Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Usability

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 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Title notice#Proposed revision to make this notice less disruptive. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:27, 26 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Moved discussion to#Hiding the discussion at the source page. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 10:16, 27 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to view m:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2018-20/Recommendations/Improve User Experience. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:33, 12 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

FYI

Sharing a request for feedback made by @MMiller (WMF): of the WMF Growth team, who is working on features to increase new editor retention:

Over the last year or so, the Growth team has been piloting features in small Wikipedias meant to increase productive edits from newcomers (such as the "suggested edits module" shown here). As our features become more developed, we're planning on expanding to larger wikis, and so I created this project page on English Wikipedia, looking to gather thoughts from English Wikipedians who think about new editors. I hope some of you can check out that page and leave any of your thoughts on the talk page, so that as we think about deploying features to bigger wikis, we'll take your ideas and concerns into account.

The latest idea we're thinking about is called "structured tasks". The idea builds on our previous work of task recommendations for newcomers, but is geared toward breaking down simple editing workflows (like copyediting or adding wikilinks) into steps that are easy for newcomers to accomplish, potentially assisted by algorithms. We are asking for thoughts and opinions on the project here on the talk page. I hope to see some of you in the conversation! -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 01:18, 19 May 2020 (UTC)"

Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:06, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

One of the least user-friendly areas of Wikipedia is the page histories. I assume that this is controlled to a large extent by more global interface stuff. Does anyone know where we might be able to go to discuss improving it? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:48, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Sdkb: Yes, it's part of the MW core software, though it can be customised lightly via user scripts. What would you want changed in there? – SD0001 (talk) 08:03, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

SD0001, it really needs a top-to-bottom overhaul. The whole using the circular buttons to find revisions to compare thing is not intuitive at all, nor is "prev" and "cur". {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:21, 11 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Sdkb: Late but have you tried out User:Yair_rand/HistoryView.js? IMO it's overkill as it changes literally everything, but something to think about. – SD0001 (talk) 11:45, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

SD0001, hmm, that's interesting; thanks for the link! Thinking about this, it's really something that'd probably best be handled by the WMF, so maybe the route to go is asking for it from them. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:51, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For anyone who would like to join in, here's a discussion / whiteboard for sketching out a simple, accessible 'Request an article' wizard. -- BessieMaelstrom (talk) 11:14, 26 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello all! The WMF has a new blog post that may be of interest. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:00, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Flat_Design. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:57, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § Better designating the reader-facing and editor-facing areas of Wikipedia. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:47, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, there is a discussion at Talk:Central Business District, Los Angeles (1880s-1890s) regarding an unusual content layout that could use some input regarding accessibility. Thanks for everyone that might have suggestions.   // Timothy :: talk  19:58, 18 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § Modified table of contents. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:23, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:High-use § Formatting tweak. Some input from usability-minded editors would be appreciated. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 08:44, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) § JavaScript help needed for file upload wizard. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:05, 8 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Help talk:Contents § Small addition. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:47, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Move good/featured article topicons next to article name. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:38, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Graphics Lab/Illustration workshop § Good article and featured article topicon redesign. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 09:09, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Redesigning the good article and featured article topicons. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:26, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:File Upload Wizard § Redesign of first page. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:49, 18 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Make links to disambiguation pages orange by default. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:26, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone else feel constrained by the limited number of skin choices available here? I just counted five, six if you count both Vector and Legacy Vector. All of them are traditional black text on white background. I'm a fan of Mediawikiwiki:Skin:DarkVector and have helped develop it a little. Is there some reason we can't have access to ten or fifteen skins? What would it hurt? Flounder ceo (talk) 16:44, 4 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The more skins there are, the more complexity there is and the more work it is to maintain everything. What I'd like to see is not more skins but just better skins—the old ones imo are truly awful and it'd be much nicer to see options like Dark Vector or others based around Vector with some minor style or color tweaks. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:48, 4 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't miss Modern if it went away but I've met some people who like it. Except for Vector and MinervaNeue, I think most skins are maintained by volunteers. Flounder ceo (talk) 19:07, 4 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § Thinking about a radical reduction of talk page banners. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:10, 6 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at meta:Community Wishlist Survey 2021/Mobile and apps/Mobile editnotices. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:46, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This RfC concerns MediaWiki:Newarticletext, the default edit notice shown when someone is creating a new page. Should it be changed as shown? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 09:03, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

When appearing in article space, it currently looks like this:

I proposed a visual change, which was briefly implemented and then undone when an editor objected, so I am seeking further community input. Should we change the notice to look like this? (The color and icon are modified, but the text is not.)

