problems with
> > Wikipedia because they would not able to switch on a computer. The
> > usability, in this case is the minor problem.
> >
> > Probably is better to know if they were not able to use the edit
> > button because the edit button is not "usable" or if they were not
> > able because they don't have seen an "edit" button in the past.
> >
> > Ilario
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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Where did they fail? Did they fail to find a red link to create an
article? (those seem to be getting increasingly rare) Could they not
find a subject to start a new article on? Were they unable to type
text into the appropriate box and submit it? Were they unable to
structure the article well enough? Were they unable to wikify it?
Were they unable to categorize it? Did they fail to add an infobox or
a picture? Were they unable to get it to GA/FA status?

There's lots of failure points; which ones caused the problems, and
are there simple tweaks that can be made to sort out the problems?

Mike

On 2 Dec 2008, at 13:23, Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> Hoi,
> You do not create a new article by finding the "edit" button. The
> task all
> these people failed at was creating a whole new article.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
> 2008/12/2 Ilario Valdelli <valdelli@gmail.com>
>
>> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen
>> <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hoi,
>>> Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved
>>> usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was
>> learning
>>> from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in
>> Tanzania
>>> showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new
>> article.
>>> UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that
>>> make a
>>> difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only
>>> hurt what
>> some
>>> call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a
>>> veteran user
>> of
>>> software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
>>>
>>
>> The problem for usability is that sometime there is not a better
>> selection of users to have a "real" sampling.
>>
>> Naturally if this sampling is formed by users with a poor or no
>> knowledge of computers, probably they will not have problems with
>> Wikipedia because they would not able to switch on a computer. The
>> usability, in this case is the minor problem.
>>
>> Probably is better to know if they were not able to use the edit
>> button because the edit button is not "usable" or if they were not
>> able because they don't have seen an "edit" button in the past.
>>
>> Ilario
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/
>> foundation-l
>>
> _______________________________________________
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Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> It is hardly relevant what the demographics of the test group is. 100%
> failure in Tanzania, well educated people in Austria failing to get to grips
> with Wikipedia, we get people informing us about our perceived security
> problem. The reason why it is hardly relevant is because the same studies
> show that the changes implemented made a measurable difference. There is no
> point finding fault at this. Even when a different demographic would be less
> disastrously bad, there is a solution that is known to improve the odds of
> finding people collaborating on a MediaWiki installation.

Known to whom? I am testing the CreatePage extension on
http://www.appropedia.org and I find it harder to use than the usual way
of creating pages.

First I have to enter the page name and click on "Create Page" - OK, the
usual.

But then I have to choose a layout. I have no idea what a layout is,
what layout should I choose, nor how will the layout I choose look.

When I choose one at random, I get to the actual edit page. The only
improvement I see here is that buttons above the edit field have textual
description, which is something that, now that I see it, I find quite
useful :) The form is several screens long which I find frightening,
Save button is lost under the form, it is not obvious what a section is
(of course, that is not obvious right now, but this doesn't help much),
and there is no practical way to reorder the sections. To the right is a
list of categories that, on a real Wikipedia, would be completely
unusable (and by the way, Commons solved this problem when uploading a
picture in a much better way).

Keep it wiki, keep it simple. People love to share their knowledge, not
to fill forms.

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Michael Peel wrote:
> Where did they fail? Did they fail to find a red link to create an
> article? (those seem to be getting increasingly rare) Could they not
> find a subject to start a new article on? Were they unable to type
> text into the appropriate box and submit it? Were they unable to
> structure the article well enough? Were they unable to wikify it?
> Were they unable to categorize it? Did they fail to add an infobox or
> a picture? Were they unable to get it to GA/FA status?

To sum it all: is the study published, and what's its URL?

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On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 2:23 PM, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> You do not create a new article by finding the "edit" button. The task all
> these people failed at was creating a whole new article.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>

Ok, it's a real problem... but we know that any wiki has got a syntax.

It's better to know the curve of learning of these users.

For example:
* they were not able to write an article at start
* after a quick training the 50% was able
* with a small handbook the 40% was able

IMHO it's better to learn a syntax instead of HTML.

