Readers/Status updates/2017-05

This is the monthly update for 2017-05

Web edit

  • New print styles for the mobile web

Based on the findings of the New Readers team, we learned that users are increasingly getting information online, and then sharing or consuming it offline. In terms of mobile devices, this often means taking screenshots of useful information, or saving the article as a PDF to read later on their phones. Our older print styles did not account for reading on mobile devices - they focused on paper printing. We will update our print styles for mobile devices to account for offline consumption, making them easier to read and navigate, as well as accounting for missing crucial information such as article title and branding.

  • Moving the lead section before the infobox on the mobile web

Over the past few quarters, we've been focusing on the top of the article experience on the mobile website. One of the identified issues was that, for articles which contained an infobox, users were exposed to the infobox content prior to having an overview of the subject of the article itself. To improve on this issue, we've moved the lead section of each article so that it appears before the infobox on mobile, allowing readers to have access to the main content of the page earlier. This change is now live on all projects.

  • Completing related pages deployment

Since March 30, 2017, we have been running a test on enwiki on the related pages feature. Over the past month, we collected data and analyzed the performance of the feature. Based on the results, we completed the deployment of the feature on mobile English Wikipedia.


New Readers edit

  • The New Readers team is deep in beginning pilots to address the barriers that were identified as highest priority through deep research in 2016. You can see deeper, cross-team updates at m:New Readers/Updates.
  • For Reading, we're supporting the Android and Web teams in developing deeper support for readers who have internet sometimes, but want access to some content when they're offline or don't want to spend the data to read. To see a summary of that work, check out m:New Readers/Offline.

Multimedia edit

  • In addition to bugfixes and maintenance, the team has been evaluating the pre-release version of 3D model file support and collecting feedback via the Commons Village Pump. During the forthcoming month the team will be prioritizing and working on 3D tasks in anticipation of a future launch.

Other Noteworthy Stuff edit

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