Wikimedia Research/Design Research/Sandbox

What We Do
Design Research collaborates with Design, Analytics, Engineering, Product and the Wikipedia Community in order to help define what, at a high level teams should build and why (Generative Research). Also, Design Research supports iteration of concepts and functionality toward a usable and intuitive experience for users (Evaluative Research). Design Research, including both generative and evaluative research rely on a toolkit of research methodologies to provide findings informing decision making, concept development and concept iteration. Though the design team has been performing evaluative research to support iteration, design research is a new department at Wikimedia Foundation, and is growing and evolving to support the movement, the community and the foundation.

Participate in Research!
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Echo

 * ''' Flow

Editing

 * Visual Editor: desktop and laptop


 * '''Mobile Editing
 * '''Apps
 * Guerilla Testing iOS ipad Visual Editor
 * Heuristic Evaluation for Visual Editor (iOS)
 * Guerrilla Testing for iOS App
 * '''Mobile Web
 * Heuristic Evaluation for Mobile Web Visual Editor (Android)
 * Guerrilla Testing iOS ipad Visual Editor
 * '''The wikitext editor

Growth

 * Acquisition of new users:
 * Editor campaign
 * Anonymous editor acquisition
 * Account creation user experience
 * Research: Observing average web users creating accounts
 * Login redesign
 * Timestamp position modification
 * Activation & Retention of new users:
 * Guided tours
 * Onboarding new Wikipedians
 * Wikipedia article creation and a new Draft namespace
 * Post-edit feedback
 * Task suggestions


 * Reactivation of existing users:


 * Necromancy (Reviving editors who stopped editing)

Apps

 * Guerrilla Testing On-boarding Page and some discovery about readers and their thoughts on editing
 * Guerrilla Testing Table of Contents discovery
 * Heuristic Evaluation for Visual Editor (iOS)

Mobile Web
 * Heuristic Evaluation Visual Editor on iPad mobile web
 * Heuristic Evaluation for Mobile Web Visual Editor (Android)

Multimedia

 * Media Viewer
 * Media Viewer Iteration Usability (August, 2014)

User Experience / Beta Features

 * Winter
 * Winter / Fixed Header
 * Other User Tests

Project Queuing

 * |Trello Planning Board

Archives of Broader Wikimedia Research Team
Wikimedia Research Portal

Methodologies for Design Research
Heuristic Evaluation / Cognitive Walkthrough

Guerrilla Research / Cafe Research

Unmoderated remote usability testing

Moderated remote usability testing

Contextual Inquiry

Design Ethnography

Unmoderated and moderated task benchmarking

Tools for Design Research
Google Hang Outs OnAir - "Usability lab" for moderated, remote generative and evaluative research.

Usertesting.com — Unmoderated remote scripted usability testing (only 15 minutes per session)

Optimal Sort - Unmoderated card sorting tool

SurveyMonkey.com — Surveys with some analysis tools and simple logic.

Qualtrics - Surveys with more analysis tools and more complex logic capabilities.