Wikipedia talk:Media Viewer/June 2014 RfC

What now?

The RFC has been closed, so what happens now? Does this intrusive piece of cruft get rolled back? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.140.0.55 (talk) 23:00, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

New features based on your feedback

Hi folks, thanks for all your helpful feedback about Media Viewer in recent days. We really appreciate your candid recommendations on this page — and survey comments also confirm many of the issues you’ve raised.

The multimedia team is taking your feedback to heart, and we are sorry for any inconvenience caused by this tool. To respond quickly to the most frequent requests, we have now pushed back other projects to focus on Media Viewer for the next few weeks.

Here are some of the new features we are now developing for you, based on community suggestions.

1. Disable Media Viewer quickly:

• Instant Opt-in: A more prominent way for registered users to disable Media Viewer, without having to go to preferences. (#703)
• Opt-out for anons: An easy way for anonymous users to disable Media Viewer, using localstorage. (#704)

2. View images in larger/different sizes:

• View original file: A prominent button to open the original image in your browser, so you can zoom in to see its details, or download it for re-use. (#630)
• View different sizes: Prominent links to view images in different sizes from the Download panel, so you can open them in your browser. (#664)

3. Discover image information:

• Make it easier to find image information: Provide clear visual cues that more information is available, with links to open the metadata panel. (#706)
• Scroll down to see more info: Use either up or down arrows to open the metadata panel below the image, to make it easier to find. (#697)

4. Edit / Learn more on Commons:

• Show Commons link to logged out users: Show a prominent link to the Commons file page to all users, so they can learn more about this image. (#429)

5. Learn to use Media Viewer:

• Add tooltips to Media Viewer: Show more tooltips in Media Viewer, so that users can tell what each button will do. (#546)

You can view more details about these features on this development planning site.

We are working hard to get these changes completed by tomorrow, so we can test them before releasing them to production. If all goes well, we expect to deploy some of them to the English Wikipedia and other Media Viewer sites by Thursday evening. The rest of them will be deployed the following week.

Please let us know what you think. Which of these features seem most useful to you? Are there other critical features that you think we should consider next? We look forward to improving Media Viewer based on your feedback. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 00:33, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

We shouldn't have to need tool tips to know what each button does. Mystery meat navigation is by definition bad UI design, and completely breaks when you're using a device without a mouse, a tablet, or a phone. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 02:41, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Since Media Viewer breaks the site's look and feel as well as the workflow I recommend disabling it completely. When you offer to make buttons larger or provide tooltips in order to make the product more useful you should rethink your premise as well as your process. A good desgin doesn't need tooltips, it has descriptive link texts (and not non-obvious icons) or uses an interface that is already known to everyone. Assuming that users want to learn or discover an interface is setting yourselves up for a lot of critique. --Millbart (talk) 06:45, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

I forgot to add that there are several critical features that are missing from your list: click-and-drag to pan, scroll wheel to zoom, a method of excluding the image from display using the new image viewer in the article markup, and the inclusion of licensing data for all images despite what template or method for indicating the license is used. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:50, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you all for your prompt responses about these new features and other proposed Media Viewer improvements. The multimedia team just rolled out a couple new features today that may address some of your concerns:

• View original file (#630)
• View different sizes (#664)
• Scroll down to see more info (#697)
• Show Commons link to logged out users (#429)

These features can be tested on Commons today (see sample image]) and should be released on English Wikipedia tomorrow, if they test well.

We're also working on many other new features based on community feedback, as outlined above, and just added a couple more:

• Disable MediaViewer for certain images (#511)
• Show attribution credits in download tool (#598)

Ahecht, I hope that #511 will address your request for 'a method of excluding the image from display using the new image viewer in the article markup'. That one should be completed by next week, if all goes well. And now that the 'View original file' button is implemented, you now have the same browser zoom features as before. Millbart, we appreciate your comments about tooltips, but have observed they are commonly used in tools like these, and have been frequently requested by other community members; we think they will help casual users who are not as tech-savvy as you. We will review your other recommendations above and keep you posted on our progress with these requests. Keep in mind that we are triaging a number of requests from other users, so may not get to them all right away; but they are on our radar now.

Thanks again for sharing your concerns, which we are taking to heart. Be well. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 22:20, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Please fix how Media Viewer handles long image descriptors. The map for same-sex marriage in the United States had a nicely ordered key first in English, then in other languages alphabetically (old-style file page) and now with Media Viewer, all the formatting is gone, languages and color boxes blend together into an unreadable and unsearchable mess (now, "improved" with MediaViewer). Beyond this, please accomplish the goals to disable Media Viewer quickly (and permanently) for logged-in or not logged-in users - everytime I see an image in it, I become absolutely livid at how unhelpful the new viewing style is. The option still exists to can this project, and I would urge that as the best course of action. - S201676 (talk) 08:39, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

This is one of my core objections. When I called Media Viewer "half-baked" above, this sort of behaviour is what I was referencing. I would be much happier with Media Viewer if it simply placed the file description in its place in the interface directly, as rendered from wikitext, because we see unintended consequences like this if the descriptions are modified. My read on this is that the Media Viewer is overreaching—in particular the way it seems to treat wikitext pages as though they were safe, "semantic" data, when they're anything but. Dialling back the design in favour of more consistent function seems desirable. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 15:43, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Fabrice: Wow, simply wow! I have pointed out that tooltips are a sign of weak interface design and you explain their existence with your (anecdotal?) observation that people demand them, especially casual users who aren't as tech savvy as I am, thus proving my point. Why do people demand tooltips in some GUIs? Could it be, because the GUI is non-intuitive, obfuscated and/or different from everything already learned? (I know, that every interface apart from the nipple is acquired knowledge, but some are easier than others) Why don't you use descriptive links? What makes you think that a logo is better than text when linking to the file description? My point is: Even the tech savvy user needs tooltips with your GUI design because it is so non-obvious.

