Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Features/Limiting content width

This page highlights the requirements, instrumentation, and release plan for the limiting content width feature of the Vector skin, as a part of the overall Desktop Improvements project.

Motivation
One of the main goals of the project is to make Wikipedia, and other Wikimedia wikis, more welcoming to newcomers. One way in which we aim to do this is by making the experience of reading articles more comfortable. What does it mean to have a comfortable (or an uncomfortable) reading experience? According to research there are several contributing factors, a major one being line-length. The study Computer text line lengths affect reading and learning by Peter Orton, a Ph.D. at the IBM Center for Advanced Learning, concludes that the longer the line-length is the more difficult it becomes for someone to read, and ultimately learn and retain, the textual information. Several other related studies can be found on the Wikipedia article Line length, all of which recommend between 40 and 75 characters per line. While it's not particularly straightforward to achieve the recommended line lengths on Wikimedia wikis, we will be limiting the width of the content using a max-width in order to get the majority of text on the wikis closer to the recommendation.

For more details on the research and consideration behind his feature please see this page.

Feature Description and Requirements
The content on most pages is placed inside a content container with a max-width of 960px. There are two additional containers that help manage the width of other parts of the interface such as the header and the sidebar: workspace container (max-width 1440px), and page container (1650px). Below are diagrams that illustrates how these containers work. There are certain pages whose content will not be constrained by the content container including History, Recent changes, and other similar log-type pages. To explore an interactive demo of this feature please see this prototype.

Here is a GIF that illustrates the difference between the current layout and the updated layout with the various width limitations described above:

Design Requirements and Guidelines
Please visit https://di-collapsible-sidebar-5.firebaseapp.com/Hathor for a prototype of this functionality

Constraints
Currently, a few projects (such as Korean Wikipedia) already implement similar behavior by default. We would like to work closely with the communities of these wikis to ensure there are no bugs or other issues with sidebar collapsing.

If your wikis are currently using a gadget for collapsing the sidebar, please contact us.

With editors
We performed a feedback round with a prototype of the collapsible sidebar with editors across multiple wikis. Editors were invited to explore the prototype and provide their feedback using a central notice banner. The majority of users who provided feedback liked the collapsed sidebar for personal use, and especially for the purposes of reading. Please read through our report for more details on feedback, concerns raised, and iterations.

With readers
A prototype of the sidebar was also tested with readers through a user study done in collaboration with an independent user testing firm, Hureo, based in India. During the course of the study, we studied readers unfamiliar with Wikimedia projects, as well as casual readers who use Wikimedia projects regularly. The tests were performed in English, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and Marathi.

Readers reported a strong preference towards the collapsed version of the menu, stating that it created a better reading experience than the current version.

We will be publishing the full results of this study soon.

Quantitative Testing
Once deployed, we are planning a series of quantitative tests on the collapsible sidebar which will help us determine the success or failure of the feature. In particular, we will be focusing on the following questions:


 * Does introducing a collapsible sidebar lead to a significant increase to sidebar links
 * In what ways is the sidebar used - do people have it open or closed for the majority of the time.

Release Plan
We are hoping to deploy this change to office wiki and test wiki in June 2020, followed by the test wikis in late June/early July 2020. See our timeline for more details.