Wikimedia Research/Design Research/Contributors Team UX Research

Page in progress; details to be added shortly!

Want to know more about what user experience research is happening on the Contributors Team? You've come to the right place!

This page serves as a guide to the research done for the Editing and Global Collaboration (Collaboration, Language) teams. For even more info, make sure to check out the Contributors UX Research Phabricator Board.

Editing

 * 2016.12 New Wikitext Editor and Save/Publish
 * 2017.10 Visual Diffs Usertesting

Collaboration

 * 2016.09-11 Recent Changes Filters, Round 1
 * 2017.05 Recent Changes Extended Filters (Round 2) Usability/Generative Testing
 * 2017.07 Recent Changes Beta Satisfaction and Integrated Filters (Round 3) Usability/Generative Testing

Language

 * 2016.09-10 Content Translation, Template Translation
 * Infobox and Conversion templates
 * 2017.03-05 Content Translation and Templates Hybrid Testing
 * Evaluate existing template support and identify gaps
 * 2018.02-03 Compact Language Links Testing
 * Upcoming: prototype for VE/CX integration

For members of the Contributors Team
At the beginning of each quarter:

The team design researcher individually meets with each team PM to confirm that team's research needs for the quarter, prioritized by desired/expected timelines, but with no promises yet at this stage. We discuss questions that research can help answer, and come up with ideas for testing as needed.

Shortly thereafter: Before a test:
 * Design researcher confirms/negotiates timelines with PM's regarding desired tests.
 * Design researcher formulates loose test plans. (Firmer plans are made closer to the time of actual testing.)

Depending on the nature of the test, design researcher builds firm test plans 1-3 weeks prior to implementation. Stakeholders meet to go over the test, and final plans are carried out once everyone signs off on them.

After a test:

Findings are presented internally, and all relevant data/an internal deck are presented as answers to the research questions.

Note: some of the research is sensitive and not distributable publicly due to privacy policies around user likenesses. If the information is cleared to be posted publicly, it will appear on wiki and be linked to this page through findings reports.

If you are not on the Contributors Team
If you find that you are outside the above outlined process, there are two ways to start conversations about initiating user experience research:

Option 1: get in touch with the design researcher on the Contributors team, currently Daisy Chen.

Option 2: Add a ticket to the Contributors UX Research Phabricator board, and put it in the Backlog column.

User Research Videos
Many of our research sessions are recorded on video. This helps us to get the most out of our sessions - we can refer to the recordings to:
 * Spot-check that the data we recorded in our notetaking is accurate (if we can't quite remember the exact response to a question or situation)
 * Trigger new insights by having another look at a session
 * Share users' experiences with other researchers/contributors and potentially extract new perspectives from them
 * Build empathy with stakeholders and the foundation by allowing anyone to see for themselves how participants respond to the features we're testing

There are certain rules around the sharing of our user research videos. To ensure that we respect the privacy wishes of our participants, we only publicly share out videos that have been signed off on by that participant. Internally, we may share freely for reference purposes.