Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability

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WikiProject Usability menu

Layout guidelines

Content guidelines

Navigation architecture

Site-wide guidelines

Miscellaneous

The Wikipedia Usability Project aims to make Wikipedia easier for everyone to use.

This project aims to promote the application of usability best practices and/or web usability. Many other projects focus on the content of Wikipedia - this project focuses on the presentation of that content.

[edit] Issues

The logo of the project by Kooky. Green represents the user, the three branches represent the web of information Wikipedia provides, and the middle path is the clearest, the one the project strives for. The shape recalls a blooming flower and the Wikimedia logo, as well.

This project hopes to make Wikipedia easy and pleasant to use by applying itself to the following areas:

Being intuitive - contents made understandable by everyone; using familiar and affordance interface design for universal usability
Architecture - Organisation of information.
Design - Visual appearance of Wikipedia; making it 'easy on the eyes', and standardized (all things of a certain type should appear in the same form).
Interface - Making editing and other interactions easier.
Compatibility - Cross-browser support; ease of use for everyone on any device and any browser
Standards and accessibility - making use of W3C-recommended XHTML and CSS in a manner that promotes the above and accessibility
Speed - loading time of Wikipedia page (yet to be added area)

[edit] Current projects

[edit] Past projects

[edit] Future projects

See future projects for what we may tackle next!

[edit] Queries

Wikipedia talk:Community Portal#Request [1] - "is there no way to get a better interface? most people have javascript its just that its all so very confusing- maybe that is supposed to put most people off? NO indication where one is supposed to join up/post/ pages and pages....protocols... and all the jargon offputting. you need to attract people who don't necessarily have computer knowledge but subject knowledge you should make it easy for eg. my grandfather, who is an expert on aviation history to contribute to this online resource- its all so very confusing!!!!!"

At Talk:Isotope table (complete) we are debating a proposal by User:Greg L to put the article's full isotope table, and Isotope table (divided)'s table, in a single larger article. Much of the argument is about usability, as well as performance. Input from the Usability project might be useful. --JWB (talk) 16:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tasks

Tasks/to-dos, current efforts, requests for help, and major notices. (Remove when resolved.)

Spreading the word about this WikiProject!

If you know anyone who may be a valuable addition to this project, leave a comment on their talk page directing them here. You could also leave comments on talk pages that are directly related to this subject.

[edit] Discussion

IRC channel - #wikipedia.usability on irc.freenode.org
The talk page

[edit] Sub-pages

/Color - use of color in Wikipedia
/Color Tabs - side tabs for browsing (color coded)
/Sizing examples - browser width and image size
/HTML - use of HTML and CSS in Wikipedia
/Images - images in Wikipedia articles
/Notices - notices, boxes, and other "meta" elements
/MediaWiki - key MediaWiki pages/interface parts

[edit] Templates

{{WikiProject Usability}} - project banner (mostly for the talk pages of templates that serve usability functions, as well as pages having to do with usability issues)
{{User WikiProject Usability}} - user box to "advertise" your participation in the project.

[edit] Participants

If you'd like to join (please do!), add yourself and optionally your areas of interest/expertise to the list below and add this page onto your watch list.

Listing yourself does not obligate you to do anything. This section serves primarily as a gauge of project interest, and to provide links to users who may be contacted in regards to this wikiproject, their interests, or usability in general.

