This task tracks the writing of a design brief for the initial "Positive reinforcement" experiments for the Growth team's newcomer tasks feature.
The document will define the goals, target audience, core user job stories, and outline the research and design tasks involved.
Working doc:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1MRRoUA7RNK1SVKdjY5U94YSnwzJ2tn6oKlja5-2C-hQ/
Summary
Provide different forms of encouragement that motivate newcomers to keep contributing.
Rationale (Why are we doing this)
As the Growth team sees the suggested edits tasks succeed in increasing newcomer activation, we think this is the time to build on this momentum with positive reinforcement mechanisms that let newcomers understand there is progression and value to sustained contributions on Wikipedia, increasing retention for those users who took the first step in making an edit.
Objective
Raise retention. We want to increase the number of newcomers in the Growth experiment group who have activated (made 1 edit) to become active contributors through positive reinforcement mechanisms that motivate them to keep editing and sustain their interest in participation.
Hypothesis
Newcomers will get excited about their edits and their impact, leading them to come back to make more contributions.
More specific hypotheses underneath this:
- Impact and stats: Showing newcomers the potential impact of their contributions on readers can instigate their participation.
- Encouraging messages can sustain contribution: Providing positive reinforcement about their involvement will encourage users to continue contributing to Wikipedia.
- Levelling up: Newcomers will attempt (and succeed at) more challenging tasks if they are prompted.
- Personalised encouragement helps: Newcomers are more likely to continue contributing when recognition and rewards are personalised and come from a real person instead of from the system.
User Job Stories
| Overarching story for Positive Reinforcements work | ||
|---|---|---|
| When I | finish making an edit, | (situation) |
| I want | acknowledgement and recognition that I have made this contribution correctly and it is beneficial, | (motivation) |
| so that | I have a sense of accomplishment and feel confident to make more edits. | (expected outcome) |
Specific types of positive reinforcement areas being addressed
- Impact on others and Personal satisfaction (Relevant personas: Social changer, Knowledge sharer, Reactive corrector, Joiner-Inner, Audience builder )
- ...I want to see how my edit improves the reading experience, so that I feel proud of my work.
- ...I want to see my progress as an editor, so that I feel good about growing and learning , and being impactful over time.
- … I want to be able to keep track of it into the future, so that I feel good about the long term value of my contribution.
- Levelling up (Relevant personas: Social changer, Knowledge sharer, Joiner-Inner, Box checker )
- … I want to be given opportunities to do more, so that I can practice becoming a more skilled editor.
- … I want to be given opportunities to do more, so that I can improve my rank/score as an editor.
- Personalised praise (Relevant personas: Social changer, Knowledge sharer, Joiner-Inner, Reactive corrector )
- ...I want to know that other people think I’m doing a good job, so that I can feel confident to continue editing.
- ...I want to know that real people appreciate my work, so that I feel like I need to maintain my level of contribution.
Next steps
To help focus the designs for iteration 1 of this project, the following has been initiated:
- Proposals related to the three identified tactics were shared in an initial community consultation on 2022-05-11
- A design research study - details at T307950
Once iteration 1 proposals are finalised, they will be created under T248330: [EPIC] Growth: Positive reinforcement