Topic on VisualEditor/Feedback

Pre-existing discussion is at phab:T116417; follow-ups there.

Adding the relevant template from the weekly check of accomplished goals.

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T116417 Resolved

The corner tiny icon to switch to VisualEditor is too subtle. If a user doesn't already know what it's for, it's not even particularly obvious that it's click-able.

I suggest either including the text "Switch to Visual Editor " next to the pencil icon, or including somthing like a "" logo.

I agree that it is not the most obvious indication of the functionality. Would be good if it can be made more self explanatory (somehow..)

If memory serves, the "rules" from Design are:

• Use monochrome (black, white, maybe gray), because colors (especially bright colors) perform poorly in user tests.
• Icons are preferred to words (when icons are sufficient), because there is a limited amount of screen real estate, and a short word in English is often much longer in, say, Russian.
• Use the same, or at least very similar, icons for the same purpose. For example, if you click on in the Mobile Web interface to switch to the visual editor (and you do), then, ideally, you would use the same icon (or at least one that is recognizably similar) to take the same action elsewhere. ("Elsewhere" could mean at a different languages, different projects, different devices, etc. This is not a "match Mobile" rule; it's more of a "don't use dozens of different icons to do the same thing" rule.)

@Whatamidoing (WMF) I see what you mean, and that certainly works on the mobile and VE interfaces. However the source editing interface currently has a lot of words for its menus and options. (e.g. "Advanced", "Special characters", "Help", "Cite"). Because of this, I feel that the icon gets more lost than on the other interfaces.

Something like "Switch to Visual Editor" could actually be more consistent with the visual style of the current for markup editing. Otherwise it is easy to miss in that particular style of interface. That way it still uses the same icon for consistency with the mobile interface. It still places it in the same location for consistency with all interfaces. But it would also be more explicit and clearly visible for consistency with the rest of the source editing interface.

There are several problems:

• The pencil implies editing, but i'm already editing. Not logical
• I'm switching a state, but there is no representation of these two states in the UI (neither VE or WikiEditor). Take for instance the editor on MDN. There is a simple 'source' toggle.
• The positioning like Evolution and evolvability indicates is indeed not logically grouped, not only that, it is also differently grouped than on VE, where it is next to Save etc.

Esanders kindly reminded me that the specific conversation is happening at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T116417 (I don't think I see a "toggle switch" suggestion there yet, although I've definitely heard that idea being floated before).