Ilario

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On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 8:40 AM, Michael Peel <email@mikepeel.net> wrote:

> Where did they fail? Did they fail to find a red link to create an
> article? (those seem to be getting increasingly rare) Could they not
> find a subject to start a new article on? Were they unable to type
> text into the appropriate box and submit it? Were they unable to
> structure the article well enough? Were they unable to wikify it?
> Were they unable to categorize it? Did they fail to add an infobox or
> a picture? Were they unable to get it to GA/FA status?
>
> There's lots of failure points; which ones caused the problems, and
> are there simple tweaks that can be made to sort out the problems?
>
> Mike
>
>
Exactly. It helps to know *what* is wrong before trying to set
about fixing it. Saying they couldn't get from A to Z isn't enough,
as (like you said) there's many places to stumble along the way.

If these are general usability issues with the core MediaWiki
(lack of titles for buttons, bad page layouts), then those need to
be fixed in the software, not via extensions to circumvent the
current process. If the process itself has problems, then either
the process needs changing or an extension can supplement
the usual way of doing things.

Bugs can be fixed, we just need to know exactly what the bugs
are :)

-Chad
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Hoi,
They failed their task. Their task was to create a new article. There are
many people who fail at this.

When you state that "those seem to be getting increasingly rare", I wonder
if you have experience with small and starting projects. It is a recurring
theme and it is a major reason for the failure of projects. I completely
agree with you that there are many more pain points. The trick is to solve
the issues that are easy to solve first. From this we can progress to a next
issue.
Thanks,
GerardM

2008/12/2 Michael Peel <email@mikepeel.net>

> Where did they fail? Did they fail to find a red link to create an
> article? (those seem to be getting increasingly rare) Could they not
> find a subject to start a new article on? Were they unable to type
> text into the appropriate box and submit it? Were they unable to
> structure the article well enough? Were they unable to wikify it?
> Were they unable to categorize it? Did they fail to add an infobox or
> a picture? Were they unable to get it to GA/FA status?
>
> There's lots of failure points; which ones caused the problems, and
> are there simple tweaks that can be made to sort out the problems?
>
> Mike
>
> On 2 Dec 2008, at 13:23, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
> > Hoi,
> > You do not create a new article by finding the "edit" button. The
> > task all
> > these people failed at was creating a whole new article.
> > Thanks,
> > GerardM
> >
> > 2008/12/2 Ilario Valdelli <valdelli@gmail.com>
> >
> >> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen
> >> <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> Hoi,
> >>> Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved
> >>> usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was
> >> learning
> >>> from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in
> >> Tanzania
> >>> showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new
> >> article.
> >>> UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that
> >>> make a
> >>> difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only
> >>> hurt what
> >> some
> >>> call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a
> >>> veteran user
> >> of
> >>> software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
> >>>
> >>
> >> The problem for usability is that sometime there is not a better
> >> selection of users to have a "real" sampling.
> >>
> >> Naturally if this sampling is formed by users with a poor or no
> >> knowledge of computers, probably they will not have problems with
> >> Wikipedia because they would not able to switch on a computer. The
> >> usability, in this case is the minor problem.
> >>
> >> Probably is better to know if they were not able to use the edit
> >> button because the edit button is not "usable" or if they were not
> >> able because they don't have seen an "edit" button in the past.
> >>
> >> Ilario
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> foundation-l mailing list
> >> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/
> >> foundation-l
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
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>
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Hoi,
There are indeed issues with the core MediaWiki software. There is existing
software that is build as an extension. The basic CreatePage extension can
easily be implemented, it does require no templates or buttons. These are
separate opportunities. Opportunities that take a bit more consideration.

When we are to learn what new functionality improves our core software, it
makes sense to first experience the results by tweaking the system with
extensions. When we are confident of the results, we can progress and
integrate it in the core.

When you consider changes to the usability, you do not fix bugs. The system
is not buggy in the sense that it works as per the specification. The issue
is that usability can only be improved with a different specification. There
will be projects who will be eager to experiment with the UNICEF extensions.
The Swahili wikipedia would be an obvious choice because they have already
localised the eight messages of the CreatePage extension.
Thanks,
GerardM