I realise that overlays and modal windows like lightbox are all the rage, but they are very rarely more than a nuisance. Here, it breaks the look and feel as well as the site's workflow, because it is unexpected behaviour. The site normally doesn't use modal dialogs. Interestingly you choose to ignore this criticism. As it is, Media Viewer doesn't improve anything at all. Please, make Media Viewer available as an optional gallery view link in the toolbox or wherever ("View all the article's images") if you really think that it is useful for something, just don't force it on everybody as the default, especially if it can't be disabled globally. --Millbart (talk) 09:00, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if someone already suggested this, but if you are holding control or something like that and click on the image, then it should be able to instantly go to the Wikipedia file page for said image. Dustin (talk) 15:56, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

For me (using Chrome) this does open the file page, but does so in a new tab. Therefore, in addition to having to having to hold control while clicking, I also need to move up to the top right corner and open the new tab. These extra steps waste my time, and would suck up even more of it if I was using a laptop with a touchpad rather than having a mouse. This again is not desired operation nor a friendly work-around to Media Viewer. - S201676 (talk) 17:51, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Again, proving my point. Thanks ;-) --Millbart (talk) 16:04, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

This kind of encapsulates what's going wrong here

The lead image on South American dreadnought race with Media Viewer is ... troubled.

• Why must I see a blurry image while it loads?
• There's two separate captions given in MV. The first is from the article; the second is from Commons. For the most part, they say the same thing. Why are they placed together with no divider?
  • And just why does a frame cut off the caption so that I have to scroll to read the second paragraph?
• Why doesn't clicking on the image bring me to the Commons image page?
• Why does clicking on "public domain" bring me to the Commons image page? Would I be better served with the image linking to Commons, and "public domain" leading to an explanation of what that is?
• Speaking of Commons, why is the link to it so small? Why must I scroll down to see it? (oh sorry, I missed the tiny icon on the bottom right)
• The source blurb is cut off, although to be fair, this image's source is lengthy.
• "Created on 1909": minor grammar point, but why try to make this a sentence? "Created: 1909" Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 21:21, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

As if constructing a sentence based on a date format is hard! — Scott • talk 20:29, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Central notice?

Has this RfC been advertised anywhere? I've been half-following the Media Viewer stuff, but I only happened across this today because someone mentioned to me that it existed. It looks like a pretty small group that's been participating here so far, and since this would be a sitewide change it could probably benefit from as much input as possible. Especially because lately it seems to be just a handful of people here going over the same ground again and again (and getting more and more frustrated with each other's answers...)! Has there been any discussion of putting this on a central notice or something to attract more comment? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:11, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Update 20 June

I did a run-through at United States and found that all of my objections/reservations/wish list were met. Thanks. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 07:52, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

@TheVirginiaHistorian: Great, I'm glad it all got worked out for you and thanks for the feedback that helped make it possible. Happy editing to you. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 18:15, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Response to the Media Viewer RfC

Thanks for sharing your comments about Media Viewer.

The Wikimedia Foundation appreciates feedback about features we develop, and we respectfully acknowledge this group’s proposal to disable Media Viewer on the English Wikipedia.

After carefully reviewing this proposal, we recommend that Media Viewer remain enabled on the English Wikipedia, for a number of reasons:

• We believe that an RfC of this type is not representative of our much wider user base.
• Readers in particular are not represented at all in this kind of discussion, and they are a key user group for this feature.
• Media Viewer was developed with extensive community guidance from a more diverse user base for over a year, through beta testing, online discussions, usability studies and other feedback channels.

Media Viewer provides important benefits to users:

• Larger images: this tool shows images more prominently, with a single click.
• Faster image load: files are shown twice as fast as the previous solution, since you don’t have to go to a separate page.
• Easier browsing: more users click on the next and previous buttons than on thumbnails, increasing overall image views.
• Better use of space: less scrolling is required to find information, due to a more compact layout.

Other factors were considered in reaching this decision:

• Media Viewer is a central part of our strategy and vision to modernize our multimedia software and user experience.
• As recognized by the Wikipedia:Consensus policy, software development is not subject to the same policies which bind English Wikipedia editors.
• Users who do not want this feature can easily turn it off, and only a small percentage of English Wikipedia users have chosen to opt out so far. We encourage users who don't like Media Viewer to disable it.

Overall, we believe that Media Viewer’s benefits far outweigh its downsides. And while the feature still has some limitations, we have collectively identified practical ways to improve it over time.

We deeply appreciate your help in making this tool better and we hope that more users will come to value this feature as a result. Thank you so much for your feedback. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 17:45, 10 July 2014 (UTC)