Moderator Tools/Content moderation on mobile web/Preferences



Users in the mobile web skin cannot currently access Special:Preferences from the user interface. The only way of reaching this page is to directly navigate to it or switch to desktop view. Since Preferences contains critical user account features such as changing passwords, updating email addresses, configuring notifications, and accessing anti-harassment features, we are planning to work on bringing this page to mobile.

To do this we need to first evaluate what to do about the preferences which have no effect for mobile-only users. We also need to review the page's design - it uses a tab system which may not make much sense on a narrow mobile device, and the responsive resizing leaves many settings squashed or with large amounts of text near them. The mobile skin also has a separate mobile settings option, which is additionally available to logged-out users. We need to decide if and how we can present these settings alongside user preferences in a way which is understandable.

Design
Design work on this feature is ongoing. We'll post mockups and opportunities for feedback as we progress.

Open questions
We want to learn more about how editors use Special:Preferences so that we can better understand how to proceed with our design and UX directions.
 * Which preferences do you find yourself needing to access often?
 * Are there preferences which you need access on mobile more often than desktop?


 * Are there any preferences which you would only want to set for mobile or desktop views, or is it OK that all preferences apply to both?
 * Do you expect you would ever want to adjust a setting which only changes desktop behaviour from your mobile device?
 * Is it obvious to you which settings don't affect the mobile experience?

6 May 2022
We have started by making an inventory of all user preferences and determining which have an effect in the mobile skin and which don't. From this we discovered that while the 'User profile' and 'Notifications' tabs are 100% effective for mobile-only users, most other tabs are a mix of settings which do and don't have any effect.

We are considering starting this work by making the 'User profile' and 'Notifications' tabs available on mobile, so that we have an expandable design, but don't need to concern ourselves with making technical and design decisions about splitting the tabs which have a mix of applicable and non-applicable options. At the same time, we don't want to hide these settings entirely, as some users may want to adjust desktop preferences from mobile.

In addition, we are beginning design explorations for a mobile-first user interface.