2008/12/2 Chad <innocentkiller@gmail.com>

> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 8:40 AM, Michael Peel <email@mikepeel.net> wrote:
>
> > Where did they fail? Did they fail to find a red link to create an
> > article? (those seem to be getting increasingly rare) Could they not
> > find a subject to start a new article on? Were they unable to type
> > text into the appropriate box and submit it? Were they unable to
> > structure the article well enough? Were they unable to wikify it?
> > Were they unable to categorize it? Did they fail to add an infobox or
> > a picture? Were they unable to get it to GA/FA status?
> >
> > There's lots of failure points; which ones caused the problems, and
> > are there simple tweaks that can be made to sort out the problems?
> >
> > Mike
> >
> >
> Exactly. It helps to know *what* is wrong before trying to set
> about fixing it. Saying they couldn't get from A to Z isn't enough,
> as (like you said) there's many places to stumble along the way.
>
> If these are general usability issues with the core MediaWiki
> (lack of titles for buttons, bad page layouts), then those need to
> be fixed in the software, not via extensions to circumvent the
> current process. If the process itself has problems, then either
> the process needs changing or an extension can supplement
> the usual way of doing things.
>
> Bugs can be fixed, we just need to know exactly what the bugs
> are :)
>
> -Chad
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On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 3:00 PM, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> They failed their task. Their task was to create a new article. There are
> many people who fail at this.

From our internal lab/project wiki, I can confirm that people
(including PhDs and professors) keep looking for a "start a new page"
button (or something). Editing a page to create a redlink and then
follow that does not occur to them; it is apparently counter-intuitive
to most. I usually recommend to search for the new article, then click
on the "create an article" link.

Cheers,
Magnus

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Hoi,
There are many people who have been struggling with poor usability of
MediaWiki inside and outside of the Wikimedia Foundation. When the people
from this university are interested in working on usability, they will find
many people who have half ready solutions. They will find that improving
usability is not easy because it is a truly international environment. They
will find many people and organisations that will gladly work together,
experiment and learn what works best.

It would be lovely to increase the group of people who concentrate on the
usability of our beloved software.
Thanks,
GerardM

2008/12/2 Lennart Guldbrandsson <wikihannibal@gmail.com>

> Hello,
>
> I was recently at a conference for Swedish information specialists (yes, I
> had a talk there). There I met a woman who taught at a university. The
> subject: information architecture. They had groups of students improving
> the
> websites of several well known Swedish companies and organisations. Now,
> they were seeking new websites to improve. We talked about them getting to
> work on Wikipedia (of course without any commitments or strings attached)
> and will continue to see if this is a feasible project. I will update this
> thread as soon as I know more, but we should try everything we can to make
> the threshold of Wikipedia and MediaWiki as low as possible.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Lennart
>
> --
> Lennart Guldbrandsson, chair of Wikimedia Sverige and press contact for
> Swedish Wikipedia // ordförande för Wikimedia Sverige och presskontakt för
> svenskspråkiga Wikipedia
>
>
>
> 2008/12/2 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>
>
> > Hoi,
> > You do not create a new article by finding the "edit" button. The task
> all
> > these people failed at was creating a whole new article.
> > Thanks,
> > GerardM
> >
> > 2008/12/2 Ilario Valdelli <valdelli@gmail.com>
> >
> > > On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen
> > > <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > Hoi,
> > > > Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting improved
> > > > usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was
> > > learning
> > > > from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study done in
> > > Tanzania
> > > > showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new
> > > article.
> > > > UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that
> make
> > a
> > > > difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only hurt
> what
> > > some
> > > > call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a veteran
> > user
> > > of
> > > > software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
> > > >
> > >
> > > The problem for usability is that sometime there is not a better
> > > selection of users to have a "real" sampling.
> > >
> > > Naturally if this sampling is formed by users with a poor or no
> > > knowledge of computers, probably they will not have problems with
> > > Wikipedia because they would not able to switch on a computer. The
> > > usability, in this case is the minor problem.
> > >
> > > Probably is better to know if they were not able to use the edit
> > > button because the edit button is not "usable" or if they were not
> > > able because they don't have seen an "edit" button in the past.
> > >
> > > Ilario
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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> >
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Gerard,

You seem to have completely missed my point. At which stage in the
process did they fail?

It's like answering the question "why do cars crash?" with "they
failed to not crash."...

No, I don't have experience with small projects. That comment was
based on my experience with en.wp, where red links seem to have gone
out of fashion (and not because they're unnecessary).

