Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Future projects

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Rough ideas that the Wikipedia Usability Project could tackle next.

Village Pump[edit]

The Village Pump is an ugly, incomprehensible mess of tables and too much information.

  • Proposals
    • Split it out to contain more info on if this forum is the place for you...
    • Add helpful Images to assist in navigation.
    • Put the "I want to..." section beneath the actual forum navigation.

History pages[edit]

History pages don't exactly have the clearest interface in the world.

Problems[edit]

  • "cur" and "last" are not self-evident, and users have complained about them.
  • Not obvious date links to the revision.
  • Design falls apart when edit summaries wrap.
  • Compare selected versions could probably have a better design.
  • Paging is very poor.

Ideas[edit]

  • Use a table format.

Recent changes and watchlists[edit]

Upload form[edit]

  • Special:Upload
  • Eep! Information overload (but has recently got better).
  • A wizard-like UI for users to establish the correct license?

Preferences[edit]

Edit forms[edit]

  • MediaWiki:Edittools
  • Too many buttons, options and text below edit box.
  • Just scattered together, not designed.
  • Too easy to choose the wrong button.

Specialpages[edit]

  • Special:Specialpages, a page linked everywhere has now become almost completely unusable. Usability guidelines recommend to order long lists in topics. Specialpages themselves sometimes explain what they do, but not all (see Special:MIMEsearch f.e.).
  • Proposal: New design of Special:Specialpages, add explanations to all specialpages (software change necessary), add a link to related manual page if necessary, rethink content of the toolbox (necessary software change: make it configurable like MediaWiki:Sidebar)

Help pages[edit]

Portal redesign[edit]