Mobile/Feedback

This page collects all of the mobile feedback channels and recommends ways of consolidating or modifying these channels.

Current channels

Wiki pages:

• General and mobile site feedback
• iOS app feedback
• Android app feedback
• Navigation UI initial feedback
• Navigation UI Beta feedback
• WLM App feedback
• Wiktionary feedback

In addition, there are three email channels:

• mobile-feedback-l - this is shown in Google Play and the Apple App Store as the way users of the apps can contact the developers
• feedbacktest - a Google Group that is the interim email address for reporting technical problems in the new Contact page, accessed from the apps or the mobile site
• mobile-l - this email address is for general input by the volunteer community primarily, and also for outreach to subscribers both internal and external, though it is open to anyone with an interest in mobile activities
• mobile @ wikimedia.org - OTRS email channel that is monitored by Tomasz and some developers

Finally, there are social media channels, including:

• Facebook/Wikipedia
• Twitter @Wikipedia, @Wikimedia
• Twitter @WikimediaMobile

From these channels, bugs are entered into Bugzilla and ideas for enhancements are harvested into the Feature Corral. Design issues are added to the Nav UI project page or related sub-pages.

Objectives

• Volunteer community - developers and other community members who are familiar with Wikipedia and Mediawiki can provide input on-wiki, which enables fuller expression and some organization

• Readers - need quick and easy forms of feedback, so email tends to work best; for technical problems, the emails from the Contact form include the User Agent info, although currently the mechanism does not capture the apps' UA

• Internal team - we need as much detail as possible regarding technical problems, and streamlined channels so enhancements can be culled and bugs responded to, without overlapping communication and a clear assignment to relevant team members

• Design issues - issues related to UI and UX are important for the current Nav UI design project, and it is important to collect and discuss these; all feedback channels can be a source of this kind of input, which then needs to be consolidated into the Nav UI project page or related sub-pages

Challenges and recommendations

• Current wiki pages are too diverse and tracking them is sporadic, but the input that appears on those pages tends to be high quality

• Email channels are not targeted enough, both in terms of identifying the source and delivery to the right team members

• Manually harvesting valuable input to the Feature Corral and Nav UI pages is sporadic and currently done by Phil only

• Recommendations:
  • Create a central landing page for all wiki feedback pages, possibly consolidate the two app pages
  • Solve the problem of capturing UA from the apps in the Contact emails
  • Create Google Groups appropriate to the source and the team members
  • Establish a process by which team members can participate in harvesting enhancement ideas

Next steps

• Establish mailing list groups for the following addresses:
  • store-android-wikipedia
  • store-android-wikipedia-beta
  • store-android-wiktionary
  • store-android-wlm
  • store-ios-wikipedia
  • store-bb-wikipedia
  • store-win-wikipedia
  • If easy to branch Contact page for apps and browser:
    • contact-app - app specific from Contact page
    • contact-browser - browser specific from Contact page

• feedbacktest@wikimedia.org => contact-browser - delete test list
• mobile@wikipedia.org => mobile-feedback-l@lists.wikimedia.org - remove all mention of it and move the list away from OTRS

• All mailing lists would include tfinc and pchang, then developers can subscribe to those that interest them

• The first person to reply to an email replies to the user and the list email address

• Phil will devise a more integrated way of maintaining a feature backlog related to each feedback page