Account creation user experience/Testing

These are the testing notes for the Editor Engagement Experiments team's changes to account creation and login for MediaWiki core. This is first and foremost a guide for volunteers who may be interested in testing, but may contain technical notes as well.

Manual testing
The following is a simple overview of the steps anyone can use to test the new account creation and login interfaces in MediaWiki.

Account creation

 * 1) Log out of all Wikimedia sites. To test a version with a clear cache and no residual cookies, use a private or incognito browser mode, or clear them manually.
 * 2) Visit the account creation page with   appended. Try one or several of the following methods...
 * 3) * Use the link in the top right menu on the relevant site. Try visiting from Special:Search, the Main Page, a random content page, other namespaces, etc.
 * 4) * Use a browser bookmark, especially if you already do so
 * 5) * Use a wiki link, such as one presented in the edit window to anonymous editors
 * 6) * Type in the URL directly (as best you remember it)
 * 7) * Use a search engine e.g. "Wikipedia signup" etc.
 * 8) Create a new dummy account using any name and password you prefer, just be sure to save them. Make sure form fields, buttons, links, and error messages make sense and are functioning.
 * 9) Note any bugs you may encounter and be sure to take screenshots of anything problematic!
 * 10) When/if you successful create a new account, log out.

Login

 * 1) If you previously created a dummy account or were just logged in, be sure to log out. (You do not necessarily need to clear your browser cache or cookies before doing so.)
 * 2) Visit the login page with   appended. Try one or several of the following methods...
 * 3) * Use the link in the top right menu on the relevant site. Try visiting from Special:Search, the Main Page, a random content page, other namespaces, etc.
 * 4) * Use a browser bookmark, especially if you already do so
 * 5) * Use a wiki link, such as one presented in the edit window to anonymous editors
 * 6) * Type in the URL directly (as best you remember it)
 * 7) * Use a search engine e.g. "Wikipedia login" etc.
 * 8) Create a new dummy account using any name and password you prefer, just be sure to save them. Make sure form fields, buttons, links, and error messages make sense and are functioning.
 * 9) Note any bugs you may encounter and be sure to take screenshots of anything problematic!

Things to pay attention to while testing both interfaces

 * First up, and somewhat obvious: can you log in? Do all input fields and buttons function as expected? What errors are produced and do they make sense?
 * Do the help links work? See.
 * The length of the translated messages. For login in particular, a message that is too long may cause an unnecessary line break for the field descriptions or the description of the account creation call-to-action. We strongly suggest those who might be able to help translate messages try to shorten messages where possible.

Providing help links
The new forms provide help in links rather than lots of verbiage on the page. Manual:Page customizations describes in general how to fix red links in default messages. We encourage WMF wiki admins to provide this help at the default page titles for consistency — just click the red link in the form on your wiki and start editing. Only modify the message text if it makes no sense for your wiki. If your wiki has suitable help content elsewhere, you can redirect the default pages to it.

Here are the pages to create or alter on WMF Wikis, with links to them on English Wikipedia:

You can use    :Allmessages on your wiki to show these interface strings.

The two create account links are blank by default (Extension:WikimediaMessages customizes them for WMF wikis), so on a plain MediaWiki install the only "red link" to fix is Help:Logging in.

Browser support
Our priority is to test in Grade A and B browsers on the desktop, as described at Compatibility. Note that we are excluding mobile browsers, since mobile account creation and login for mobile web uses an entirely different infrastructure, even if it may be similarly styled. iPads and other mobile devices that default to the desktop site should be tested, however.

Language support
Add  to reveal the message names used in the UI, or , etc. to try a different language code. As a part of MediaWiki core, user login and registration will require complete localization in all languages with active Wikimedia projects. Please test in any and all languages you may be conversant in.