VisualEditor/Design and features

This page is a directory of pages related to the design and features of the VisualEditor. Some of these pages describe deprecated aspects of the software, and are retained for historical purposes. For pages related to the planning and testing of these features and elements, see Planning and testing.

General

 * Overview, description of the philosophies behind the VE's software design
 * Design review
 * Design questions

Features

 * Features
 * Realtime collaboration
 * Keyboard shortcuts
 * Inventory, list of supported and unsupported shortcuts/keystrokes


 * Table editor

Text display

 * Bidirectional text requirements
 * Internationalization requirements

Other

 * Change markers historical

May 20, 2014 User tests
User was dropped into VE and asked to complete a few tasks, typical to basic editing: In general, users were able to quickly find what they needed on the toolbar and complete the tasks. But often they were not sure if they had completed the task successfully.
 * Enter text
 * Add a special character to text using toolbar
 * Create a link
 * Make text italic
 * Enter title, make it a subheading
 * Enter text, make it a paragraph under the subheading
 * Add a picture
 * Save their edits

Finding things

Users generally found things either right away or by looking through toolbar menus from left to right.

Sometimes when users couldn't find something looked to the left sidebar under tools.

Recommend  Less clutter:

Move bullet lists into the text formatting menu.

Try moving the section menu into the text formatting menu. Organize the most commonly used tools to the left of the toolbar. Prioritize items in menus. Break up into groups.

Special Character: Wider dialogue, break up into groups

Link

Most users were not sure they successfully added a link. Clip

Recommend  Add a check button or something to show a user confirmation.

Add a way for user to go open the link in another tab.

Picture

Some users struggled to add a picture. 2 users tried to go to insert > gallery, and got really lost. Clip  Once a user had added a picture, they weren't sure that they had successfully added it to the correct place. Clip

Recommend  Move media icon to top-level toolbar. Change dialogue title to "Add images or video"

Be able to add gallery from this dialogue?

Improve drag and drop, and indicate somehow that images fall where they can fit on right rail

Save 

Most users saved easily and felt they had done it right. One user wanted to fill out a detailed edit summary and struggled to remember what she had changed. Clip

Recommend  Move save dialogue to be anchored to the top right, closer to save button, so that user can more easily see their changes. Better idea: Have summary filled autmatically

Edit source vs Edit beta

One user upon entering test immediately clicked edit source and never found visual editor. clip

Recommend  One tab, with ability to switch in the toolbar.

Tooltips

Give more information in link and reference tooltips so a user can quickly read / decide if they want to edit them.''' '''

Next test ideas
Watch experiences editors use VE. 1st group - Wikitext users, 2nd group - VE users