Talk:Account Creation Improvement Project/Testing content/Landing page/mod2

Rationale for design decisions

1. Avoiding "wall of text" - a couple of designs are too close to "wall of text" for many newcomers. Even though they are simple short bullet lists with icons, I'm concerned they'll skip it. A better layout and a few brief bullets may do better and also be more informative.
2. Users come back to page as they explore Wikipedia/Wikimedia - The audience is people who want to get involved, so an overview they can come back to might be helpful. I have assumed this page is linked from the toolkit so they can always find it.
3. Keeping "policies" off main landing page in favor of "learn what's kept and what isn't", which is more pertinent - It might work better to have a link for "editing", and save the mention of policies there. At the start a user needs to know the basics, that some stuff will be ok and some won't, and "click here to find out which". Then they are reading it by choice and it'll probably be more "sticky" as a result.

4. Blur the division of reading vs. minor editing - The section for "readers" also includes "Reading, or want to make improvements and corrections?" The unstated thought is that a reader will also be someone who might want to make a small correction. Gut feel says that a major route is readers who are then tempted to make their first correction, or who need to know they can think of it. I'd like to see the effect of including "making a small improvement or correction" as part of info for end-users, not just keeping it separate.

   This isn't technically accurate but may be effective this way, as "editing" could be felt as overwhelming (initially) where "make a small correction" may be perceived as empowering. Many people may think "someone should fix that" and despite all our pages, not fully realize the "someone" is allowed to be them.

5. Engaging - the landing page should contain something interesting and engaging, and "reward" the account creator (they shouldn't be left feeling "now what?"). A hint of some of the stats surprises, and some eye openers on the project, both help and add useful context.
6. Links need adding, but one link per section only - I have not put links in yet. I would not make individual words, lines, or sentences a link. Link proliferation is a distraction, we found that out in the record 2010 fundraiser. Make each section (except the last) to be one link clickable anywhere. Unfortunately (bug 18640) the <a href...> html tag can't be used yet in markup, otherwise I'd make the entirety of each cell a single link to some (short) relevant subpage. I'd actually like it done via a popup, that appears when you click a cell for information. That's more classy and suited to the richer interface of other modern websites, but outside my skills. Anyone else know where I can find a basic "click this and get a dismissible popup" DIV class?

FT2 (talk) 13:46, 21 February 2011 (UTC)