User:Diyawaghmare/Outreachy microtask1

~ Diya Waghmare
'''Make an edit request and write about it. What was the hardest part? What confused you? If you were redesigning the process, what would you change? What other comments do you have, from a user-experience perspective (or from an end-user's or developer's perspective)?'''

Notes:
I made two edit requests to understand the process of making an edit request as well as I could after having read a lot of Wikipedia's help: documentation. However, a regular user who wants to contribute would not likely go through loads of documentation to understand the process and is prone to making errors and getting confused while making the edit request.

These were the two edit requests I made: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ginny_Weasley#Semi-protected_edit_request_on_31_March_2022 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Harry_Potter#Semi-protected_edit_request_on_31_March_2022 (Not done for now; asked to establish consensus)

Thoughts on the process:

 * 1) 1. Found an article to edit after having created a Wikipedia account and becoming a registered user.
 * 2) 2. Even after skimming through various links and reading the documentation, there was some confusion regarding which pages were semi-protected and which were fully protected and could be edited without having administrative authorization.
 * 3) 3. Clicked on the "View source" button; although it is not clear that this button would lead to the Edit request option for a normal user who is not following documentation
 * 4) 4. There was no option to highlight the lines in which a user would like to make the change. There is only an option to enter the details of the change which can be confusing in case the change is significant. This can lead to confusion not just for the user suggesting a change but also for the reviewer who has to go through a long and wordy article to find the exact location of changes.
 * 5) 5. In the documentation, there was mention of tags that have to be entered which was confusing because a regular user would not know the meaning of all those tags and whether it is something to be added manually.
 * 6) 6. Once the suggested change has been entered, the request can be submitted for review under the talk page of that article.

Suggestions and Changes:
Hardest part: Honestly, the hardest part was knowing where to begin. Only after having read the documentation thoroughly could I understand where exactly one should go to make an edit request. This shouldn't be the case for regular users. Most people have a very short attention span and would like to have all their information in the same place. However, it takes a long time to read documention which can restrict people who would like to make edits but do not have a lot of time. Hence, if I were to redesign the Edit request wizard, I would add little pop-up banners when a user hovers over the options with information.

Source editing: Not all users would know the wiki markup and what exactly the different tags are supposed to mean and that can lead to a lot of confusion when one is trying to make an edit request as it's not very user friendly.

Edit request visually: Even after making 2 edit requests, I didn't know how to make an edit request visually, which is an option that should've been provided in the Edit request wizard (This would help with point no. 4 as it would be easy to simply go to the required section and make the change.) It would help to have a simple toggle button that would enable the user to go from source editing to visual editing in no time, without having to make a change in Preferences to view both editors.(which again I only found out after having gone through a lot of help: articles.)

Confusion between two forms: It is easy to get confused between the Edit summary form and the Edit request form which also inhibits regular users from being contributors and editors. The process can be more streamlined if a user knows exactly what is needed from them in that step and not having to blindly figure it out on their own. When the user clicks on the Edit request option and enters the wizard for the first time, they can be given a short tutorial on what are the different steps they have to follow.