VisualEditor/Design/Design Review

From mediawiki.org

Wikipedia Tasks are desirable[edit]

  • Become less of a WYSIWYG editor and more of a Wikipedia Article Editor.
  • The solution provides flexibility but it is culturally agnostic. If goals and the audience for the solution could be made clear it would seem like a sticky and attractive model.

New User Mental Model[edit]

  • Is this intuitive for newbies? Eg. As a new user would I comprehend that title of a new section is Heading 1?
  • Potentially better to introduce a "Read Mode" and "Edit Mode" toggle and remove the Read/Edit Tabs

New Pages Opportunity[edit]

  • A structure to create new articles feels like a fairly interesting opportunity.

Examples of Specific Wikipedia Tasks[edit]

  • Add a template browsing widget
  • "Add section," "Add Infobox," "Add Image + Caption" widgets
  • Add a "Wikification" widget or functionality
    • Proposed workflow: Click a button, editor searches for potential blue links in the user's edit diff and highlights them clearly for the user. User can manually un-wikify any individual link, or undo all.
  • Add a "Reference" widget to simplify the referencing process

Visual Feedback[edit]

  • As the user is editing an article, display the actual output (including Table of Contents, which is frozen to the user and auto-updates when sections are added).
  • Slightly difficult to scan for your cursor in a sea of text. Line highlighting may solve this issue.
  • Display temporary affordances on items the user can edit (e.g. a light yellow background and cutout border around a section title when the user hovers). This implies more structure to the user and makes the task feel less open-ended as a whole.