Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Features/Page tools

One of the main goals of the desktop improvements project is to make it easier for users to intuitively use all the links and tools within our interfaces.

Currently, our interface does not distinguish between the links and tools that are relevant to the website and the links and tools that are relevant to the page itself. Main page, random article, recent changes, are in the first group. What links here, related changes, cite this page, belong to the second one. This mix is confusing to new readers. Also new editors are not familiar with what each link does. Mixing these groups makes it significantly less likely for people to explore these tools naturally.

Background and Goals
We would like to revisit the way we display our page tools in order to:


 * Make it easier to distinguish which tools are for the individual page and which are for the entire website
 * Make it easier to understand what the purpose of each link intuitively, without having to interact with it
 * Continue providing persistent access to these tools

Our previous testing with the table of contents highlighted the importance of our tools and the significance of persistent menus. When designing this feature, we were focused on ensuring access was easy for those who needed it. It was also important not to make it preventing or intruding upon the reading experience.

Use Cases

 * As a reader or editor, I want to quickly distinguish between page tools and global tools so that I can better understand the structure of the page
 * As a reader or editor, I want quick access to page tools and global tools so that I don’t spent a lot of time finding the tool I need
 * As a reader or editor, I want the ability to select which tools I want to see all the time, so that my experience is catered to my needs

Feature description and requirements

 * 1) A new menu is created that contains the only the page tools
 * 2) The new menu is located in a place more intuitive for the page tools, making a visual link between the location of the links and their purpose
 * 3) People have the option of making the global tools or page tools persistent to fit their reading or editing needs
 * 4) The global tools and page tool menus are available persistently by default for logged-in users
 * 5) The global tools and page tools are not available persistently by default for anonymous users

Prototype
We have prepared this prototype for our initial ideas for the page tools menu.

Example of the prototype for the updated interface:



Here is a screen recordings showing some of the possible configurations of the updated interface:



Prototype testing with editors
In December 2021, we ran prototype testing of our table of contents across 30 wikis. The results of this prototype testing were crucial to the development of the page tools menu. Please see the results of our ToC prototype testing and our ideas for next steps for details.

We decided to run the next prototype testing. Logged-in users across many wikis can share their feedback on the prototype of the page tools proposed above.