Background
The concept of a talk page is hard to understand for new users. Onboarding and guidance for new users is especially important. There needs to be better onboarding and education on the use and distinction of article and user talk pages. Ideally the UI will help users understand differences without deviating too far from wiki conventions.
Derived from usability tests in T294078
User story
When realizing that Wikipedia is edited by people, I want to know how user talk pages work and what their purpose is through onboarding, so that I can start discussions with other community members.
When I want to make improvements to an article or suggest improvements, I want to know how article talk pages work and what their purpose is through onboarding, so that I can start discussing improvements to an article.
Design feedback
- RH (article talk): I like the warning box on the topic overview page, but would include an additional warning in the new topic UI warning users again that the topic is about improving the article and not a comments section, since it’s likely to be missed.
Issues observed in usability tests for talk pages in October 2022.
- Understanding of user talk pages (Video ↗)
- Problem: 3/5 had issues understanding user talk pages when coming from notifications. From observing the tests, participants didn’t ultimately realize that it is a different space *(RS: I’m wondering how important the distinction is though since users did not have any issues replying to user talk page messages from our new notification center)*
- Solution: Contextual tooltip onboarding when users interact with a user talk page for the first time, e.g. when receiving a user talk page message. We should explain the purpose of a user talk page clearly and concisely.
- The publicness of talk pages (Video ↗)
- Problem: 2/5 described user talk pages as direct messages or private messages. These types of messages are usually private, and can’t be seen by anyone.
- Solution: Educate users that talk page messages are public. E.g. when they first post a message on a user talk page. This can be achieved with a dialog that contains a “don’t show this message again” checkbox.
- Understanding of a revert (Video ↗)
- Problem: Even though participants understood the diff view, they needed a lot of time processing the task that uses the word “revert”.
- Solution: Use more newcomer-friendly language for “revert” or explain a revert with contextual onboarding.
APK: https://github.com/wikimedia/apps-android-wikipedia/pull/3419