M (talk) — Non-broken, compliant, and proper CSS and HTML code. Setting standards for meta elements (boxes, tables, etc.)
Anthony (talk)
AlMac (talk)
Omegatron talk
r3m0t talk
Slike2
Fito
violet/riga (t)
smoddy
Quinobi - talk-me or talk-all
Jrbaker
Aapo Laitinen (talk)
Spalding Yes! I would love to combine a little Donald Norman, Jakob Nielsen and Steve Krug with Jimmy Wales to make Wikipedia even better. In a sense we're all usability testers when we read articles on unfamiliar subjects.
Mysidia
Tom-
+sj +
R e dwolf24
MC MasterChef :: Leave a tip
HappyCamper
Thorpe ^talk
Fir e Fo x
— Dan | Talk
--Aude
Francis Schonken
ForteTuba (talk) I'm interested in using personalization to increase contributions to online communities like Wikipedia.
mlazopoulou I'm interested in usable Wikis. Not only from the presentation point of view but from the editing/interaction point of view as well.
Voice of All
jnothman ^talk
∴ here ♠ -- the data will survive, the interface be reborn.
the wub "?!"
--A dam1213
Urthogie 12:54, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
hydnjo talk
The Neokid Talk - Usability is still a big problem, and needs to be conquered effectively. I have skills in HTML, XHTML, JavaScript, CSS, PHP and ASP (although the last two aren't that important for usability).
Kevin Baas^talk 21:21, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Chairman S. 13:46, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Davidpk212
Webdinger (talk) I'm particularly concerned about how CSS is used on Wikipedia.
—Locke Cole • t • c 00:01, 10 March 2006 (UTC), worried about CSS hacks in templates.
Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 05:43, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Quiddity
alain_desilets - Author of a paper entitled "Are Wikis Usable?" [2], presented at WikiSym'06.
-- Alfakim -- talk 15:25, 13 April 2006 (UTC) XHTML, CSS and Wikimarkup expertise, run my own wiki elsewhere, and definitely want to help to make Wikipedia easier to use.
AtionSong 17:31, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
DJenni1 15:28, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
ReverendG 01:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Kookykman|(t)e 21:49, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
—Ruud 15:54, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
~ Amalas rawr ^{=^_^=} 20:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
User:Clayoquot, professional interaction designer Kla'quot 17:25, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Andy Mabbett 19:43, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Nihiltres^(t.l) 15:50, 26 July 2007 (UTC) I'm particularly interested in minimizing the use of the evil {{click}} template by replacing it with cleaner ImageMap code.
OwenBlacker — XHTML, CSS, Wikimarkup. I'm particularly interested in removing all text (I have a strong astygmatism). Anyone bothered by adjacent links might be interested in {{,}} (that is: the template "comma", which inserts a superscript comma between adjacent citation links. 18:41, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
- I think you might mean "small text"! Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits
OptimistBen (talk) 22:33, 18 April 2008 (UTC) Not exactly a programmer, but I'll try to give feedback and maybe do some minor programming someday.
FlyingToaster
Sergey Chernyshev^talk 25 February 2009 - interested in front-end web performance optimization for MediaWiki and Wikipedia; useful UI and user experience extensions like OpenID, Widgets (mine), Header Tabs (mine), data-centric extensions like Semantic MediaWiki/Forms/Formats.
B C Jordan -- student new to UI design, interested in simpler editing UI
Pretzels^Talk! 17:31, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
User:Anime Addict AA - mainly concerned about usability issues, especially the way-too-big pages that some editors refuse to split into more, because of notability issues (I dare to say they invent), or even if the split is made, it's just used as an excuse to AfD the split article and "artificially" reduce the main article's size; other things that I find valid above is the problem about new users, that they are hardly taught and that jargon on Wikipedia is most of the time more important than the actual facts and contents of the articles. 18:02, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
User:Barney Lerten -- I too think Wikipedia would grow hugely in quantity and quality of pages/info if the special characters were hidden from the vast majority of users and the tools were adapted to make it possible to do most general-purpose things with a mouse click or general word-processing style. The article body should default in edit mode to showing in true WYSIWYG fashion, with a back-page showing the raw Wiki code for those in need/so inclined. THAT would be revolutionary, a true Wikipedia 2.0 'for the people' and while the chances for abuse also would jump, I think that would be drowned out in the dramatic increase in material - and folks' willingness to keep the material fresh and accurate (and fair)!
Tarheel95-- I think I can combine my expertise with outlines with this project!! I'd love to help out!
Nineteen Nightmares - I have had experience editing a mid-sized newspaper in Ceres, California and would like to assist in cleaning up Wiki!
Dodoïste (talk) 21:09, 12 September 2010 (UTC) - Especially to work on navigation architecture, menus, breadcrumb and seven plus or minus two.
— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. – I am all about usability. Getting proper full HTML support in MediaWiki has been a years-long goal of mine (with some progress actually made against initial developer reluctance to add support for things like <dfn> and <kbd>), along with undoing bad practices on Wikipedia that violate the letter or spirit of the HTML, XMTML or other specs, commonly accepted usability wisdom, or known accessibility maxims.
— Edokter • Talk • -- Clean and simple code is my motto, without forgetting functionality. I am fairly knowledgable on HTML and CSS, and I keep an eye on several templates and site-wide CSS files. — Edokter • Talk • 01:21, 28 October 2010 (UTC)