Mike

On 2 Dec 2008, at 15:00, Gerard Meijssen wrote:

> Hoi,
> They failed their task. Their task was to create a new article.
> There are
> many people who fail at this.
>
> When you state that "those seem to be getting increasingly rare", I
> wonder
> if you have experience with small and starting projects. It is a
> recurring
> theme and it is a major reason for the failure of projects. I
> completely
> agree with you that there are many more pain points. The trick is
> to solve
> the issues that are easy to solve first. From this we can progress
> to a next
> issue.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
> 2008/12/2 Michael Peel <email@mikepeel.net>
>
>> Where did they fail? Did they fail to find a red link to create an
>> article? (those seem to be getting increasingly rare) Could they not
>> find a subject to start a new article on? Were they unable to type
>> text into the appropriate box and submit it? Were they unable to
>> structure the article well enough? Were they unable to wikify it?
>> Were they unable to categorize it? Did they fail to add an infobox or
>> a picture? Were they unable to get it to GA/FA status?
>>
>> There's lots of failure points; which ones caused the problems, and
>> are there simple tweaks that can be made to sort out the problems?
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> On 2 Dec 2008, at 13:23, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>
>>> Hoi,
>>> You do not create a new article by finding the "edit" button. The
>>> task all
>>> these people failed at was creating a whole new article.
>>> Thanks,
>>> GerardM
>>>
>>> 2008/12/2 Ilario Valdelli <valdelli@gmail.com>
>>>
>>>> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen
>>>> <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Hoi,
>>>>> Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting
>>>>> improved
>>>>> usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was
>>>> learning
>>>>> from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study
>>>>> done in
>>>> Tanzania
>>>>> showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new
>>>> article.
>>>>> UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that
>>>>> make a
>>>>> difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only
>>>>> hurt what
>>>> some
>>>>> call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a
>>>>> veteran user
>>>> of
>>>>> software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The problem for usability is that sometime there is not a better
>>>> selection of users to have a "real" sampling.
>>>>
>>>> Naturally if this sampling is formed by users with a poor or no
>>>> knowledge of computers, probably they will not have problems with
>>>> Wikipedia because they would not able to switch on a computer. The
>>>> usability, in this case is the minor problem.
>>>>
>>>> Probably is better to know if they were not able to use the edit
>>>> button because the edit button is not "usable" or if they were not
>>>> able because they don't have seen an "edit" button in the past.
>>>>
>>>> Ilario
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> foundation-l mailing list
>>>> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>>>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/
>>>> foundation-l
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> foundation-l mailing list
>>> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/
>>> foundation-l
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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> Van: Magnus Manske <magnusmanske@googlemail.com>
> Beantwoorden - Aan: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
> Datum: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 15:16:54 +0000
> Aan: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
> Onderwerp: Re: [Foundation-l] Moving towards a more usable MediaWiki
>
> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 3:00 PM, Gerard Meijssen
> <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hoi,
>> They failed their task. Their task was to create a new article. There are
>> many people who fail at this.
>
> From our internal lab/project wiki, I can confirm that people
> (including PhDs and professors) keep looking for a "start a new page"
> button (or something). Editing a page to create a redlink and then
> follow that does not occur to them; it is apparently counter-intuitive
> to most. I usually recommend to search for the new article, then click
> on the "create an article" link.

For the past 3,5 years, I have worked with Kennisnet, setting up educational
projects using MediaWiki. I also work for the ICT department of a big bank,
implementing their internal corporate wiki, based on MediaWiki.

Over the years, I've worked with young people, old people, people that are
computer literate and total computer noobs. Most of them have trouble
understanding how to create a new page. Especially if they're not literally
pointed in the right direction by someone standing right beside them.

For people not working with MediaWiki outside Wikipedia, it is hard to
imagine what learning curve you went through when you first started editing.
It's the curse of knowledge; you cannot unlearn it. That's what made my work
hard in the beginning: I had trouble understanding why people had
difficulties editing a wiki. I found it so easy!

If you are an editor at a very new project, it's hard to get things going.
When you start a new project, your MediaWiki installation has *no* pages.
And there's no community yet to help you out. There are not even any red
links to click.

Believe me, I've looked for the simple tweaks. I've written manuals, given
workshops. But MediaWiki is just really hard to explain. The best solution
to most of the problems I encounter when teaching people to work with a
wiki, are these Uniwiki extensions. Creating pages is only one of the
difficulties. Uploading images and putting them on a page is another. That's
also a problem the Uniwiki extensions can solve.

MediaWiki is very difficult software for people not used to it. I see that
every day in my work. That's why I'm all for supporting every effort made to
improve the usability of MediaWiki. In the end, it will help the Wikimedia
projects as well. The more people are at ease working with wikis, the more
the projects will benefit.

Wikipedia is a huge success, but that is *not* thanks to its easy software.
It is thanks to the patient community members and the perseverance of the
newcomers. Imagine how much the projects would benefit if it became simply
easier to edit and create pages and to upload and use images.

