Talk:VisualEditor on mobile/Toolbar refresh

Last Thursday, 5-September, version 1 of the refreshed mobile visual editing toolbar became available to all contributors using the mobile visual editor and we are curious to learn what your experience has been like using it.

Below are some questions we would value knowing your answers to.

📲 Instructions

To access the mobile visual editor, please follow these steps

1. Visit any Wikipedia article on your mobile device in the "Mobile view." Here is an example article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broom
2. Tap "Edit" (or the equivalent in your language) to open the editing interface
3. Tap the "✏️" icon to switch to visual editing mode (if you do not already see it)
4. You should now be using the mobile visual editor!

📢 Feedback

We are eager to hear what it was like for you to edit using version 1 of the refreshed mobile visual editing toolbar. Here are some questions we are curious to hear your thoughts about:

1. At any point while you were editing, was it not clear where to find the editing tool (e.g. insert a link or citation, format text, etc.) you needed to complete your edit? What tool were you looking for? What kind of change were you trying to make in this moment?
2. As you were using the toolbar, did anything behave in a way that you did not expect?
3. What are some of your overall impressions of the refreshed version of the mobile visual editing toolbar? Did you find it easy to use? Confusing? Helpful? Not noticeable at all?
4. How frequently do you edit using the visual editor on desktop and/or mobile?

Hi,

Just wanted to share some feedback.

• At any point while you were editing, was it not clear where to find the editing tool (e.g. insert a link or citation, format text, etc.) you needed to complete your edit?

Nope.

• What tool were you looking for?

The tool to add a link.

• What kind of change were you trying to make in this moment?

Add some new information to an article.

• As you were using the toolbar, did anything behave in a way that you did not expect?

The toolbar worked fine but the editing experience wasn't so good. The page kept on scrolling back to the text near the cursor making it hard to read other text not visible in the screen while editing.

Also, there seems to be an element of lag when using the toolbar and when trying to save the edit. It would be great it the experience was even more faster.

• What are some of your overall impressions of the refreshed version of the mobile visual editing toolbar?

Overall impression is that the toolbar is very useful as it helps to achieve some things like adding links with ease.

• Did you find it easy to use?

Yeah.

• Not noticeable at all?

I would not say that. It was noticeable.

• How frequently do you edit using the visual editor on desktop and/or mobile?

Not so often, just occasionally. I edit at times when I see quick things that I can fix when reading in my mobile.

We have a new design ready of version 1 of the refreshed mobile visual editor editing toolbar.

There are three questions the team could use your help trying to answer:

1. In Screen 2, what do you think will happen when you tap the "<" button?
2. In Screen 4, what do you think will happen when you tap the "↶" button?
3. What are your impressions of the design? Do you see anything that's confusing or could go wrong if we were to deploy this version of the toolbar?

My idea is to change the toolbar based on what the user clicks on.

If an user clicks on an template, then the template editor becomes the main option.

clicks on the title, then that shows the displaytitle option

clicks on headings, then that shows the html headings h1-h4

and so forth.

@JKlein (WMF), here's another idea for your list.

hi, @Snaevar – we appreciate you taking the time to write.

Changing the toolbar based on what a contributor clicks on (i.e. a template, text, etc.).

...this is an interesting idea! Do you remember what inspired this thought? Were you editing using the mobile site and found certain tasks to be difficult? Is this a feature you have seen elsewhere and found it to be helpful?

By asking these questions I am trying to get a better sense for what your experience editing has been like so we can, if possible, make it better.

And to make sure we're on the same page: have you been thinking about this change for the mobile wikitext editing toolbar or the mobile visual editing toolbar?

By the way, I'm Peter – I'm the product manager for the Editing Team 👋