Extension:InlineEditor/Prototypes/Prototype 2

This page is about Prototype 2 of the Sentence-level editing prototypes.

View prototype 2

Edit box
The second prototype adds the basic features the first prototype lacks. I would even dare to say it is good enough for use on Wikipedia. The critical change is the box at the beginning of the page. This box gives some instructions, asks for an edit summary, includes a "Publish" button, and states the Terms of Use.

The "edit box" should be as small as possible. It should present the most essential information, and nothing more. It should ask for nothing more but the bare minimum. I chose to include a few basic guidelines, starting with some positive reinforcement: "Awesome, you're editing Wikipedia!". This invites novice users to actually edit the article. After all, what they are doing is "awesome"!

The first guideline is that you are free to do as you like, as long as you are improving the site: "Write what you think is best for the article, or as we say here: be bold when updating pages! If you feel that a rule prevents you from improving Wikipedia, ignore it.". This actually conveys two of the most important guidelines on Wikipedia: Be bold and Ignore all rules. In fact, these guidelines are part of Fifth pillar of fundamental principles on Wikipedia.

Because the statement "Be bold" can be confused with using a bold typeface, this is expaned to the first sentence, including "be bold when updating pages". The second part is exactly the statement of the guideline "Ignore all rules", except that this statement also talks about "maintaining Wikipedia", which is not something a novice user would know about.

The second guideline says what Wikipedia is: an encyclopedia with verifiable content: "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Someone else should be able to verify what you've written, for example in books or online." This conveys the "First pillar" and part of the "Second pillar" of fundamental principles on Wikipedia.

The third guideline presents another part of the "Second pillar", a neutral point of view, and encourages the user to not be afraid of writing, while implicitly telling them to respect copyright: "Write from a neutral point of view, and use your own words."

Note that all guidelines are positive in nature. Instead of telling the user not to do this and that, they tell them what you could and should do.

Next in the edit box is the edit summary. The line above the edit summary is chosen very carefully: "Can you briefly describe the changes you're making?" Asking for "changes you have made" looks strange when first encountering this page. Asking for "changes you will be making" looks strange when the changes have actually been made. Therefore, the page asks to describe "changes you are making", which is a continuous process, without defined start and end points.

The line under the textbox suggests some things you can type into it: "For example: 'Fixed spelling mistake', 'Corrected facts', 'Wrote a new paragraph', etc." These are not just possible inputs for the textfield, but possible actions when editing the page. The user is encouraged to look for mistakes, and even to write a new paragraph.

Below the edit summary is the most important button on the page: the "Publish" button. On the original edit-page, there are some problems with the "Save" button. The first problem is the caption. "Save" can mean different things: "Will it be visible for everyone or just saved for myself?", "Will it be saved into some kind of database, waiting for approval?" "Publish" is unambiguous: it will be shown to the world.

The second problem of the original "Save" button, is it's size. On the original edit page, it is hard to find the button, because it is small, and surrounded by other buttons and text.

Because this is the most important button of the page, the "Publish" button has a distinctive, approving green color. And it it big. It is the only place in the user interface design, where a button of that size with that color is used, so it cannot be missed.

Next to the button is a description: "When you're done, don't forget to publish the page!". This text serves two purposes. When reading from top to bottom, the user is reminded that somewhere there is a way of publishing. When users haven't already found this button, they will now. The second purpose is telling that anything you do is not final until the page is published. This way the user is invited to try some things out, as it will not be published before hitting the button.

Finally, there is a short note of the Terms of Use, with one sentence that tries to summarize these terms: "When you click 'Publish', you agree to the Terms of Use. This means that you agree to share your contributions under a free license."

Editing
The editing is also changed a bit: when you click a sentence, the textbox that opens automatically scales with its content. When you add or remove text, the textbox grows or shrinks. This is a nice way of editing, and kind of what one would expect.

The "Save" button has been replaced by a "Preview" button. When hitting this button, a rotating animation shows some work is being done. In this prototype there is no actual work being done, but in the final version a request may go to the server, requesting the rendered version of the edited sentence.

When either one of the buttons is pressed when editing a sentence, the textbox is hidden, and the rendered sentence reappears. When the sentence reappears, it fades from orange to the original blue color. This is a visual indication to show where it went, as the interface may jump a bit due to the intruding editor.