In-context help and onboarding
In-context help and onboarding
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This page is obsolete. It is being retained for archival purposes. It may document extensions or features that are obsolete and/or no longer supported. Do not rely on the information here being up-to-date. For current projects in this area, check the activities of the Growth Team |
âIn-Context Help and Onboardingâ is a project to improve retention of new wiki editors by giving them short tutorials and other training experiences on subjects that research shows impact new-user success. âIn contextâ here means that the tutorials will be related to, and triggered by, users' current activities on the wikis. We might, for example, offer tutorials in response to user actions (e.g., clicking Edit for the first time), to events (e.g., a userâs first reversion) or at predefined milestones (the userâs nth edit). As a secondary benefit, we hope that this automated training system will make the work of volunteers who support new editors more manageable and reduce backlogs for patrollers.
The ultimate productâafter appropriate small-scale experimentsâmight comprise a generalized Wikipedia Assistance service that communities can extend with training modules of their own devising. In-Context Help and Onboarding is a project of the Collaboration team.
This is an ongoing project; feel free to watchlist this page for updates.
Background
In 2017, the Wikimedia Foundation began a significant program of research under the title New Editor Experiences. The final project report opens with this problem statement:
Wikipedia requires a constant influx of productive new editors from diverse backgrounds to sustain itself and increase its quality and balance. However, for nearly a decade, the size of the projectâs contributor community has stagnated.
The report goes on to document 11 âkey findingsâ that analyze the top problems new editors face and recommend strategies for overcoming those obstacles. At the end of 2017, a cross-disciplinary team drawn from across the Foundation met in a series of workshops to explore ways to act on the reportâs conclusions. After studying the 11 findings, the team selected four as the most important and actionable. To summarize those four prime findings:
- New editorsâ greatest challenges are conceptual: they donât understand wiki policies, including the âpillarsâ of Wikipedia like notability, neutrality and verifiability (finding #8).
- Among new editorsâ conceptual gaps is that they fundamentally donât understand how the wikis are madeâby volunteers like them, through community processes (finding #5).
- In addition to the above conceptual issues, new editors struggle to master tools and editing processes. Meanwhile, the mechanisms that should make learning about those processes easierânotably talk pages and user helpâare unintuitive and hard to discover (finding #9).
- The last prime finding recommends an approach: the best way to build editorsâ skills is through iterative, progressive learning, rather than through large, one-time downloads of information (finding #7).
With these prime findings in hand, the workshop team next explored solutions. Of the many ideas discussed, In-Context Help and Onboarding was selected as one that best addresses the problems identified.
Principles & Approach
In-Context Help responds directly to the conceptual and informational gaps discussed above (findings #8, #9 and #5) The approach is progressive and iterative (finding #7). It augments the existing help-page system (finding #9). And the âpushâ nature of the interventions means this system has the potential to touch users broadly. In addition, the following key features and principles will guide the systemâs design and ensure its success.
- Applied learning: Users will be more receptive to information that relates directly to their current activities and problems. By applying tests to the userâs contribution, (e.g., by measuring that X amount of text was added with no citation) we can target lessons more precisely.
- Effective communication. Written tutorials must be short and clear, distilling ideas to their essentials. Demonstrations and interactive training simulations are probably the best way to communicate processes.
- Coordinate the interventions. Logic will be required to ensure that users donât get multiple help messages in response to a single action or see the same messages over and over. Help topics might also be sequenced or graduated, so that the same situation triggers a more advanced tutorial once the user has met certain conditions.
- Findable when needed. Some users may perceive just-in-time help as an interruption, to be dismissed summarily. As a backup, then, there should be a place where persistent New User Help modules can be accessed at a time of the userâs choosing (see mockup).
- Minimize intrusion. Because of the proactive nature of the interventions, we need to design so as to minimize frustration. For example, a specific âNewcomer Modeâ preference, which a user might accept with the understanding that it entails extra guidance, could reduce resistance among more independent editors while freeing us to design more impactful experiences for those who opt in.
- Start small and iterate. Because we wanted to learn more about mid-sized wikis, the original New Editors Experience researchers focused on Korean and Czech Wikipedias.[1] The In-Context Help and Onboarding system will likely be deployed and tested first on these two wikis, along with a few others yet to be determined.
