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Conduct usability study: [Mobile] Offer button that enables people to edit an entire article from section editing
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Description

Background

This task involves the work of conducting quick usability testing with users across different experience levels to learn how they experience the new “Edit full page” button implemented in T409990 that enables switching from section editing to full-page editing on mobile, and to decide what (if any) UX adjustments the team needs to prioritize making before beginning a controlled experiment of the intervention (T409112).

Timeline

  • Nov 25, 2025: BM to share first draft usability test (T410614) w/ PP
  • Nov 26, 2025: PP to share any feedback on usability test (T410614) w/ BM
  • Nov 27, 2025: BM to run first iteration of usability test (T410614)
  • Dec 1, 2025: BM to share findings from usability test usability test (T410614) and name what (if any) aspects of UX she thinks need to be addressed before start of experiment (T409112)

Decision(s) to be made

This test is an effort to make the following decision(s)…

  1. Which button copy best communicates the action and drives confident use?
    • Edit full page - When showing the different copy variants, almost all users choose “Edit full page” as the preferred and clearest label (just one user preferred the “Switch to full page”). So we will move forward with "Edit full page".
    • "Previous sections} / Next sections"
    • "Switch to full page"
  2. Is this solution — including the button copy — sufficiently safe to ensure people do not fear losing their in-progress edits when they tap it?
  3. What (if any) UX adjustments are needed before broader rollout/experimentation?

Open questions

  • When prompted to edit a section beyond the one they're currently "in," do people organically/intuitively discover the button T409990 introduces?
  • What do people expect will happen when they tap the button T409990 introduces?
  • What (if any) confusion/hesitation/uncertainty/etc. do people experience along the path of arriving into section editing and locating the content they'd like to edit that lives outside the section the editing interface exposed by default?
    • E.g. @bmartinezcalvo + @ppelberg are curious to know how (if at all) people perceive the skeleton the button appears atop.

Usability testing findings

  • Discoverability: 100% users easily found the button to edit full page and they naturally selected it when trying to find other sections to edit.
    • They selected the button as something normal and natural.
    • Users appreciated that the buttons where placed on different positions (top and bottom) so it’s easier to find them in long articles.
    • Users easily understood the purpose of the button, understanding they can edit other sections of the article when clicking on it.
  • Placeholder/Skeleton: The placeholder text behind the button didn’t distract them and they selected the button without paying attention on the placeholder at all.
  • Confidence: Most users tapped the button without fearing data loss. However, some of them asked for more orientation/assurance after switching to full-page and explicit confirmation that their in-progress edits were kept. We will address this in T411465.
  • Copy: Users raised no objections to any of the button label variants. When showing the different copy variants, almost all users choose “Edit full page” as the preferred and clearest label (just one user preferred the “Switch to full page”). So we will move forward with "Edit full page".
  • Other observations: When switching to full-page, some users commented on the following issues/improvements (to be addressed in T411468):
    • Difficulties to locate the content when switching to full page: the lack of collapsing reduces the content scannability and users lose the section reference since it's difficult to find the headings of each section.
    • When switching to full-page, some users lost their place since the scroll position shifted and they were moved away from their current section.

Acceptance criteria (or Done)

  • Implement the prototype in T409990 with 3 copy variants
  • Conduct usability test and analyze results
  • Decide on what (if any) adjustments will we make to T409990

Future tasks

Event Timeline

I conducted the test with different types of experience level users and the different button's copy variants, and here are the findings and next steps (see more details in the findings and insights doc):

  • Discoverability: 100% users easily found the button to edit full page and they naturally selected it when trying to find other sections to edit.
    • They selected the button as something normal and natural.
    • Users appreciated that the buttons where placed on different positions (top and bottom) so it’s easier to find them in long articles.
    • Users easily understood the purpose of the button, understanding they can edit other sections of the article when clicking on it.
  • Placeholder/Skeleton: The placeholder text behind the button didn’t distract them and they selected the button without paying attention on the placeholder at all.
  • Confidence: Most users tapped the button without fearing data loss. However, some of them asked for more orientation/assurance after switching to full-page and explicit confirmation that their in-progress edits were kept. We will address this in T411465.
  • Copy: Users raised no objections to any of the button label variants. When showing the different copy variants, almost all users choose “Edit full page” as the preferred and clearest label (just one user preferred the “Switch to full page”). So we will move forward with "Edit full page".
  • Other observations: When switching to full-page, some users commented on the following issues/improvements (to be addressed in T411468):
    • Difficulties to locate the content when switching to full page: the lack of collapsing reduces the content scannability and users lose the section reference since it's difficult to find the headings of each section.
    • When switching to full-page, some users lost their place since the scroll position shifted and they were moved away from their current section.

Solving this task. We will address the issues found in T411465: Improve orientation/assurance after switching to full-page editing and T411468: Improve scroll transition when switching to full-page editing

Meta: "opening" this task as closing it depends on us making (and documenting) the following decisions...

What (if any) UX adjustments are needed before broader rollout/experimentation?

bmartinezcalvo updated the task description. (Show Details)

Meta: "opening" this task as closing it depends on us making (and documenting) the following decisions...

What (if any) UX adjustments are needed before broader rollout/experimentation?

@ppelberg I've responded to that question in the task's description. I guess we can solve this task now.

Decisions to be made

Bringing together what Bárbara described in T410614#11422958 and what the Editing Team discussed/converged on this past week, we've DECIDED to:

  1. Button copy: move forward with naming the button Edit full page
  2. Assurance of in-progress edits: make NO changes to the UX. Reason: people who participated in the usability test did NOT show/express concern about whether the changes they made would be lost as a consequence of tapping the Edit full page button.
  3. Emergent UX needs: we are going to adjust how people are shown content upon tapping the Edit full page button. Reason: people who participated in the test found the current transition (scroll 50% of viewport) to be disorienting.