Before creating an article, please read Wikipedia:Your first article. We recommend that new editors use the Article wizard. You can also search for an existing article to which you can redirect this title. When creating an article, provide references to reliable published sources. An article without references, especially a biography of a living person, may be deleted. You can also start your new article at Special:Mypage/WikiProject Usability. There, you can develop the article with less risk of deletion, ask other editors to help work on it, and move it into "article space" when it is ready.

This proposal would not change the appearance of the notice for talk pages or other namespaces. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:44, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Survey[edit]

• Support as nom. This notice is quite important and something we very much want editors to read, but its current plain white format doesn't draw any attention to it. Both the color change and restoring the icon will help make it more noticeable. I chose green because, to the extent Wikipedia has a style system, it seems to be the color used for friendly information and instructions, as at {{doc}} or {{instruction editnotice}}. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:44, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• opppose changing the color per my previous comments at the talk page. It's incredibly distracting, particularly for experienced editors who don't need a glaring reminder and perhaps it's the cynic in me but I don't think that most people will pay attention just because of the color, considering they don't pay attention to most of the bright red notices. It's almost unfriendly (I know, ironic I am saying that). I would not be opposed to this if we could basically automatically opt-out extended confirmed+ editors since this isn't targeted toward anyone but newbies. PS: If it ain't broke don't fix it. GRINCHIDICAE🎄 20:49, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I should clarify, I have no opposition to the message or text, just the obnoxious color that makes new page creation distracting. GRINCHIDICAE🎄 20:51, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Praxidicae, I'd be fine with limiting the more noticeable coloring/icon to non-extended confirmed editors. To do that, we'd need to add a bit of code to a back-end CSS page, which would allow us to hide wikitext from non-EC editors. That missing bit of code actually came up a week ago in an entirely different circumstance, and a request to interface admins to add it is pending here. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:13, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Hmm Personally, I didn't notice it had changed. Agree with Sdkb that we want newbs to see it, read it and take note; agree with Grinchy-Prax that changes like that can be jarring for experienced editors. Would keeping the icon but ditching the background colour be a reasonable compromise? (FWIW, I find the spelling 'color' more jarring than the actual change in colour we're talking about :P) GirthSummit _(blether) 20:57, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak support. It looks like a small improvement to me, but I'm not sure how effective would it be. Anbyway, Sdkb: you may want to announce this RfC at the village pump. It wouldn't be the first time that the outcome of an RfC is fully dismissed by other editors because it was done at a WikiProject. --MarioGom (talk) 09:10, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• If we were to use ambox colors (not necessarily design), I'd say that this is actually a Blue Notice rather than a green (which isn't implemented in that system, so that's one point against green). --Izno (talk) 06:30, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Some comments, mostly about accessibility. Is there anything that demonstrates that many new editors aren't paying attention to the original version? Possibly this is a solution for a problem which doesn't exist (I don't mean this as a criticism, I'm simply well aware that brains absolutely love to make solutions). Next thing, I checked these two on web version, the original is very hard to distinguish from any surrounding text, so the border present in the green version is preferable there.Also, I checked this on a couple colourblind simulators, and it seems good to go (although I'm not certain if the green bg and blue links is an issue for dyslexia). Although I also have ADHD, I personally don't have the same issues with disruptive colours that Praxidicae has; however, given the wide range of experiences w/ ADHD, that's not super surprising. Regardless, it has been raised as an ADHD accessibility barrier, which should be taken seriously. I want to note as well that some people with autism may also be thrown off by strong colours I'm not sure how each of these would get read out by a screen reader, but if one is less long/has less irrelevant things that will be read out, then that would be preferable. I would support if the above idea where more experienced editors aren't shown the colour is used. --Xurizuri (talk) 09:58, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  asked someone with dyslexia, they found the green one noticeably harder to read --Xurizuri (talk) 12:23, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Xurizuri, regarding evidence that editors aren't paying enough attention to the existing notice, that's a good question to have in pose; to answer it, I'd point you to literally all of WP:AfC, which should make it pretty clear.

