For reference, english wikipedia

french wikipedia

I believe this is Desktop Improvements (Vector 2022)

@ReJeViB - T285714#7182516 is correct - this is an intentional change that aims at making the language list easier to find and above the fold by introducing a button at the top of the page. More information on the change and evaluating its success here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements/Features/Language_switching

So one of your test results is based on a sample size of all of 40 users. I haven't tried to skim through the description of the usertesting.com test but I wonder how you can come up with a single test to determine which of a set of single designs is best. Esp. since the "how quickly do you find the section" question is one that can really be asked only once. Once you know where the new location is you no longer have to search for it.

I'll admit, the new location is somewhat to locate (once you know where it is) because for the moment it's isolated. Maybe it has an advantage on a mobile device, but the mobile interfaces I have seen to date either don't provide the language selector at all, or have a dedicated button for it (my Wikipanion iOS app does in any case). Then again, I understand this is supposed to be a desktop-interface improvement?

Look at the screenshots which show a horizontal section of a typical browser window of mine. Try to erase the knowledge where the new dropdown menu is, and imagine where users will search for a "translation tool" if they're used to having all tools in the left sidebar. Then look at the page layout and ask yourself if their gaze might stray all the way to the right, above the summary box or however you call that thing. That's the area where you know the controls associated with media editing and creation are located, so it's not the place where a user who's learned to peruse your resources efficiently will look (the English "Apple" article has icons to indicate it's a good and semi-protected one in place of the language menu).

English page:

French page:

In fact, I only noticed the new contraption when I was trying to answer the question which version I was using - I still have no idea where to find that so indeed, I scanned the entire page.

Some more observations (partly with my hat of the vision researcher I once was):

• both the old and new locations can require scrolling. The new location may have the advantage if you really just want to find a translation after opening the article in your source language. But then you probably need to scroll the menu (taking care not to let it close) and scan TWO columns instead of a single list that happens to be rather clever in filtering out unlikely languages:
  
  . If you want to switch languages from anywhere else the new design is probably going to be at a disadvantage because it requires scrolling all the way to the top (something for which there may not be a shortcut) whereas the old design being lower down on the page doesn't require precise scrolling (it can appear at any height in the browser window).
• the new menu takes time to be rendered. Wikipedia was always great in that it didn't require a fast CPU or lots of other resources, and indeed it shouldn't . I don't live in a development country (officially at least ;) ) but as many in my region I make do with an older system, in my case one that has a very modest N3150 CPU. Clicking the languages menu lags just enough (a good 1sec I estimate) that it becomes tempting to click a second time and actually cancel the menu. I presume that's because the entire list of languages is rendered off screen, possibly requiring all kinds of text processing because of the non-latin characters.

• AFAIK HTML has long had a means to keep a header visible while the rest of the page is scrolled. Put the "Article/Talk ... Read/View Source/etc" bar plus the page title in such a header frame - and maybe move the language selector next to "Read" button. Or at least give it a coloured/shaded background so it stands out more easily from peripheral vision.
• There's no point in providing all languages to any single user. I don't know how the old selection of languages was determined but it worked for me.
• I think there's also no point in using the native scripts for each language entry. If for some reason I do want an arabic or japanese translation (to copy/paste parts in an email?), I'm not going to be able to pick the right one if I can't read the language names. It's probably going to be preferable to use the character set also used for rendering the rest of the page interface (by default corresponding to the article's language).
• Don't remove the old language section from the sidebar immediately: replace it with something that directs the user to the new location during a transitional period.

The feature is working as expected from a software point of view. Perhaps this discussion needs to continue on https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements where other people can provide input?