Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Feature sequence

This page outlines the features and changes we would like to address during the course of the desktop improvements project. We will be testing and iterating on each features idea so the designs you will see below are not final.

Opt out toggle
We will begin by building the setting which will allow users to turn the improvements on and off within user preferences. We will also provide an opt-out button on every page for easier control.

Learning plan/testing
We will look at the following questions through qualitative and quantitative testing:


 * Retention on all users (logged-out and logged-in). If not possible, just retention on logged-in users will be used as a proxy.
 * Duration of opt-in status (so we can see which features might have more effects than others)
 * Views to appearance tab in preferences
 * Average pageviews per day before/after opting in - by type of user/number of edits

Gadgets this change might affect

 * N/A (as it's just a preference)

New Header
We will build a new header which is somewhat smaller than the current version. This will allow us to later make the header sticky and to provide commonly-used functionality from any portion of the page (without needing to scroll up)

Learning plan/testing
We will look at the following questions through qualitative and quantitative testing:


 * How often do people click on the logo to get to the main page?
 * Is there a difference between logo interactions before and after the change

Gadgets this change might affect

 * TBD

Collapsible Sidebar
We would like to give users the ability to collapse the sidebar. We believe this will lead to a cleaner reading and editing experience while continuing to give access to important functionality.

Learning plan/testing
We will look at the following questions through qualitative and quantitative testing:


 * Do people discover that it's collapsible?
 * Do people collapse it and leave it collapsed?
 * Is there any effects on account creation?

Gadgets this change might affect

 * TBD

Moving language links to the article title bar
Currently, language links are found at the bottom of the sidebar for many wikis. We would like to give the language switcher a more prominent position within the interface in order to make language switching easier.

Learning plan/testing
We will look at the following questions through qualitative and quantitative testing:


 * Is the new language switcher easier to discover than the old version?
 * Does this change increase the amount of language switching?
 * How do these patterns vary by wiki and language?

Gadgets this change might affect

 * TBD

Sticky site and article headers
We would like to build a sticky header that will allow users to access important functionality (logging in/out, edit, talk pages, etc. ) without requiring people to scroll to the top of the page.

Learning plan/testing
We will look at the following questions through qualitative and quantitative testing:


 * With what frequency are the actions available within the header used?
 * Which are the most important links we can include within the sticky header?

User Menu
As a part of the project, we would like to consolidate related links into individual menus so that users can have all of links related to a user, article, or global navigation in intuitive places. We will begin this process by consolidating user-related links (user page, sandbox, preferences, beta, etc) into a single menu.

Learning plan/testing
We will look at the following questions through qualitative and quantitative testing:


 * Are these links easier or more difficult to find with the new interface?
 * Are people interacting with these links in a similar way? Is there any effect on pageviews?