  Regarding accessibility, Wikipedia has a lot of trouble with consistent color scheming. The shade here is the same as at {{Documentation}}, so if there's an accessibility problem with it, that should be addressed at a higher level; I'm just trying to follow the existing norm to the extent it exists. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 12:44, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  Hahah! You're right, that's pretty good evidence.

  I may chase this up there then, thanks! --Xurizuri (talk) 08:27, 13 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Other design ideas[edit]

I anticipate that, seeing this RfC, some editors may have other ideas about changes to make to the notice. These are welcome, but I'd prefer that they not get in the way of the discussion above, so I am carving out a space for them here.

As a basic usability best practices reminder, it is vital that we keep this notice as short and concise as possible. Yes, there are lots of things we'd like people to have in mind when creating a new page, but every line we add to this notice makes it less likely people will actually read it and thus less likely they'll click through to Help:Your first article. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:44, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Wikipedia:Your first article should be changed to Help:Your first article, since that's the title of the page. Hopefully that's uncontroversial. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:49, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If the proposed change doesn't get made, or applies only to new editors, I would suggest that the border is still valuable, to make it easier to distinguish from surrounding text in the web version for all editors. --Xurizuri (talk) 09:58, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Let's say that you find an article on Wikipedia and all of the following are true:

• Some part of it breaks the usability guidelines, e.g. WP:COLLAPSE.

• It is protected, semi-protected, or some other sort of "has a lock icon and you can't edit it yourself".

• Posting a request on the article's own talk page for an editor who can edit the article to address the usability problem has proved fruitless, as the "local" editors just don't seem to care.

Is there anywhere this can be reported to attract an "outside" editor, perhaps a WikiProject Usability one, to come fix the article's usability problem? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.52.178.195 (talk • contribs) 21:10, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You could try posting at WT:Accessibility, but edit requests normally do attract editors from outside the local talk page, so if they don't seem to care, it might be for a reason. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:39, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There can be no legitimate reason for leaving an article in that state. Per Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Accessibility#Users_with_limited_CSS_or_JavaScript_support we have: "features that would cause content to be hidden or corrupted when CSS or JavaScript is unavailable must not be used."

Is there anywhere where one can go "over Accessibility's head", so to speak? The people there seem equally unwilling to fix the article and seem to think it's somehow within my ability to do it myself, even after I've repeatedly pointed out that it's not. The ridiculous thing is that the very day that someone's edit to the article put it into noncompliance I requested on its talk page that someone revert that edit, but instead of someone taking 20 seconds out of their time to do so it's just escalated and escalated and escalated with everyone arguing about why if I don't like it I should revert it myself. I'm pretty sure that's not the correct procedure for responding to an edit request on a semi-protected article's talk page, and it's certainly not correct for people to act like they're perfectly happy with the article the way it is when it is in flagrant violation of a long-established site-wide policy. I'm starting to wonder if it's going to require getting the actual site admins involved to get everyone back on the straight and narrow. One crack of the whip from someone with the power to hand out things like lifetime bans would surely suffice to get that policy taken seriously again ...