Timeline
In-Context Help and Onboarding is currently in early planning stages. Research and design will ramp up in July, 2018, and active product development should start some time around January, 2019.
Feedback
Weâre very interested to hear your thoughts on the project and approach outlined above. Where have you seen good examples of onboarding and automated help? What have you learned at your own wiki? Please add comments to the project talk page.
Right now, our focus is on thinking through the âcontentâ that will best help new users succeed and the "triggers" that will ensure users get information in situations that will make it meaningful for them. See the draft list of what weâre calling âlessons and triggersâ below. What does your experience tell you we can skip? What have we forgotten? Weâd particularly be grateful for input from people who have experience supporting or teaching new wiki users. Please share your insights (in any language).
A draft list of âlessonsâ and 'triggers' (updated 2018-03-22)
Below is a very preliminary list of possible training topics. What is missing? What can we skip? Remember, this system is designed to get new registrants past the first pitfalls in their user journeys; itâs not a comprehensive training course (though it can grow over time). What is the minimum set of interventions that, as a first release, can make a difference to new editor success?
- Library links: The âLibraryâ links youâll see below are to items in the Wikimedia Training Library. These are provided as examples of the type of content a given lesson might include; we wonât be using them verbatim.
- Groups 0-4: Think of these groupings as corresponding to experience levels. The lessons don't have a sequence, per se, but the same user action might trigger a Group 1 lesson for a very new user and a Group 2 lesson after the user has progressed.
- Triggers: The âlessonsâ Â are meant to relate to, and be triggered by, users' current activities on the wikis. Getting the triggers right will be crucial to having users perceive our support as helpful and relevant. The examples here need more thought, so please share your ideas.
Group 0, Welcome
- Welcome sequenceâsegments include:
- Wikipedia is created by users like youâbe bold (cf Library).
- Explain Newcomer preferenceââYou are now in Newcomer Mode,â and allow to opt out.
- Connect to help resources: user talk page (where we'll have added newcomer help modules); explain special Newcomer help links theyâll see around, how to search for âhelp:subject,â direct to human help if available (e.g., Teahouse, Forum des nouveaux)?
- If user didnât include an email address, explain how having this can help us help them, and offer form to add now (cf Library).
- End with a form: "Now that youâre here, Â what do you want to do today?" 1) improve an existing article, 2) learn about how Wikipedia works, 3) communicate with a user 4) write an article[2].
- Trigger: On registration
- Actions that occur at the same time: 1) put a note on the user talk page from a local user welcoming and reinforcing offer of help and assistance (see example), 2) replace help icons on key tools/pages with Newcomer Help icons that link to Newcomer modules.
- Trigger: On registration
- Find an article to contribute to (suggest job queues for newcomer-appropriate jobs and/or subject-based projectsâneeds more thought).
- Trigger 1: In the Welcome sequence, the user answers that they want to âimprove an existing article.â
- Questions: what are the most newbie friendly jobs?
- Find an article that needs to be written (not sure how this might workâneeds more thought).
- Trigger 1: In the Welcome sequence, the user answers that they want to âwrite an article.â
- Questions: perhaps this should just be an early module in a revised Article Wizard tool?
Group 1, Things everyone should know
- âYouâve got a messageââintroduce user talk page idea; introduce notification badges and panels (how you know you got a message).
- Trigger 1: As above during the "Welcome sequence" we put a note on the use talk page. If the user sees the notification and goes to her talk page, launch lesson. But we donât otherwise prompt or point to the message or email the user about it immediately after the welcome.
- Trigger 2: Â If the user doesnât open the notification or talk page, send her an email after X days (one day?). This encourages the user to come back. The message contains a prominent link that launches the lesson.
- Trigger 3: If user still hasnât seen the message/talk page on next visit to the wiki, launch lesson.
- Offer follow-on lessons: âAnswer a user message,â âContribute to a talk page discussionâ
- Neutral point of view (cf Library)
- Trigger 1: User makes contribution of a size large enough for POV to be an issue.
- Trigger 2: As one of a small, perhaps rotating series of key modules offered as a verification step after first X edits, or until âpermanent dismissalâ (rough concept mockup).
- Offer follow-on lessons: âThe importance of including citationsâ
- Neutral point of view with warning that editing high-risk pages may lead to revert
- Trigger 1: User makes an edit on a high-traffic or Featured article.