Best regards,

Marjon Bakker



DISCLAIMER:

Dit bericht (met bijlagen) is zorgvuldig samengesteld. Voor eventuele onjuistheid en/of onvolledigheid van de hierin verstrekte informatie aanvaardt Kennisnet geen aansprakelijkheid. Aan de inhoud van dit bericht (met bijlagen) kunnen geen rechten worden ontleend. De inhoud van dit bericht (met bijlagen) kan vertrouwelijke informatie bevatten en is uitsluitend bestemd voor de geadresseerde van dit bericht.

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Hoi,
They were requested to start a new article.. Nothing fancy.. an article with
a few lines of text. The car did not crash, it never got moving.
Thanks,
GerardM

2008/12/2 Michael Peel <email@mikepeel.net>

> Gerard,
>
> You seem to have completely missed my point. At which stage in the
> process did they fail?
>
> It's like answering the question "why do cars crash?" with "they
> failed to not crash."...
>
> No, I don't have experience with small projects. That comment was
> based on my experience with en.wp, where red links seem to have gone
> out of fashion (and not because they're unnecessary).
>
> Mike
>
> On 2 Dec 2008, at 15:00, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
> > Hoi,
> > They failed their task. Their task was to create a new article.
> > There are
> > many people who fail at this.
> >
> > When you state that "those seem to be getting increasingly rare", I
> > wonder
> > if you have experience with small and starting projects. It is a
> > recurring
> > theme and it is a major reason for the failure of projects. I
> > completely
> > agree with you that there are many more pain points. The trick is
> > to solve
> > the issues that are easy to solve first. From this we can progress
> > to a next
> > issue.
> > Thanks,
> > GerardM
> >
> > 2008/12/2 Michael Peel <email@mikepeel.net>
> >
> >> Where did they fail? Did they fail to find a red link to create an
> >> article? (those seem to be getting increasingly rare) Could they not
> >> find a subject to start a new article on? Were they unable to type
> >> text into the appropriate box and submit it? Were they unable to
> >> structure the article well enough? Were they unable to wikify it?
> >> Were they unable to categorize it? Did they fail to add an infobox or
> >> a picture? Were they unable to get it to GA/FA status?
> >>
> >> There's lots of failure points; which ones caused the problems, and
> >> are there simple tweaks that can be made to sort out the problems?
> >>
> >> Mike
> >>
> >> On 2 Dec 2008, at 13:23, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hoi,
> >>> You do not create a new article by finding the "edit" button. The
> >>> task all
> >>> these people failed at was creating a whole new article.
> >>> Thanks,
> >>> GerardM
> >>>
> >>> 2008/12/2 Ilario Valdelli <valdelli@gmail.com>
> >>>
> >>>> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen
> >>>> <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>> Hoi,
> >>>>> Over the last weeks I have been rather active in promoting
> >>>>> improved
> >>>>> usability for the MediaWiki software. What really got me going was
> >>>> learning
> >>>>> from a Wikimania presentation that a UNICEF usability study
> >>>>> done in
> >>>> Tanzania
> >>>>> showed that 100% of the test subjects were unable to create a new
> >>>> article.
> >>>>> UNICEF has created extensions to improve on this, extensions that
> >>>>> make a
> >>>>> difference. The fact that our usability is poor does not only
> >>>>> hurt what
> >>>> some
> >>>>> call "minority languages". A professor in Austria I know, a
> >>>>> veteran user
> >>>> of
> >>>>> software, was also hard pressed to collaborate on a wiki.
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> The problem for usability is that sometime there is not a better
> >>>> selection of users to have a "real" sampling.
> >>>>
> >>>> Naturally if this sampling is formed by users with a poor or no
> >>>> knowledge of computers, probably they will not have problems with
> >>>> Wikipedia because they would not able to switch on a computer. The
> >>>> usability, in this case is the minor problem.
> >>>>
> >>>> Probably is better to know if they were not able to use the edit
> >>>> button because the edit button is not "usable" or if they were not
> >>>> able because they don't have seen an "edit" button in the past.
> >>>>
> >>>> Ilario
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> foundation-l mailing list
> >>>> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >>>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/
> >>>> foundation-l
> >>>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> foundation-l mailing list
> >>> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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> >>> foundation-l
> >>
> >>
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>
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On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 10:12 AM, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>wrote:

> Hoi,
> There are indeed issues with the core MediaWiki software. There is existing
> software that is build as an extension. The basic CreatePage extension can
> easily be implemented, it does require no templates or buttons. These are
> separate opportunities. Opportunities that take a bit more consideration.
>

Indeed. I am not opposed to extensions that improve on core ideas, as long
as they're thoroughly tested and proven to have a noticeable improvement in
userland.


