Problem
The placeholder text on Special:Investigate seems unnecessary and adds additional cognitive load without much bennefit
Solution
Remove the placeholder text
Description
Description
| Status | Subtype | Assigned | Task | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open | None | T238603 Placeholder text on Special:Investigate seems unnecessary | |||
| Resolved | Tchanders | T237034 CheckUser 2.0: Input form | |||
| Resolved | Tchanders | T236981 CheckUser 2.0: Create a new Special page in CheckUser for the redesigned version | |||
| Resolved | Tchanders | T239936 Enable Special:Investigate on testwiki | |||
| Resolved | Tchanders | T238240 Allow HTMLUsersMultiselectField to set max limit on number of selected items | |||
| Resolved | Tchanders | T238277 Allow UsersMultiselectWidget to show valid IP addresses and ranges in the autocomplete menu | |||
| Resolved | Tchanders | T238318 Let UsersMultiselectWidget disallow arbitrary input | |||
| Resolved | Tchanders | T243075 TagMultiselectWidget clears input before adding tag, causing validation failure in downstream widgets | |||
| Resolved | Tchanders | T243077 TagMultiselectWidget performs unnecessary validity check in change handler | |||
| Resolved | Tchanders | T243643 Set selected MenuTagMultiselectWidget items as options in the constructor |
Event Timeline
Comment Actions
@dbarratt you're right we should try to reduce the cognitive load on the user on this page, especially with the all the tables and highlights that they're about to see. I was thinking of a few ways to do this:
- Remove the placeholder text from the Reason input. Most people who come to this page know what they're doing and wouldn't need help filling this out. (per your comment T237034#5672684)
- Improve the text of the checkbox label so that we don't need the placeholder text any more. (I'll also explore the options that @Niharika pointed out in T237034#5672832)
Since the user/ip input is complex, and not something we have elsewhere in our system, I am inclined to give the user a bit more guidance here. It is a bit odd that an input could accept both usernames and IPs and I am expecting that there might be some confusion around this. I suggest we keep this for now and take another look at it after some usability testing.
Comment Actions
The only difference between this field and that one, is that this field allows multiple values. As far as I know, everyone who has access to CheckUser should also have access to Block, so everyone is already familiar with this pattern.
It's the same thing we have on https://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Block
The only difference between this field and that one, is that this field allows multiple values. As far as I know, everyone who has access to CheckUser should also have access to Block, so everyone is already familiar with this pattern.
Comment Actions
While this is true, I would not presume everyone using CheckUser does frequent Special:Block too. I'm kinda leaning towards Prateek's point about providing some more guidance here as this UI is pretty different from what they are using currently.
@cwylo Do you have an opinion on this ticket?
Comment Actions
I think Special:Block would be better with placeholder text too. Any field that can take two types of inputs is confusing, the one in Special:Investigate can take a combination of both which makes it even more so.
Also, in the tests that @cwylo conducted did mention some confusion around this input — we might need to look at more ways to make this understandable.