VisualEditor on mobile/VE mobile default

This page talks about the Editing Team's work experimenting with VisualEditor being the default mobile editor on a select number of wikis.

This initiative is a part of our team's larger effort to simplify contributing on mobile, described in the Foundation's 2018-2019 annual plan. And more specifically, to increase the likelihood newer contributors will have success making quick edits on-the-go, by presenting them, by default, with a simpler and more visual editing interface.

Watching this page is a good way to be involved with and stay up-to-date about:


 * Where this change will go into effect
 * How we will measure the impact of this change
 * When this change will happen

If there is anything about this project you want to know, ask and/or talk about, please let us know on the talk page! Our team is eager to hear what you think...

What wikis do you think should be included in the A/B test?
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How should we measure which editing interface is "better" for newer contributors?

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23 May 2019
We are in the process of coming up with an initial list of wikis to invite to participate in this experiment.

Background
We are striving to make editing on mobile web simpler. Research leads us to think newer contributors will have more success editing on mobile using the VisualEditor given it presents a more structured, visual and easily understood interface than wikitext does, the editor that is currently presented to contributors by default on mobile. These are qualities the Design Research team has found to be especially important on mobile, where screen space is more limited than on desktop.

Despite what we have come to think are VisualEditor's advantages, few contributors are discovering and using it. In May 2018 for example, just 1% of mobile web edit sessions (or ~20,000 of the ~2 million total sessions recorded) happened in VE.

Defaults clearly impact how contributors experience editing Wikipedia. Defaults also express unspoken assumptions. Assumptions in this context, about which editing experience will help the most number of contributors be successful editing using a mobile device. This project is about investigating this assumption. Our goal is to learn whether setting VisualEditor as the default mobile editing interface provides contributors a "better", as measured by overall completion rate, mobile editing experience than wikitext.

What is changing?
Currently, both editing interfaces – VE and wikitext – are available on mobile for contributors to use. Although, the mobile wikitext editor is shown by default to new contributors, while the visual editor is accessible via a dropdown menu in the editing toolbar.

As part of this project, we will be working with a select number of wikis (yet to be announced) to switch which editing interface is shown to new contributors, on mobile, by default. Meaning, on the subset of wikis we work with, the mobile VisualEditor will be shown to new contributors editing on when they tap "edit" and wikitext will be available via a dropdown menu in the editing toolbar.

This test will  not   affect   your   account  if any of the following are true:


 * You do not use the mobile site, e.g., https://he.m.wikipedia.org or https://fa.m.wikipedia.org.
 * You have previously switched editing interfaces on the mobile site on that wiki.
 * If you want to see what the mobile visual editor looks like, without accidentally opting your account out of this test, then please visit https://test.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox Click the pencil icon to open the editor.  It will begin in the mobile wikitext editor.  Then use the new pencil icon in the toolbar to switch to the mobile visual editor.  When you start typing, you will see the toolbar for the mobile visual editor.

A/B test
To understand whether VE being the default mobile editing interface creates a "better" editing experience for newer contributors, we will be running an A/B test.

Currently, all contributors are presented with the wikitext editor when they first tap "edit" on the mobile website. If a contributor then switches editors using the drop-down in the editing toolbar, their new choice is remembered when they tap "edit" in the future.

This test will include contributors who have fewer than 100 total edits and have never switched editors: half of them will be randomly selected to receive the mobile visual editor when they first tap "edit", while the remaining half will receive the mobile wikitext editor as before. Contributors who do not edit using the mobile website or who have made at least 100 edits will not see any change.

Once the test is live, the question for us then becomes: which of these editing experiences is a "better" default for newer contributors?

To answer this question, we first need to define what "better" means so we can  compare the two test groups and, ultimately, decide whether to explore making the mobile visual editor the default mobile editing interface for more contributors on more wikis.

We are confident one way to measure "better" is by looking at edit completion rate. Said another way: of the contributors who start an edit, what percentage successfully save/publish their edits, and how do those rates compare across the two test groups?

There are other potential ways to measure what makes for a "better" starting point for newer contributors. Here are some of the other measures we are thinking about using to compare the two test groups:


 * Total number of completed edits: Do contributors in one test group complete more edits than contributors in the other test group?
 * Time to save an edit: Do contributors in one test group complete their edits more quickly than contributors in the other test group? This is a metric we would need to look at alongside other measures, like the size of the edits being made.
 * Editor retention: Are contributors in one test group more likely to come back to edit again than contributors in the other test group?
 * Edit quality: Are contributors’ edits in one test group more likely to be reverted than contributors’ edits in another test group?
 * Disruption: Are contributors in one test group switching between editing interfaces more often than contributors in another test group?

We are not sure if these are the right measures, so we are continuing to think about them. If there is a metric you think we should be considering that is not represented above or a metric you think we should be weighing more heavily than others, please let us know on the talk page. This list is still evolving.

Glossary

 * VE: abbreviation for VisualEditor, MediaWiki's rich-text editing interface.
 * Mobile VE: MediaWiki's rich-text editing interface, implemented for mobile devices.
 * Mobile: the mobile site, regardless of what device you use to reach it. For example, this page on the mobile site compared to |this page on the desktop site.