The Problem: Editing Wikipedia is difficult - we need to make it easier as just part of encourating more people to edit generally.
The Approach: Surface the biggest challenges that Wikipedia users face when making their first edit while identifying the best practices of seasoned editors. Make changes (read: the grant did not allow enough time and resources to overhaul into a WYSIWYG editor) to measurably reduce these barriers and increase participants and edits to Wikipedia.
The Insights: "Wiki Syntax" looks and feels like coding, not writing an essay or publishing a blog post; people used multiple tabs and windows and other hacky tricks to see the editor and article simultaneously; all editors had the perception that there is a "right way" and "wrong way" to make an edit or format; editing Wikipedia make people feel stupid and overwhelmed; what people see when they are typing and editing does not lead to what they expect to get when they preview or save their edits; Wikipedia is cluttered.
Action: Removed all extra toolbar elements to create a simpler version with the most commonly used formatting tool (Headings, Bold, Italic, Links, Insert) while maintaining easy access to advanced tools which were more commonly completed manually; included a "cheat sheet" of basic Wiki syntax; introduced tabbed navigation that allowed people to switch between the article and editor without having to open many new windows; dialogs that alerted users of editing errors; enhanced preview; navigation within the editor of long articles to include a table of contents; new search; new skin that got rid of as much clutter as we could.
Screener - a truly collaborative effort between me, our engineer, and Bolt Peters (with Ethnio)!
Live recruiting.
First time editors.
Cognitive Walkthrough of Editing Proess at Fleischman Field Research.
For full moderator script, see here.
Remote Interview setup at the Wikimedia office in SF. It got very hot in that room.
First team brainstorm after interviews.
Prioritizing Priorities.
Affinity Diagramming.
