I've removed the {{historical}} tag from Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Color, per the archived discussion. I don't remember what perspective I was bringing to that original decision to tag it as such (in 2006). I'm sure my intentions were great! Probably related to other pages duplicating the information, in a more high-traffic (more visible, and likely to be used) location?
Anyway, these appear to be the current guidelines regarding color. Any efforts should be towards aligning them, and minimizing redundancies. -- Quiddity (talk) 23:25, 25 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:48, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
UX job openings at WMF
Hi, There are currently some job openings in the WMF's UX team, that I thought might be of interest to someone here, or you might know someone to nudge. Hope that helps. :) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 01:55, 28 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
WikiProject X is live!
Hello everyone!
You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!
Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.
While primarily framed in terms of accessibility and the avoidance of WP:POLICYFORKs, this also has usability angles (from both directions: editorial convenience versus WP:REUSE and other circumstances in which semantically correct code is important). — SMcCandlish☏¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ< 13:41, 3 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.
Portals are being redesigned.
The new design features are being applied to existing portals.
At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.
Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.
Hi all! I've been taking on a number of usability-related initiatives recently, such as redesigning the main welcome template to streamline it. I'm thinking about taking on a pretty major task next — trying to build a consensus to revamp the links in the sidebar that appears at the left of every page to improve usability and ease of navigation. I posted about it (including a bit of historical context) to test the waters at the Village Pump Idea Lab, but to take it further, it'd be nice to have collaborators to help craft a solid initiative. Would there be anyone here who might be interested in joining me for that? Or, if this project is as quiet as it seems, is there anywhere else I ought to turn? Sdkb (talk) 06:27, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sharing a request for feedback made by @MMiller (WMF): of the WMF Growth team, who is working on features to increase new editor retention:
Screenshot of suggested edits module in Czech Wikipedia
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]
Page histories
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]
'Request an article' wizard
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]
WMF blog post of interest
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]
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]
When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the lists. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.
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:
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.
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.)
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
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
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]
Not that anyone ever reads that far..but would be best to link a personal sand box instead of a sandbox title that is associated with this dead project that has not reviewed an article in 8 years.--Moxy🍁 13:18, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Direct them to a normal tilted draft page User:Moxy/Draft....not User:Moxy/WikiProject Usability that seems to imply it's related to this project that does not review articles.--Moxy🍁 14:33, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I can't teach you what you're unwilling to learn. There's no linking to WikiProject Usability going on. {{u|Sdkb}}talk 15:10, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Well, part of that might make sense: infixing "Draft:", so the entire prefix would be "Special:Mypage/Draft:...". That would make moving the page into Draft namespace a little more intuitive later. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 21:54, 31 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]
Where to report a Wikipedia page that violates usability guidelines?
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?
Following a half-month incubation period at the Village Pump Idea Lab, a major RfC has been launched consisting of a series of independent proposals to modify the sidebar located on the left side of every page in the desktop default skin view of Wikipedia, aimed at improving usability and ease of navigation. You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2020 left sidebar update. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:51, 10 April 2020 (UTC)Template:Z48
You are invited to join the discussion at Help talk:Contents § Small addition. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 18:47, 16 September 2020 (UTC)Template:Z48
GRINCHIDICAE🎄 20:49, 22 December 2020 (UTC)