Topic on Talk:Talk pages project/Usability/Prototype

1. Did you use mobile device or a laptop to test the prototype?

Desktop, with an actual portrait-orientation desktop monitor.

2. What did you find unexpected about the prototype?

Well, the "reply" link and the line with counts and the latest comment are new.

3. Which steps in the "Try the Prototype" section did you find difficult to complete?

Editing my existing comment. Also, filling out the CAPTCHA; it didn't have a submit button distinct from the Reply.

4. What do you like about the prototype?

The reply feature so we don't have to edit the source and figure out how many colons to use to indent properly.

5. What do you wish was different about the prototype?

I'd kind of like to see an "edit" button on my own posts. I suppose discouraging editing of comments after-the-fact is somewhat healthy, as we're not supposed to do that in a way that changes the meaning. However, I think it would mostly be used to fix typos.

It seems to be missing a way to input special characters, like the degree symbol or Greek letters - the sort of thing common in STEM articles on Wikipedia.

6. Can you imagine this design not working on some pages? If you can, please share links to these pages? It would be very helpful.

Any talk page on enwiki where there's an RFC or merge discussion or something where people are voting. Then we need the ability to add an item in a bulleted list. See the "Discuss" links from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_moves/Current_discussions for examples.

Sometimes discussions also end up with very deep nested replies, which causes the text to become extremely narrow. Someone eventually "outdents" it to reset it to the left margin so the conversation can continue readably. I'm not sure how that would be done here other than by editing the source to put in . -- Beland (talk) 06:47, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Testing on my Android phone, what I would want most is a way to expand all the sections at once, so I can search the whole page for a certain text string. Right now I have to manually go through and expand all the sections one by one before I can search them. This requires a lot of scrolling and care and aim, unless you realize it's easier to go from bottom to top. Use cases include 1. finding the section on the page where I was previously involved in a conversation, 2. checking to see if a certain user had made comments on the page, and 3. checking to see if a certain issue or chunk of text or source had already been discussed.

The "Return to Reply" and link from the header that scrolls you to the most recent comment in a thread - nice features! -- ~~~~

what I would want most is a way to expand all the sections at once, so I can search the whole page for a certain text string

Actually, this is a feature that would make just as much or even more sense in articles as well. Could we have it for both?

hi @Beland! Wow. how generous of you to try out the experience on both mobile and desktop and share what you thought of both here...thank you :)

I'm going to use this post to respond to the feedback you shared about desktop and then follow up with a separate message to respond to the feedback you shared about mobile.

I'd kind of like to see an "edit" button on my own posts.

We hear on the value of adding this functionality. And while we won't have time to implement this during this phase of the Talk pages project, we are keeping track of the work that would be involved in doing this later in T245225.

It seems to be missing a way to input special characters, like the degree symbol or Greek letters - the sort of thing common in STEM articles on Wikipedia.

We will be adding the special characters toolbar in the coming weeks. You can track progress on this implementation in T249072.

...we need the ability to add an item in a bulleted list. See the "Discuss" links from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_moves/Current_discussions for examples

Can you please give the steps below a quick read and let me know if I've misunderstood the functionality you are describing above?

Ideal workflow:

1. Visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_moves/Current_discussions on a mobile or desktop device
2. ✅ Observe there is a button/link that would open a tool like the one that currently appears when you click/tap a [ reply ] link that would enable you to add a new bulleted list item within a section of your choosing (e.g. ===August 6, 2022===)

If the above accurately describes the functionality you are seeking, then I will update the task where we are tracking this idea (T249886) with the example you shared.

Sometimes discussions also end up with very deep nested replies, which causes the text to become extremely narrow. Someone eventually "outdents" it to reset it to the left margin so the conversation can continue readably. I'm not sure how that would be done here other than by editing the source to put in

I see. It sounds like you are seeking a way to be able to manually adjust the depth at which the comment you are drafting will be published from within the Reply Tool....do I have that right?

No, that page is maintained by bot. The ideal workflow would be to go to a talk page discussion like w:Talk:Agni Poolu (film)#Requested move 15 July 2022 and respond to the move proposal by adding a new item in the bulleted list. Which typically includes a phrase like Support or Oppose or Comment and some reasoning. -- ~~~~

BTW, I get "-- ~~~~" in this form instead of my signature if I click the "preview the result" link and then click "Reply". If I just click "Reply" in source mode, it works as intended. If I go to preview and then back to source editing before saving, I see that the system has added unwanted "nowiki" tags.

Now on to responses to the feedback you shared about the new mobile experience...

...what I would want most is a way to expand all the sections at once, so I can search the whole page for a certain text string.

Would it be accurate for me to understand the above as you requesting the ability to expand and collapse all of the sections on a per-page basis?

I ask the above to make sure what you are describing is distinct from the existing setting within Special:Preference that enables you to decide whether all sections on mobile are expanded or collapsed by default.

The "Return to Reply" ...

We just added this! @Esanders (WMF) will be glad to know you found this helpful.

...link from the header that scrolls you to the most recent comment in a thread - nice features

:)

Aha, I've been using mobile Wikipedia for years, and I never knew there was a setting that expanded all sections by default! I'm going to enable that and see how I like it. It does have the tradeoff of making articles more difficult to navigate by section. On the desktop version, there's a table of contents you can look at to see if you want to skip to a specific section, but if you just keep reading everything's always fully visible. I think either showing a TOC on mobile if all sections are expanded, or having a per-page "expand/collapse all sections" toggle on mobile would mitigate the problem that the "always expanded" and "never expanded" settings have. -- Beland (talk) 02:15, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

It does have the tradeoff of making articles more difficult to navigate by section...

I agree with you here. I do not think the setting resolves the issue you shared above.

I think either showing a TOC on mobile if all sections are expanded, or having a per-page "expand/collapse all sections" toggle on mobile would mitigate the problem that the "always expanded" and "never expanded" settings have.

+1. It turns out we have do have an existing ticket for implementing the "per-page 'expand/collapse all sections'" feature you are describing above: T269954.

And while I do not think we will have time to prioritize work on implementing this feature as part of the first phase of the Talk pages project, I've added the need you expressed for it on the ticket so that our future selves will remember the need for this :)

Beland, I'm curious how your experiment has gone. Do you like having everything expanded by default, or did you turn off that preference setting?

I did indeed keep that preference setting. Sometimes I do collapse a bunch of sections in order to get the equivalent of a table of contents, if a search doesn't find what I'm looking for or I just need an overview of an article. So it would still be nice to have a expand all/collapse all toggle, or some way to get a TOC while keeping everything expanded.