- Trigger 2: User makes an edit on a controversial or protected page, identified as such by specified templates (E.g., Â Controversial topics, Pages under discretionary sanctions, Recent deaths, Semi-protected pagesâand their cognates on each wiki.)
- Offer follow-on lessons: âThe importance of including citationsâ
- Verifiability (includes no original research) (cf Library and Library)
- Trigger 1: As one of a small, perhaps rotating series of key modules offered as a verification step after first X edits, or until âpermanent dismissalâ (rough concept mockup).
- The importance of including citations ( and what are good sources) (cf Library, 2, 3)
- Trigger 1: The user has made a contribution of X size without including a citation.
- Trigger 2: As a (non-distracting) suggestion when pasting content of X size.
- Trigger 3: As a follow-up suggestion to improve the page on Save when contributing to an article identified as lacking citations.
- Note: requires a slightly different message from #1, which is triggered by user possibly making a âmistake.â
- Trigger 4: The user contributes an article that gets tagged for no citations.
- Note: since this will happen when the user is not on the wiki, we should 1) send the user a friendly, âNewcomer emailâ and notification about it, 2) pop a message next time the user returns logs in to the wiki.
- Offer follow-on lessons: âHow to add a citationsâ
- Notability (cf Library and Library)
- Trigger 1: The user clicks on the âcreateâ link after entering an unknown pagename or clicks on a redlink.
- Trigger 2: the user saves an edit that includes no references to an article that carries a template questioning its notability.
- (Note: this trigger would likely require a message with slightly different wording from that given in response to Trigger 1)
- Offer follow-on lessons: "The importance of including citations," "How to add a citations,â âWhat is encyclopedic content?"
- Importance of  the edit summary (cf Library )
- Trigger 1: The user saves an edit but does not marke the edit as minor or include an edit summary.
- Note: this requires conflict management with lessons like Verifiability. E.g., the same action might trigger both, so Verifiability should get precedence, then this show up the next time.
- Trigger 1: The user saves an edit but does not marke the edit as minor or include an edit summary.
- Assume good faith, be respectful, donât panic if someone edits or remove your work. (cf Library)
- Trigger 1: The one of the userâs edits gets reverted or undone.
- Trigger 2: An article the user created is deleted or marked for deletion.
- Trigger 3: Upsell from âContribute to a talk pageâ
- Note: since #1 and #2 Â will happen when the user is off-wiki, we should 1) send the user a friendly, âNewcomer emailâ and notification about it, 2) pop a message next time the user logs in.
- How to make a citation, Visual Editor/citoid (cf Library, Library, tutorial )
- Trigger 1: An editor using Visual Editor clicks the âCiteâ button for the first time.
- Trigger 2: The user clicks a new âNew User Helpâ icon/link we add to the Citation tool.
- Trigger 3: As a  follow-on lesson from âThe importance of including citationsâ.
- Answer a user message (indenting and signing) (cf Library, Tutorial, video)
- Trigger 1: The user gets a message on her user talk page (excluding the initial Welcome message).
- Trigger 2: The user is mentioned in a discussion or edit summary.
- Trigger 3: As an upsell from the âYouâve got messagesâ and âAssume good faithâ lessons.
- Offer follow-on lesson: âAssume good faith, be respectfulâ
Group 2, Basic skills and more conceptsâvery preliminary ideas
- What is encyclopedic contentâWikipedia is not a dictionary, directory, collection of documentsâŚ. (cf Library)
- Join in a talk page discussion (purpose of talk pages, basic Wikitext and etiquette) (cf Library, Tutorial)
- Content is free and must be copyright free (cf Library and Library)
- You can watch a page (Watchlist) (cf Library)
- Conflict of interest
- Intro to editingâbasic VE overview, visual vs. source editing, switching between the two,  (cf Library  and Library)
Group 3, Going deeperâvery preliminary ideas
- Write an article...
- Explain about template messages
- Biographies of living persons
- Something about harassment/Friendly Spaces policy (cf Library)
Notes
- â As of March 2018, Czech Wikipedia ranks 18th in active editor count; Korean ranks 16th. Each contains just under 400,000 articles.
- â Where do these options take the user? 1) Improve an article > "Get started editing", 2) learn about wikipedia > offer a list of our training modules, 3) communicate with a user > "Contribute to a talk page," 4) write an article > probably a revised and expanded Article Wizard.