阅读/网页/桌面版改进/功能/搜索/切换语言
作为桌面改进项目的一部分,我们正在引入一种新的方式来切换到不同语言的维基。我们的目标是让所有用户更容易找到语言切换功能。我们的次要目标是通过让所有读者了解每个项目的大量语言,来提高对维基媒体项目的整体理解。
功能描述及要求
- 语言选项将通过页面顶部与文章标题一致、带有明确标记的按钮提供。
- 选择语言按钮将打开语言列表,其中包含为每个用户建议的语言,以及该文章所有可用语言的完整列表。该列表还将包含语言显示设置和语言输入设置的入口。
- 原有的语言列表将不再出现在侧边栏上。
- 按钮的新位置需要对页面的头部进行修改,特别是对页面指示器的位置进行一些修改。
- 我们将有一个非JavaScript的后备选项,它将为没有JS权限的用户显示所有语言的完整列表。
设计要求及准则
用户测试
usertesting.com上的初步测试
我们进行了用户测试,比较了当前语言间链接的位置(在侧边栏)和文章标题中的拟议位置。这些测试的目的是确定人们是否能比以前的位置更快地找到和使用语言切换功能。测试的结果证实了我们的假设:测试组(新位置)的参与者能够比对照组(旧位置)的参与者更快地找到语言切换器。基于这些结果,我们计划继续探索将语言选择器移动到这个位置,作为桌面改进项目的一部分。更多细节请参见我们的完整报告。
Icon testing
As far as we know there is no "standard", globally recognized language icon. The icon that we use currently in Vector, Minerva, and Timeless features a Latin "A" character and a Chinese "文" character (which means "language"). On Phabricator, there is a discussion, including some history, about the icon.
After further discussion we determined that the only other strong candidate for a language icon is a globe 🌐 . We ran a simple test on usertesting.com to try and understand if the globe icon is more or less obvious as a language icon than the one we currently use (we can call it the character icon). Out of 40, multilingual participants: 35 guessed the character icon was for switching languages, and 13 guessed the globe icon was for switching languages (people were able to guess that both icons were for languages, thus the total number of guesses is more than the number of people in the test). These results are not statistically significant, however they help inform two assumptions:
- the globe icon is probably not more obvious as a language icon than the character icon
- we should use the label "languages" whenever possible in addition to the icon (since ~13% of people did not guess the character icon was related to switching languages).
Conclusion: until further testing is done we will continue using the character icon.
面向编者的测试
在2019年12月,我们发布了桌面改进项目前几个功能的原型供社群反馈。原型呈现了一个可折叠版本的侧边栏、内容的最大宽度限制、语言切换工具更突出的位置。我们收到了超过200名登录用户详细、周到的反馈,涉及5种语言。
总的来说,大多数用户更喜欢语言选择器的新位置——他们报告说比以前的位置更容易找到。使用语言选择器的用户经常报告说,他们可以更快地切换语言。一些用户还报告说,新的位置更直观,因为它沿用了其他多语种网站的模式。
虽然许多人注意到语言切换器的新位置更容易被找到,但他们也对切换语言时需要额外的点击表示担忧,特别是在人们期望频繁切换的情况下。我们目前正在考虑为最常用的语言增加单键功能。下面的草图代表了我们目前的一些想法。
面向读者的测试
在2020年1月至5月,我们与印度的用户研究公司Hureo合作,对新读者和普通读者如何使用维基百科的桌面界面进行了用户研究。研究分为两个阶段,第一阶段主要关注英语读者,第二阶段关注双语和非英语读者。研究的目的是了解新读者和普通读者的使用体验,并找出新读者和随意的读者对当前网站的主要问题。
无论是使用地区语言阅读的参与者群体,还是使用英语阅读的参与者群体,总体上都不知道我们在页面内提供语言切换功能。大部分被调查的读者会通过搜索引擎搜索文章来获取多种语言的文章。
在与新位置的语言切换功能原型进行交互时,新读者和随意的读者都更喜欢新位置。
更多细节见报告全文。
定量测试
First A/B test
An was performed to compare the rates of languages switching for logged-in users with the new button on top of the page (the test group) with the previous location (the control group).
The analysis of the results showed that there was an average 44.57% decrease in total clicks on language links by logged-in users on the early adopter wikis in treatment group compared with control group.
The decrease is contradicted with our hypothesis.
After further evaluation, we hypothesize that the main reason for the decrease to be a lag in feature adoption, mainly among users that are accustomed to the previous location of the language switching functionality and users that tend to switch languages across multiple wikis.
In the latter case, this created a situation where the language switching functionality was available in different locations depending on the wiki used and whether that wikis was a part of the early adopter group for the Desktop Improvements project.
Based on the results of the A/B test, the team has began iterating on the feature to improve discoverability for the user groups identified above.
Iterations after the first A/B test
See Quantitative Testing section below for more details.
In July 2021, we moved the language button to a more convenient location at the top of the page. However, the results of our A/B test indicated that the new location of the button might be difficult to discover, especially in the following use cases:
- For users that are accustomed to the previous location of the language switching functionality
- For users that tend to switch languages across multiple wikis. In the latter case, this created a situation where the language switching functionality was available in different locations depending on the wiki used and whether that wikis was a an early adopter of the Desktop Improvements.
To improve on these issues, we will iterate on the implementation of the new language button with the goal of making the button easier to find across all scenarios.
List of proposed improvements:
- Providing direction to the new location of the language button from the previous location by placing an alert in the sidebar informing users where the new location of language links is
- Making the language switching functionality more noticeable by changing on the visual styling and appearance of the button
- Providing direction to the new location of the language button from the current location using guided tours that will present users with a notice on where the new location of the language links is
- Improving main pages to make it possible to present the language switching functionality in a more prominent location
These success of changes will be measured via quantitative testing across various pilot wikis.
限制
- Main pages don't have page headings. As a result, by default, the language selector is placed at the bottom of the page. Communities can request to place the button at the top of the page by making a Wikimedia site request. This change requires communities to display the header and make changes to their main page. See our FAQ for more information.
- Currently, the setting for the compact language list will not be functional on the new version of the vector skin, as the language functionality introduced via the button makes this setting irrelevant. We will be removing this option for the new version of the vector skin in phab:T282149.
- Coordinates: On pages where coordinates are displayed at the top of the page, the language button would look best if the coordinates are displayed as page status indicators. Please see the main page for page status indicators for instructions.
Related work
The Language Team is working on the Universal Language Selector. Once they have finished we will be replacing the current ULS with their updated one. The updated ULS will, among other improvements, feature support for language variants.
发布计划
我们在维基媒体基金会2020/2021财年第三至四季度(2020年1月至4月)进行了这些更改。我们希望在2021年5月部署我们的第一个迭代版本。我们将在早期采用者维基中默认部署这些更改。这些变化也将提供给所有选择了新体验的登录用户。
See also
- 2010 research on collapsible languages links
- Wikidata:Project chat#Wikidata phase 1 regression (about problems with approach)