Wikimedia Apps/Team/iOS/Nearby

Summary
Improve user engagement and usage of the Nearby feature as another primary way to discover and explore articles in the iOS app.

What is the ultimate goal/vision for this project?
Extend and improve the use of geolocation as a primary method for users to find and explore encyclopaedic content.

What is the short term goal/need for this project?
Improve user engagement with the Nearby feature by:
 * Moving Nearby to its own tab in the tab bar – more info on why tabs in this doc by KHammerstein
 * Adding an ability for users to view results in a map or list view
 * Updating the geolocation in real time when the Nearby tab is active
 * Allow searching on map and/or filtering
 * Ranking or sorting of search results
 * Additional animations, transitions and flash to help drive up engagement for this “novelty feature”

Why are we doing this?
Low usage of the Nearby feature, which we hypothesize to be due to a combination of low prominence of the feature (buried as the 4th or lower card on the Explore feed) as well as the lack of map view and associated searching, sorting and filtering capabilities that is usually available on equivalent applications with a map view.

Additionally users have frequently highlighted the Nearby feature as unique and well liked app feature, and requested easier and more complete access to geo based browsing and discovery in comments on OTRS, iTunes and in press reviews.

How would we like users to solve this problem or discover this solution?
Putting “Nearby” into its own tab and redesiging this tab with Map view and associated tools for navigating content overlaid onto map views.

How do we know we’ve been successful?
Increased usage of the Nearby feature, including increased clicks on geographically relevant articles and increased downstream pageviews. Additionally we would expect to see positive comments in press, on OTRS and in iTunes reviews on launch.

Background - why the change?

 * Increase discoverability - many users did not know ‘Nearby’ existed in iOS prior to v5.0.0 and now it is in the Explore feed, but is still buried below many other sections in the feed.
 * Better consistency - Nearby is on a separate tab in Android.
 * Improve search and discovery experience – leverage mobility and location of device apps.

What are specific use cases, flows, and critical tasks we need to design/research?
The personas upon which detailed user stories are based will be Sandra (Casual Reader) and Michelle (Active Reader). Personas can be found here.

V1
Increase the discoverability and engagement of the Nearby feature to improve the basic user story for exploring with Nearby.

User story: iOS user exploring Nearby content
When browsing Wikipedia and interested in articles nearby, I want to be to switch to a map view to see visually how close various articles are to my current location in real time.

Currently:
 * Nearby resides in the Explore feed as another card, and is not very prominent.

Proposed:
 * We hypothesise that moving it out to its own tab will place it in a more obvious place for exploration in parallel to the Explore feed.


 * Introducing map view for articles using real-time location will help improve user engagement
 * Introducing sorting and filtering capabilities will also improve the experience of discovering different types of encyclopaedic content based on different nearby location definition (by zoom level) and allowing users to filter articles based on different categories or keywords.

Core interaction flow

 * 1) Open app and tap on the Nearby tab
 * 2) Nearby tab loads in Map view with current location shown as well as top X locations as pins
 * 3) User taps on a single pin and sees a preview card of the article selected
 * 4) User taps to toggle to list view of nearby locations

V2
Extend the capability of ‘Nearby’ to improving the overall experience of search and discovery based on geo-location, not limited to only regions “near” the user’s current location.

User story A: Traveller
When I am planning for a trip, I want to use Wikipedia to search and pin interesting content around where I will be going so that I can incorporate visiting places of interest into my itinerary.

User story B: Researcher/Student
When I am researching a topic where the location is a focal point, I want results of articles and article sections to be visible in a map view so that I can use the map view to parse/filter articles I am interested in further.

Specific stories to to ‘map’ out include:

(i) Exploring Ivy league universities in the US or Colleges of the University of Cambridge

(ii) Exploring the life and travels of Albert Einstein

(iii) Mapping the locations in the plot of “On the Road”

Considerations

 * Apple maps vs, Wikimaps
 * Downsides to Wikimaps:
 * Will require styling
 * API limitations (radius, etc) --> Sync with discovery
 * Downsides to Apple Maps:
 * Politics/values
 * Consistency with Android and Web map views
 * Additional stories to scope
 * Nav/maps in articles
 * Search in maps/filter maps
 * Itineraries? Can Saved pages fill this role temporary
 * Filtering the list of Nearby items
 * Can we use categories?
 * Wikidata based filters?
 * Top read
 * Pagerank
 * Article quality
 * Distance
 * What can we do on the client?
 * Additional integration points for maps:
 * In articles with Geotags
 * Support for Kartographer?
 * Multi-point "maps of interest" (ie. “On the Road” article)

What existing research impacts this project?

 * Wikipedia Android app implementation
 * Built with the help of volunteers in 2015 Hackathon in France
 * Low engagement in the current engagement (jump since deploying map view in mid. Nov 2015, then dropped back):
 * Existing research and feedback on Wikipedia iOS
 * Labs
 * Feedback from users
 * Any research on Nearby on the Web team?

Competitor analysis: how do users solve this problem today?
What is the competitive landscape today? What products are being used to solve this or similar problems?


 * Current Android Wikipedia app
 * iOS Wikipedia-reading apps
 * Inquire
 * Viki
 * Wikiwand
 * Other iOS apps with map views to explore
 * Poetic places
 * National Geographic City Guides (by Rally interactive)
 * Expedia
 * Foursquare
 * AirBnb
 * Other notable map apps
 * Google maps
 * Apple maps
 * HERE Maps

See deck with screenshots here