Responded at WT:ACCESS#WP:COLLAPSE being ignored. Discussions shouldn't spread across multiple pages in this case because we're already talking about it over there, the same people are gonna be involved either way, and WP:FORUMSHOP. Enterprisey (talk!) 03:23, 22 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at MediaWiki talk:Signupstart § Refining message further. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:49, 28 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Reader-focused editing. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 08:25, 16 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if this is to specific but it has absolutely to do with usability.
As I do graphic work I always try as hard as possible to pick colors so they work for many people with color deficiency. So to be able to mark the "images" information pages I have created a template Color_deficiency_ok to show this and to add the images to Category:Color_deficiency_ok. I hope this can be useful. --always ping me-- Goran tek-en (talk) 14:30, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Goran tek-en, I'd definitely bring this up at commons:Commons:Village pump to assess community consensus, as there are a lot of potential files where this could be used. See also MOS:COLOR. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:13, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I meant to share an invite earlier, but just plopping here for the record since it's relevant: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal: Turn on syntax highlighting by default for new accounts. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:52, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § RFC: New PDF icon. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:44, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at MediaWiki talk:Editpage-head-copy-warn § Can we remove the content reuse disclaimer?. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:18, 2 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:List of screw drives § Images in Section Headings. — Marchjuly (talk) 23:09, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Make FA and GA icons in articles more noticeable #2. {{u| Dege31 (talk) 23:26, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Removing links to portals from the main page's top banner. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:14, 26 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Draft at § Redesign. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:13, 5 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Changes to the universal editnotice. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:49, 11 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I am going through some of the talk pages for a usability case study and I am noticing some difficulty in navigation and understanding of the pages. I was wondering if editors can share your thoughts and flows as they go through the talk pages? Just looking to understand some of the pain points for people who are both new and experienced when it comes to Wikipedia talk pages/editing. If this is not the right place to ask, do let me know where I can look towards! Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jncwtopac (talk • contribs)

Hi Jncwtopac! When I go to a talk page, I'm normally looking either to see what past discussions have been held there or to start a new discussion (sometimes after I've been reverted). There are a whole bunch of pain points. For newcomers, WP:NOTFORUM is commonly not known. For everyone, indenting is a pain, as is the lack of automatic signatures (you should sign your posts with ~~~~) and the inability to subscribe to individual sections. The Talk pages project currently being undertaken by the Wikimedia Foundation aims to address many of these issues and has released beta features; I would definitely check that out. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:28, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Sdkb for your comment and the links! I will definitely check out Talk pages project. Hope you don't mind a few questions! Was it difficult when you first started going through talk pages? And how has it been from when you first started to now? Also, aside from the issues, are there things you enjoy about the talk pages as you use it? Jncwtopac (talk) 08:11, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't clearly remember my earliest talk page interactions. The main thing I enjoy about talk pages is just seeing the Wikipedia community at work—some talk page posts are junk, but many reflect a remarkable level of care about even minute aspects of the topic. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 08:19, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nice! Thank you for sharing! Jncwtopac (talk) 14:02, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've created a Barnstar for this project, see Template:The Usability Barnstar. Jerm (talk) 22:03, 11 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussions at MediaWiki talk:Cite-ve-dialogbutton-citation-educationpopup-text and MediaWiki talk:Visualeditor-linkinspector-educationpopup-text. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:07, 8 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Changes to VisualEditor instructional pop-ups. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:35, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at MediaWiki talk:Semiprotectedpagewarning § Teahouse line. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:04, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Edit taxonomy § Pencil icon, 2022. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:32, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is now an RfC: Template_talk:Edit_taxonomy#RfC:_Taxonomic_classification_edit_icon. Members of this project are invited to participate. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:32, 15 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Proposal to change portal links on the Main Page. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:22, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Enabling the New Topic Tool by default. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:34, 27 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at MediaWiki talk:Signupstart § Moving username message to appropriate location. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:46, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion was started at Module talk:RoundN § Medal colors for gold/silver/bronze, aiming to change the module's background colors in favor of more accessible ones. Please, join us in it, as we lack experience in the subject. CLalgo (talk) 13:23, 24 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@CLalgo, I'd suggest posting an invite at WT:Accessibility as well. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:53, 26 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Sdkb: Thank you. Done. CLalgo (talk) 19:31, 26 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy § MediaWiki:Autoblockedtext overhaul. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:51, 26 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § RfC: Showing a gadget menu to logged-out users. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:24, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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There is now a follow-up discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Vital Articles#TfD follow-up: Fate of the vital article talk banner. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:42, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting § Which template to use: Strong or Em. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:27, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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