The task description looks great @ppelberg

Considering that the engineers has been using the journey map T266203 and flow logic to inform the prototype, I think that the best way to proceed here will be to provide feedback on the prototype here and iterate together on it.

That said, @Esanders can you share with me the latest wiring of the prototype?

https://patchdemo.wmflabs.org/wikis/292134a3316743768728e0552c1e7cc3/wiki/Talk:Nellie_Bly

Yesterday, during our team discussion, I presented some of my research and outstanding questions. Here are the questions and the decisions that we came to:

1. How do Echo and Watchlists relate?
   • We decided that for now we should keep the "watch this page" checkbox within the Reply and New Discussion Tools in the advanced shelf
   • We wonder whether that setting persisting will create confusion between "Watching" and "Subscribing"

2. How – if at all – should new comment notifications be represented within the Watchlist?
   • We decided that new comment notifications should not be represented in the Watchlist.

3. What should the affordance for subscribing/unsubscribing from a topic look like?
   • We decided that we need to do an exploration of iconography. The stars certainly connote "watchlist" however we will do the exploration to see if we will use a new icon or recycle existing

4. If/when will we introduce a way for people to manage all of the topic they are subscribed to en masse?
   • We decided that this will be addressed in T273342

I took a stab at making a few different explorations for the topic subscribing initial touchpoint and iconography. Please review and comment on Figma and provide high level feedback here.

The issue that these exploration address is that we don't want to conflate watchlist with subscription iconography.

In T273911#6886822, @iamjessklein wrote:

I took a stab at making a few different explorations for the topic subscribing initial touchpoint and iconography. Please review and comment on Figma and provide high level feedback here.

Looking good, @iamjessklein.

For the reasons list below (see: "Thinking"), I am most drawn to the explicit "Subscribe" exploration (read: Desktop B and Mobile B).

With the above said: What do you think are the tradeoffs we ought to consider with a "text-only" affordance?

Thinking

1. For the time being, people will receive "updates" about the topics they are subscribed to and the pages they are watching in different places. The former will be delivered via Echo and the latter via Watchlist. You noted this in T273911#6886822.
2. There could be a future point where "1." is no longer true and "updates" about topics people are subscribed could also be delivered via Watchlists. As such, I could envision the "watching" and "subscribing" affordances converging.
3. Considering "1." and "2.", I assume that initially, it's important that people understand "watching" and "subscribing" affordances to be distinct.

Just want to add a little more food for thought on the icon front:

Should we go the icon route, I am leaning towards the RSS icon because it's not being used elsewhere and is familiar as a subscription/feed icon.

Notes from 3/9 conversation with @ppelberg:

Next steps:

1. Create an inventory of questions/ concerns from prototype to review

2.@ppelberg and I will prioritize the list of things and say why

3. I will express opinions/ideas/answers to the prioritized list questions

Feedback/Questions that need to be answered in the Prototype

• Are all of the notifications working as expected?
• Is there a notion of "subscriptions" on Wikipedia and what are the expectations around notification cadence?
• When you subscribe to a topic, where do those notifications get delivered? Notices? Alerts?
• When you want to unsubscribe from a topic, where/how do you do that?
• Is there a place to manage (bulk unsubscribe, change notification settings) all of your topic subscriptions at once?
  • What is the relationship of Topic Subscriptions to the watchlist?
• Do we continue using "Star" for subscribing to topics even though it would mean different things in different contexts?
  • If not the star, then what?
  • Should we have a Topic watchlist?
• What should the notifications say?
• How should notifications be styled?
• Where should notifications appear on the screen?
• Is there a way to batch notification delivery and manage that preference? (I see this as being a tool to help people who get lots of notifications to calm down the cadence)

@ppelberg - Here is my ordered draft of questions, please review, refine and sequence.

In T273911#6894133, @ppelberg wrote:

With the above said: What do you think are the tradeoffs we ought to consider with a "text-only" affordance?

Headings are typically longer than "Untitled", so have a wide button with a word on it (longer in some languages) will reduce the space available to the title itself (especially on mobile).

Notes from prototype walk through with @Esanders on March 10, 2021:

• we should look into what the default settings should be for email notifications. TO DO: WRITE A TICKET
• on click from email and web notification, we should have a similar yellow highlight to focus the users attention.
  • we need to make some styling decisions here as well:
    • what should the highlight look like? TO DO: WRITE A TICKET
    • should the highlight be persistent? yes
    • should the comment scroll go to the top of the page? yes, just a little bit below it
    • Should it scroll to section or to the comment? comment
• what elements should pulled in to a notification (single)? TO DO: WRITE A TICKET example:

• • icon
  • [[USERNAME]] replied in "[[SECTION NAME"]].
  • [[COMMENT]] (max 150 characters)
  • [[USERNAME]](link to user page)
  • View Changes (link to page history diff)
• what elements should pulled in to a notification (bundle)? TO DO: WRITE A TICKET

In T273911#6900845, @iamjessklein wrote:

@ppelberg - Here is my ordered draft of questions, please review, refine and sequence.

