Wikipedia:User Advocacy/VisualEditor

A number of research questions that may be explored around the deployment of the VisualEditor exist:

• Communication failure: did it occur?
• Measuring usage

Advocacy needs to be conducted in the following areas:

• User documentation (help, tutorials, user manuals) needs to be updated, a thread is open here

Communication failure: did it occur?

Proposal: A survey to a random selection of users, with invitations posted to their talk page.

Questions:

1. When did you first become aware that the Visual Editor was to be deployed?
   1. Before June 2013
   2. During June 2013
   3. When I went to edit a page, I noticed that the editor had changed
   4. I am not aware that the Visual Editor was deployed
2. Did you see the WatchList notice about the Visual Editor deployment?
   1. Before June 2013
   2. During June 2013
   3. In July 2013
   4. I didn't see a WathList notice
   5. I don't know
3. Did you see notices to any notice boards that ?
   1. Before June 2013
   2. In June 2013
   3. In July 2013
   4. I didn't see a notices in a noticeboard
   5. I don't know
4. If you saw a WatchList notification or a notice in a noticeboard, did you click through to the Visual Editor information page?
   1. Yes
   2. No
   3. I don't know
   4. I didn't see a WatchList notification or a notice in a noticeboard
5. How well informed were you about the Visual Editor deployment ahead of the deployment
   1. I was not informed at all
   2. I had some idea, but I wasn't as informed as I should have been
   3. I was pretty well informed, some things surprised me, but not much
   4. I knew exactly what to expect
6. How well informed do you feel about the Visual Editor now
   1. I don't feel informed at all
   2. I'm confused about some things and I don't really feel in control
   3. I think I know most things, I'm pretty confident I do anyway
   4. I know exactly what's going on.

Measuring usage

Proposal: Usage will be measured over time and between user groups using regular automated scripts.

Usage should be measured across the following user groups:

• • New users (definition required)
  • Regular users (definition required)
  • Infrequent users (definition required)
  • IPs

Considerations in calculating metrics:

• Deployment is only to the Article and User namespaces
• Deployment is currently only to logged in users
• Bots and semi-automated editing tools should be excluded or measured separately

Statistical analysis could determine:

• Update within different user groups
• Correlations between user groups and usage
• Increases or decreases in usage over time

Source code for scripts (or a link to) and a clear methodology should be posted here. On-going output of scripts should be posted here or to subpage.