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Readers foundational research: what do readers use Wikipedia for? when and why do people use other apps/sites for these same needs?
Open, In Progress, HighPublic

Description

  • Context.

This project came out of the original Reader Archetypes research study proposal and Readers pod research proposals.

The new research plan document can be found here (private): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vaS43OOMi7Uj1MGQ3FxXNRUKwoaI9s0qa3blNUIp7VI/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.lzfvrg6k0v9i

Details

Due Date
Oct 31 2025, 5:00 AM

Event Timeline

Assigning this task to Mike to be project lead now that we've confirmed the research goals and questions with the Readers team. We have also confirmed Yu-Ming to be part of the research group, to lead the large-scale in-product survey aspect of the work. Debra's role will be as an advisor to the project.

Confirming this as our main focus for research for Readers, for Q1.

Status update for this week is that Mike and Yu-Ming and I have been brainstorming and discussing methodology approaches to the research goals and questions, and are getting closer to finalizing an approach.

Mike, please add the rest of the stakeholders to this Phab task soon, so they can stay informed.

DKumar-WMF renamed this task from Reader Archetype study / research for Readers pod to Readers foundational research: what do readers use Wikipedia for? when and why do people use other apps/sites for these same needs? .Jun 6 2025, 3:00 PM
DKumar-WMF changed the task status from Open to In Progress.
DKumar-WMF triaged this task as High priority.
DKumar-WMF updated the task description. (Show Details)
DKumar-WMF added a subscriber: YLiou_WMF.

Work on this project continues, with initial steps being taken in the direction of initial data collection. Our early work has consisted of gathering diverse perspectives and planning for research activities that can effectively accommodate those perspectives. Details of our steps toward data collection can be seen in T398370, where our initial Quicksurvey effort is described. As detailed in the research brief for this project, we plan to progress through a series of survey-based research stages before shifting our efforts to support a diary study and interviews with participants. In our next update, we will provide a draft timeline of anticipated steps.

Work continues. We will deploy our first QuickSurvey on Monday. Work on this project is now being tracked as WE3.6.4 on Asana.

The most recent actions on this project are detailed at T399736—we have fielded an updated version of the Stage 1 QuickSurvey and will continue analyzing results for the next two weeks, in collaboration with stakeholders and the research team. We have also begun drafting the survey instruments to be used in Phase 2, the anticipated Diary Study. This will be hosted on Qualtrics and delivered to (a) Wikipedia engaged readers (sourced internally), and (b) Wikipedia infrequent or non-readers (sourced externally).

We continue work on Phase 1/Stage 1 in which we are attempting to elaborate a use-case framework from data collected via open-ended responses provided by readers. We are also in the planning stage of Phase 2, anticipated to take the form of a diary study of Wikipedia readers. We remain on track.

DKumar-WMF set Due Date to Oct 31 2025, 5:00 AM.Sep 2 2025, 3:42 PM