Wikimedia Apps/Team/2014-2015/Q1

Annual level goal: We will have n new active editors from Mobile Apps. (for some n to be defined as we have better baseline, measurably driven by our changes)

Q1 goal: We will ship {a,b,c} features by the end of the quarter. (quantitative goals will come Q2 after the baselines have been established)

Article Creation Workflow Better search experience: Did you mean xyz? or do you want to create a new page? (Should probably go into the sprint after next) Discussions Notifications w/ push Reimplementing Echo (*tie into* echo! -> get your existing notifications that we don't yet expose) Mobile First (e.g. "You're near an article with no photo, take a photo of it and upload it!" (here be dragons)) geofencing and related fancy things might not be related to echo Actionable notifications: you should be able to *do* something in response (simple: show message; fancy: show message and reply) Potential ones Thank New quick contributions (e.g. Wikidata Descriptor Creation Workflow, Add an image, Describe an image, Other quick contributions) Actionable Cleanup Templates Better WikiText editing experience -> syntax highlighting? -> semi-visual-editor? -> jump directly into selected text? Onboarding / First Time UX, making it clear for users "why should you signup/log in to wikipedia"? First Time UX can also include First Time editing... For the first editing cycle dependency on discussions and notifications to close the feedback loop Mediaviewer "as a product" (native supplement/replacement for the web version) (remember we already have a Commons app in teh stores, iOS and Android) (should we revamp it or absorb its features?) upload only? do the discussion of two or one app later! concentrate on the feature for now, then decide how.

What is the persona of a new active editor?

They're a reader who is specifically turning to Wikipedia for information.
 * more likely to make an account, turn to editing, etc than the typical drive-by mobile web reader

-> Actually getting *into* the editing -> does that change their persona?


 * people do an edit just fine; what happens *after* the first edit? keep them coming back

Someone who didn't know you can edit Wikipedia?

First-time editing UX onboarding? (but we *are* getting first edits... what about second edits?) -> can we improve the first-time editing UX to encourage people to come back? make the experience friendlier explain to them how they're going to get drawn back (give a chance for watchlist or talk or page-use notifications?) -> first-time *cycle* not just first-time *edit*

Microcontributions

Problems
I didn't know I could edit Wikipedia at all! I didn't know I could edit Wikipedia and it would be live straight away. I didn't know there is a community of people around this; how do I communicate with them? Are they scary or friendly? I pressed edit, and what is this? Wikitext is scary. I dont know what to do - this looks really dense. How do I get in? Wait a sec!!!!! this is unfamiliar and I feel lost Got partway through editing and then had no idea how to do (something) -- how do I get help? We're pushing people into wikitext editing, but on desktop and tablet we're trying to slowly phase it out (*very* slowly, it'll probably be around for at least 10 years)? (well at least phase it out from the first-edit experience :D) I did one spelling correction ... now what? I made 5 edits and now I'm blocked. Huh? I wrote a whole article and .... now what?

Possible ideas for first time editing onboarding
App onboarding becomes two part experience; sign in/log in page, then "you can edit!" page Implement minimal WYSIWYG editing (e.g. VE "lite"?) in apps. <- note this is potentially a LOT of work consider syntax highlighting as a mid-step (see Dmitry's experiments on Android) Smaller editing improvements? clearly findable help with markup examples, like the WikiEditor toolbar 'help' dropdown Sandbox-like practice before you save on a 'real' article? Flippable preview? Look at the guided tour stuff on desktop, see if we should adapt things (and examples of specific articles to point at) small steps w/ satisfaction for each completion Give context for your activity -- maybe instead of 'main page', show a dashboard with what's happened to your recent edits? (instead of relying on talk/watch notifications for every feedback)

Summary
We're going to address the problems of people not knowing you can edit Wikipedia at all, and that when I do it's live right away!

Our plan for Q1 is to ship improvements to the first time UX workflow to tell people that they can edit and that it goes live right away! We're also going to do a guided tour-esque workflow for people getting people into their first edit.

Tangible goal. We are done if...
 * Someone who has never edited before that downloads the app, know they can create an account and edit
 * They should know they use the edit pencil to edit
 * They should not go "WTF" once they hit the wikitext, they should have some context to that