Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Future projects

Rough ideas that the Wikipedia Usability Project could tackle next.

Log in/create account form

Special:Userlogin needs a lot of work. It tries to do three tasks using 1 form, and fails doing any of them well. Too complicated, too much text.

I disagree, and I think that the current form does the job well. Dialup users particularly will find the fact that all three functions are accessible from the one page very useful. Perhaps a clarification of all the different buttons is in order, though.. splintax ^(talk) 10:40, 10 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ideas

Split into different forms for log in and create account.

History pages

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

Problems

"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

Use a table format.

Recent changes and watchlists

Both have similar issues to history pages, but are even more crowded in places.

Design similar to MoinMoin's RecentChanges?

Upload form

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

Preferences

Special:Preferences
Already had a bit of a redesign, but preferences need better sorting.

Edit forms

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

Contact us

Contact us is high-visibility and truly awful.
Proposed radical rethink design.
See discussion.

Introduction/Tutorial

While the Wikipedia:Introduction does its job, the overall guidance pages for new users is scattered and doesn't flow well.
Continuing in the style of the Introduction is the redesign of the Tutorial.

Specialpages

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), rethink of the content of the toolbox (necessary software change: make it configurable like MediaWiki:Sidebar)