Growth/Growth 2014/Prioritization

Slides of the user lifecycle framework, and how it applies to our past and current projects

The E3 team does not have a roadmap, but the following are some notes on our current thinking about how to prioritize the projects we may take on next.

User lifecycle framework

A "funnel" is a description of how users go from point A to Z in using a software product, or part of a software product. For Wikimedia projects, and Wikipedia in particular, the Wikimedia Foundation's product development team uses an overarching contributory funnel to help prioritize our work.

Funnels are not necessarily a particularly deep or perfect way to describe contribution to Wikipedia. However, they are very useful for aligning our past and future projects with the kind of contributors we want to help. It is also designed to aid us in developing goals based on data more specific than the number of contributors to the projects overall.

Framing questions

In thinking about how to place projects on the funnel, ask:

• Who are we helping?
• Where are they at in the funnel?
• What are they trying to accomplish?

Areas of focus

This is a rough classification of the kinds of work we might do to increase editor engagement on Wikipedia.

1. Convert more readers or anonymous edits. (-1 to 0 registered edits)
2. Improve the registration process. (-1 to 0 registered edits) This is underway, but there’s always more to improve to potentially optimize this process. It’s unlikely we’re going to spend a lot more time on this right now, unless the results of the current A/B test are dismal.
3. Onboard new editors (0-1, 1-5 registered edits) by getting people to make their first edit, and continue on to five or ten, with a first meaningful task. The goals here would be to increase the number of newly-registered accounts that edit at all, and the number of new editors who make it successfully through each editing milestone. So far there is evidence that even just making it to as little as 10 edits significantly increases the likelihood that you will be a Wikipedian.
4. Increase productivity of active editors (10-100, 100-1000 registered edits). Once we get people onboarded to the project by completing a first task, how do we get them to come back and keep doing useful work?
5. Fix interaction problems between editors without explicitly trying to move people through process of registration and first edits. Frankly speaking, we could encounter serious problems if we onboard any significant number of new editors.

Current work

Our current highest priority is the onboarding new Wikipedians project, which will provide first steps to Wikipedia editors.

Future steps and rationale

When Wikipedia has a decent account creation experience and there are clear steps for new signups that help them starting contributing productively, we can bring more readers, anonymous editors, and even donors on to the project, and help new contributors become more advanced contributors.