User:Sphilbrick/Wikidata tutorial commentary

Intro
A couple days ago, I had zero experience with Wikidata.

I do have experience with writing documentation and tutorials for new systems. One of the things I learned is that it can be insightful and humbling to watch a new user try to use a system. What has become second nature for you is not at all obvious to them. I decided to try the tutorials, to see if they would get me up to speed on using Wikidata. They definitely helped, but there are some shortcomings. I'd like to share with you my experiences when first going through the tutorial. Even though I've now been working with wiki data only a couple days, I now understand it better, and understand why some things may not have been stated in the tutorial as they may have seemed too obvious. I took some screenshots of some things that troubled me and would like to pass along my observations. In some cases I am sure your reaction will be that I'm exceedingly anal. Perhaps, but when one is brand-new to a system, some things are not obvious, and one assumes that one ought to be able to follow a tutorial step-by-step exactly. When that fails, even when one figures out what they did wrong, it is a less than satisfying experience.

Let's start
Let's start with one of the early screens in the tutorial. Some things were not explicitly stated and I'm fine with that — for example, I don't think it's necessary to explain that most of the screen is gray while the real screen is not gray. We can reasonably assume our audience has at least some familiarity with how a tutorial works. One challenge applicable to many tutorials is the distinction between the tutorial information and the underlying system information. In this case, it is fairly clear that the off-center white rectangle is the tutorial and everything else is part of the system. That said, most of the screen is gray with two exceptions both of which are white. Were I designing it, I would use some subtle color for the tutorial screen and let people know that, for example, anything with a light yellow background is part of the tutorial system. That would allow you to use the white rectangle to highlight the information you want to draw the users attention to. That is a useful device, and well done in most screens. Unfortunately on the very first screen it fails. The upper rectangle in white, presumably highlighting the information the user should look at, has several text fields. However the tutorial is talking about the number. That number is in the gray area, not in the white highlighted area. My guess is this was a simple oversight and the intention was to have the white highlighted area on the "no label defined" and the Q code. Users will be able to figure it out and it won't take all that long, but it is not a great start.



The next screen has a small bit of ambiguity. The way I read it you are explaining how one goes about editing by clicking on the edit button and showing me where it is. That part is accurate but you also wanted me to click on it before going to the next screen. That wasn't so obvious. I assumed I should click on the blue arrow and you would soon tell me to actually do something. The current wording "you just click on the edit button" is just a statement not a command. It's simple to fix, just add something that tells the user they should do it now.



That last comment may sound like a minor thing. Let me explain why it's a bigger deal than that. When I clicked on the blue arrow to go to the next screen, it was telling me to do something in the text field. However, because I hadn't hit the edit button, I didn't see the text field. No problem, so I thought, the tutorial has a back arrow, so I'll back up one step in click on edit. However, when I did that I get a screen that looks like the one below but I was unable to click in the text field. Try it and you'll see for yourself that it fails. If the user did click the edit button on the previous screen they wouldn't have the problem, but if they stepped ahead as I did and then tried to go back it won't work as advertised. Or maybe it will work, I have tried this a dozen times now and sometimes when I backup and click edit I can enter the field and sometimes I cannot. I'm not going to try to figure out what the difference is — my main point is that if people click edit when they are supposed to they probably won't have a problem but if they have to use the back arrow they may or may not be able to recover.



Back doesn't work nicely
This next screen illustrate something that is far from trivial to overcome, so may not be worth addressing but I noticed that stepping back in the tutorial is disconnected from the underlying screens; it doesn't bring you back to where you were. I believe that if the user now clicks the cancel button they will get back to where they were but I'm not saying this as a suggestion because that instruction only applies if you get to the screen by going backwards not going forwards. If it is always the case that clicking cancel will help it might be worth mentioning but I fear it probably depends. I don't have a recommended action item here other than perhaps to beat the point to death that the misunderstanding of what to do on the edit step led to additional problems. Fixing that should be easy and may obviate the need to have an integrated back step approach.



This next screen turns out not to be a big deal but I took a screenshot so I'll explain what I was thinking. Keep in mind that there are two things going on almost simultaneously. There's a tutorial running on one layer and wiki data running on another layer. When you make a reference to "continue with the tour" that sounds like you are talking about the tutorial layer. The instructions say to click "save" to continue with the tour. I understood that the save button is in the wikidata layer but I interpreted this instruction as telling me I could click on save and it would do the save to Wikidata and also advance me one step in the tutorial. That isn't the case. After clicking save I then have to click on the blue arrow. It could be worded better to make it clear that you click save to advance to the next step in wiki data and separately click the blue arrow to go to the next screen. However unlike the earlier ambiguity which led to problems, in this case you might wait a few seconds to see if it will auto advance but you will eventually decide you ought to click on the blue arrow.

Where on earth?
This is a good example of the screen that probably isn't confusing to someone familiar with Wikidata but remember, almost by definition, the people here are new and don't know quite what's going on. The opening sentence says "this row is a statement about Earth". However, look at the top of the screen. We just finished creating an entry which we called Earth. This isn't it. This one has no label defined, and the Q value is different than the one we had before. Have we transition to a different example without explanation? I don't think we can have statements without a label can we? If there is a good reason this screen has no label defined and a different Q value you need to share it with the user because this is very confusing.

This next screen is even more confusing. The highlighted material is a statement presumably about Earth although we still have no label defined. But when the statement refers to the highest point and identifies it as Mount Everest it is pretty clear we are talking about Earth. One might think we are about to add a new statement. The tutorial gives us a mini quiz asking us what we think is a good example of the property value pair. Given that we are on a page about Earth, it is reasonable to assume that the quiz relates to Earth. Most of the entries are things that could be associated with Earth. I walked through each of the three and rejected all of them. The first and third for obvious reasons; they aren't property value pairs. The second I rejected because that date is not the discovery data for Earth. So I had no idea what the quiz was trying to test.



When I go to the next step, I see that the second item is the one I was supposed to choose as it is a property value pair for Neptune. But I'm looking at a tutorial box which points to a statement about Earth. There may be nothing wrong with asking an abstract question about which of a list of things qualify as property value pairs, but when you do it on a page that is about the earth one expects that they will be property value pairs relating to the earth not something else. Not a big deal but confusing. I see two options. One is to blank out the background material so it is understood that it is an abstract question, not a question relating to earth. A second option is to include one valid property value pair that relates to earth, obviously not discovery date but I'm sure there is something.

Minor editorial comments
This is just a minor editorial observation on the wording in the following screen. The constraints help prevent vandalism but cannot totally eliminate it so I would modify the statement to "these constraints also help prevent Wikidata from vandalism."

Finally, the following screen is perfectly fine as is — it identifies the button to click to add a new statement. However a user cannot help but note that the word "add" is on the screen twice, with the other instance just above the one you are supposed to click. Could the other one be mentioned, if only to explain that it is outside the scope of this tutorial?