>
> When we are to learn what new functionality improves our core software, it
> makes sense to first experience the results by tweaking the system with
> extensions. When we are confident of the results, we can progress and
> integrate it in the core.


Not necessarily. It comes back to my original statement: is it a problem
with
how we do things nor, or is this an alternate way some people might
like/need?
If it's the former, then we most certainly need to fix it in core. However,
there
is always the opportunity for the latter. Some things just shouldn't be in
the
core software, because it has a very specific user-case (even if that
use-case
is WM-wide), and we don't want to burden those who lack these specific
scenarios but extra features (and associated configuration).


>
>
> When you consider changes to the usability, you do not fix bugs. The system
> is not buggy in the sense that it works as per the specification. The issue
> is that usability can only be improved with a different specification.
> There
> will be projects who will be eager to experiment with the UNICEF
> extensions.
> The Swahili wikipedia would be an obvious choice because they have already
> localised the eight messages of the CreatePage extension.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>

Yes and no. Usability issues can most certainly be bugs. If we have a page
like
the upload form that is poorly implemented and creates a barrier to
contribution,
then we need to fix it. Same thing for image alt text, language support, and

fallback support for non-traditional browsers. This kind of thing needs to
be
supported in core and issues with it need to be fixed. Extensions add
functionality,
they shouldn't be fixing current functionality problems.

-Chad
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

[snip]

We're already aware of the UNICEF study & extensions and will be
reviewing them alongside other ongoing usability testing and development
projects throughout 2009.

- -- brion
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.8 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

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vfYAnj66ZEn+uWRWZbF1H1cU167HCn4u
=YY3K
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On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 9:46 AM, Brion Vibber <brion@wikimedia.org> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> [snip]
>
> We're already aware of the UNICEF study & extensions and will be
> reviewing them alongside other ongoing usability testing and development
> projects throughout 2009.
>
> - -- brion

Lovely. Usability in general is an important topic, and it goes beyond
any particular task or set of projects; there are many things in
MediaWiki that could be improved. (My vote would be for working on an
easier referencing system, which has also been discussed many times).

Is there a current page on Meta or elsewhere for this list of
potential usability projects, adding suggestions, and discussion of
them?

-- Phoebe

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phoebe ayers wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 9:46 AM, Brion Vibber <brion@wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>> We're already aware of the UNICEF study & extensions and will be
>> reviewing them alongside other ongoing usability testing and development
>> projects throughout 2009.
>>
>> - -- brion
>>
>
> Lovely. Usability in general is an important topic, and it goes beyond
> any particular task or set of projects; there are many things in
> MediaWiki that could be improved. (My vote would be for working on an
> easier referencing system, which has also been discussed many times).
>
> Is there a current page on Meta or elsewhere for this list of
> potential usability projects, adding suggestions, and discussion of
> them?
>
> -- Phoebe
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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>

Yes there is: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability

Ting

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On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 08:10, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> They were requested to start a new article.. Nothing fancy.. an article with
> a few lines of text. The car did not crash, it never got moving.

You're still missing the point: *HOW* did they fail? What step in the
process of creating an article did not happen? Once this is known, it
becomes possible to devise a solution; conversely, as long as it it
unknown, any attempts at solving the problem will fail.

--
Mark Wagner
[[en:User:Carnildo]]

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Mark Wagner hett schreven:
> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 08:10, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>> They were requested to start a new article.. Nothing fancy.. an article with
>> a few lines of text. The car did not crash, it never got moving.
>>
>
> You're still missing the point: *HOW* did they fail? What step in the
> process of creating an article did not happen? Once this is known, it
> becomes possible to devise a solution; conversely, as long as it it
> unknown, any attempts at solving the problem will fail.
They were placed in front of a opened wiki and got told to create an
article, start a new page (I guess, it was _not_ the English wikipedia,
if you assumed that, but more likely a UNICEF wiki). They didn't manage
to create a page, cause they were not able to find the right place to
place their article. And that was the very straightforwardly reason to
create the CreatePage extension, I guess.

Marcus Buck

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