Thank you for bringing these questions together, @iamjessklein. Below is a sequenced list of the questions we are needing you to express opinions/ideas about.

I. To be answered *before* usability tests are run with Junior and Senior Contributors: T273912.

• Do we continue using "Star" for subscribing to topics even though it would mean different things in different contexts?
• When you subscribe to a topic, where do those notifications get delivered? Notices? Alerts?
• When you want to unsubscribe from a topic, where/how do you do that?
• What should the notifications say? How should notifications be styled?
  • Note: I am assuming these questions are speaking to the text that appears within the notification within Echo as well as the actions people can take "from" that notification.
• Are all of the notifications working as expected? See: T274279.

II. To be answered *before* offering topic subscriptions as a beta feature: T274188

• Are all of the notifications working as expected? See: T274279.

III. We will assess the necessity of answering these questions *before* offering topic subscriptions as an opt-out feature

• Is there a way to batch notification delivery and manage that preference? (I see this as being a tool to help people who get lots of notifications to calm down the cadence)
  • I am assuming the answer to this question is "yes" as it relates to the cadence at which people receive notifications via email. Within Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-echo people will have the ability to decide the cadence at which all of the notifications they have elected to be notified about via email (of which topic subscription notifications could be one) are sent. @Esanders please comment if this is NOT the case.
• What is the relationship of Topic Subscriptions to the watchlist?
  • Note: as documented in T273911#6882727, the notifications for the topics you are subscribed to will be delivered exclusively via Echo for the time being.

Not currently prioritized

• Is there a place to manage (bulk unsubscribe, change notification settings) all of your topic subscriptions at once?
  • Yes and no. "Yes" in so far as we are working on a proof of concept for this functionality in T273342 which will help us audit the topic subscription data being stored in the database. "No" in so far as we have not yet scoped or prioritized this functionality for release.
• Is there a notion of "subscriptions" on Wikipedia and what are the expectations around notification cadence?
• Where should notifications appear on the screen?
  • Reason: considering topic subscriptions depend on Echo to be delivered, Echo determines how/where notifications appear to people while on the site and making foundational changes to Echo is out of scope for this work, we will not be addressing this question as part of this project.

This morning we came to agree on making the changes listed below. We are making these changes as part of sharing an in-progress version of the topic subscription prototype with volunteers (T275232):

Timing
Ideally, the changes below can be implemented and accessible via patchdemo on or before Wednesday, 24-March.

Changes to implement [i]

• CHANGE the affordance for Subscribing and Unsubscribing to a topic from ⭐️ to Subscribe / Unsubscribe. [ii]

cc @Esanders

i. This morning we also confirmed that topic subscription notifications should be delivered via Echo's Notices [rather than Alerts]. Although, no change is needed considering the prototype already works in this way.
ii. Note: before making topic subscriptions availale in production, we will need to decide on a non-textual affordance for the reason @Esanders raised in T273911#6900904. @iamjessklein will propose what the "ultimate" subscribe/unsubscribe affordance will be in this ticket, per T273911#6903303.

@ppelberg and I answered some questions below.
Short term decision refers to decisions before sharing prototype on meta and decision to be made is longer term before we ship.

Do we continue using "Star" for subscribing to topics even though it would mean different things in different contexts?
SHORT-TERM DECISION: for prototype we will use text.
DECISION TO BE MADE: longer term, we want to use an icon for subscribing/unsubscribing, we do not yet know what this icon looks like.

When you subscribe to a topic, where do those notifications get delivered? Notices? Alerts?
SHORT-TERM DECISION: for prototype we will use Notices.

When you want to unsubscribe from a topic, where/how do you do that?
DECISIONS: for prototype there’s no separate space to do that you need to return to the instance to where you subscribed and click to unsubscribe. We want to add an unsubscribe button to notification Context: T263820#6858937
DECISION TO BE MADE: Do we want a “dashboard” for topic subscriptions/management?

What should the notifications say? How should notifications be styled?
DECISION: Text should complement the subscribe text. Ex: Unsubscribe from topic (no star for now)

DECISIONS TO BE MADE:

• Do we want to include user links in notifications?
• What formula determines the notification text?
• What does a feedback or confirmation look like for unsubscribing in notification window look like?

I've created 3 tickets to cover the outstanding issues so that we can close this ticket and then assign those tickets to the appropriate milestone EPIC.

T279149 icon
T279150 adding unsubscribe to "Echo drawer"
T279151 notification styling