Wikipedia:Usability guide for future improvements

Wikipedia: Usability guide for future developements

Wikipedia is always evolving, users constantly proposing new features. This article tries to set some usability standards to guide those improvements, so it won't fall in the pitfall of Creeping featurism.

Wikipedia's main value is in the ease with which any user can edit its content. This comes from the very simple fact that an expert in any knowledge field is not necessarily used to computers. Imagine the anecdote of a man who spent thirty years researching a specific field, so although he is the world's expert in his area he has to call his grandson whenever he wants to send an email with an attachment.

Now figure that this same Grandson decides to show him how this wikipedia thing works. If whenever he first clicks the 'edit' link he does not see plain English, he probably won't return.

Usability mantra is know the user. So who is the wikipedia user?

The User
notice that here it says user, not reader. The wikipedian reads, writes, edits, discuss. Without those there would be no good articles.

The first user: the computer iliterate
wikipedia wasn't done by programmers. It was written by programmers, designers, engineers, doctors, teachers, lawnmowers, teenagers, everyone. And almost all have never seen an  HTML tag . Most of them are not used to use computers.

And maybe in the future they'll never use one. Maybe wikipedia will be acessed by some specific information appliance more simple to use than a website.

Those users are interested in wikipedia's content. Write, read. No coding, no tagging, no templates. Simple as that.

The second user: the machine initiated
this user might be interested on the workings of wikipedia. He puts articles as candidates for deletion or featured. He edits the main paqe.

If only existed the first user, wikipedia could be a big Wysïwig editor. But the second user cares for the code, he want it clean so there won't be funny messes

the last user: the computer
The computer is not even a user, it is a tool to serve other users. He is here as a reminder that in order to make wikipedia's content reach a wider audience, be it through printing, voice access or else, it must be readable by a machine. He is last because any improvement on this area that difficult life for the first three users shouldn't be implemented.

1 - do not mix what is to be read by humans with what is read by the machine
and remember that does not matter how easy is your code, it still a code. Only accept tags that does not difficult being read by people. If you can't, redesign the technology, do not expect people to conform to it.

examples were those rules appy

 * Wikitex Usability Review
 * Semantic Wikipedia proposal