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Starting point

Is this the main working page for the group? Yes.

Clarity, working tools, and the user experience

Bhneihouse stated the medium (Liquid Threads) was impeding the process: - "multiply the frustration I am feeling 100 fold for a newbie who might wish to contribute... we are losing all those who cannot function in this medium. How about people with disabilities? How does quality control affect them? ... I see what is happening right here on this page as part of the problem".

She asked how people could interact with information more efficiently, what Wikipedia interface(s) would take different means of interaction into account, and how to streamline this or address demographic groups such as the disabled who may have different ways to approach information, editing, contributing.

Most taskforce members seemed to agree that Liquid Threads (currently in development) was not ideal but that it was the status quo and offered help; some liked it a lot.

Bhneihouse felt let down by being given beta collaboration software for this task and noted she and others would assume they were being given high quality collaboration tools to work with. Clarity of direction and clear foundations were not provided -- and were not being provided elsewhere in the project either.

FT2 commented that "we should sit down with a blank piece of paper and ask 'what should the Wikipedia experience be like': - I'm a new user, how should I be guided and introduced? I see a problem, what should my experience be? I'm a fanatic on something, what should my experience be? (ie, how should I find myself gradually being brought to a halt)". Bhneihouse strongly agreed.

Just checking - is this going to be the main working page?

FT2, it's looking like this is where we are talking, at least. :) I just got here so I am working on assimilating the information.

I am really hating working with this liquid threads concept. Seriously. I am finding it counterintuitive, confusing, I cannot search for my own posts if they are in reply and not all of the replies are expanded and it is taking too long to work with the page as the discussions get longer.

Philipe and all: is there another way we can collaborate on this? I am using Google wave for another project and use yahoo and google groups extensively. A format similar to groups would be preferable to this, as I am not being emailed or notified with summaries and comments so have to search for changes and additional comments. As well the image uplaod tool is clunky and if I couldn't find it in a few minutes and had to ask someone else how to use it, there is something seriously wrong.

Please let me know because the time I am spending frustrated by this is impeding on my desire to contribute.

Now, I was networking computers in 1996. I am a power user. Multiply the frustration I am feeling 100 fold for a newbie who might wish to contribute. If a Quality Task Force power user is having trouble, what does that say about how other users are dealing with this interface? Ok, now let's take that further, I am an analyst who is also very creative. I learn by listening, repeating and seeing, and am very visual and spatial. If our users dont fit the predefined profile of people who can interface with Wikipedia as a text based screen image, then we are losing all those who cannot function in this medium. How about people with disabilities? how does quality control affect them? can they even start to interface with Wikipedia even with JAWS or some similar reader?

I see what is happening right here on this page as part of the problem. I am "hearing" analysis from a very logic centered model and am "seeing" very little that takes into account how human beings interact with information.

Yes, this is a complaint. But the point is, 1. how do we change our own process so that all of us can interact with the information efficiently? 2. how do we create an interface for Wikipedia that takes into account all the ways that people interact with information and learn from it? 3. how do we streamline this process for minimum time waste? 4. how do we address populations such as various disabilities, that we have yet to mention, because their disabilities affect how they approach information, editing, contributing.

Also, and this is O/T for this thread, I would like someone(s) to list every step in the process from the point a page is created through the point it would be considered "finished" (although pages on Wikipedia are never finished.) I would like to capture the entire process here.

Brenda, sorry to hear you're having trouble with this wiki and with LiquidThreads in particular. In a sense, the challenges you are reporting are positive, because it gives all of us a feeling of what everyone has to deal with in order to participate in our community.

We need to use this wiki as the primary mode of interaction, as it is public, and frankly, we also need to eat our own dogfood. Google Wave certainly has some interesting features, but it also has many of the warts you complain about here -- in particular, poor notification capabilities.

Let's work together to find a way to make this experience more satisfying for you. I'm certainly willing to help. Also, I just created a Strategic Planning:Mentors page. If people are willing to mentor others like Brenda to help make this experience easier, please sign up there. Thanks!

As an aside, despite your difficulties with LiquidThreads and this wiki, you're doing a great job contributing to the discussion.

Can someone give Bhnei a link to the liquid threads feedback page? I don't have it.

It's at http://liquidthreads.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Feedback (and, just FYI, at the top of every page using LiquidThreads on this wiki). I'll drop it on her talk page too. :)

I've been liberally reporting every Liquid Threads issue as I come across them. I suspect that using it on a discussion wiki, though annoying to participants (including me) is the only way to refine it and learn what's needed. That's my guess anyhow.

Somebody's gotta be the beta group. In this case, we're it. :) For me, personally (and I know I'm the exception on a lot of things) I've found it to be a fantastic tool. The "new messages" feature is fantastic - I can read what's going on EVERYWHERE in one fell swoop. I love it. :)

It's clunky, but it's not even "beta" yet so no surprises.

It would have been okay if someone had explained to me that this was a Beta and that I was a lab rat. Then I could have chosen to opt in or opt out. Giving a participant no upfront warning connotes that the technology or application being used has been released as relatively complete.

I still find this extremely annoying and I really just do not have the time to help refine this technology -- in truth it is just not what I am here for.

I think part of the issue is the same as the demographics Philippe identified -- I am a single parent who is a full time student. I CHOSE to participate here to help figure out what Wikipedia needs to do. I did NOT choose to participate as a lab rat to make a collaborative technology better. I ASSUMED that Wikipedia would give all of us, me included, a set of workable tools. As such, I am not interested in creating trouble logs every time I run into a problem. If that was the case, I would still be beta testing for Adobe.

Parents or anyone who has other life tasks that wholly consume them are not contributing because

1. they arent interested in being lab rats 2. they arent interested in making wholesale contributions that may be erased by someone else five minutes later 3. their time is extremely valuable -- when I choose to type in as I do now that is five or ten minutes less of me that my daughter gets.

CLEAR instructions, clear disclaimers, clear communication should all be a part of Wikipedia's brand. Right now, it is not.

I've thought at times, we should sit down with a blank piece of paper (or screen) and ask, "what should the Wikipedia experience be like".

• I'm a new user, how should I be guided and introduced?
• I see a problem, what should my experience be?
• I'm a fanatic on something, what should my experience be? (ie, how should I find myself gradually being brought to a halt)

FT2, you just made my day! thanks, that is exactly where I have been getting to, and it talks to my "Beginning" monologue. Now, if we put your suggestion into the existing framework for Wikipedia and use it to "test" the various processes and procedures, I think we might have the litmus test we need for QC.

add:

I am an editor. How should I feel as I work? I am an admin, what support do I need to do my job?

etc.

Yes. I'm thinking more in terms of how it should be experienced, because that tends to guide how people feel. We know how we want people to feel (broadly) - enjoy it, positive, blah. But what's the hands-on practicalities of actual experience of editing or reading, that most gets them that, and what are the things that derail it (which need neutralizing). And then, we pick a handful of points to most guide 100k editors to maximize these.

Bodnotbod, thanks, Philippe gave me the page.

Eugene, thanks for the positive feedback. I may just copy it all into Word one day and try to make sense of it -- after finals.