Submissions/Participating in Product Development

This is an open submission for Wikimania 2010.

Title of the submission: Participating in Product Development

Type of submission (workshop, tutorial, panel, presentation): Presentation

Author of the submission: Parul Vora, Trevor Parscal and Howie Fung

E-mail address or username (if username, please confirm email address in Special:Preferences): pvorawikimedia.org, tparscalwikimedia.org, hfungwikimedia.org

Country of origin: USA

Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.): Wikimedia Foundation

Personal homepage or blog

30-word contribution & benefits statement

The work of the Wikipedia Usability Initiative has brought new features to MediaWiki and new processes to the Wikimedia Foundation, presenting new and unique ways for the community to participate.

Proposed time frame (1h or 2h or 4h)

???

Abstract (please use no less than 300 words to describe your proposal)

In 2009 the Wikimedia Foundation, which currently oversees the management and maintenance of the MediaWiki software, was given funding to employ dedicated research, design, and development staff to implement changes to MediaWiki to increase the usability of Wikipedia’s editing tools and to verify the efficacy of these changes using qualitative research methods. The research, design, and development process we employed to carry out this one year program was agile and iterative - over fifteen months we conducted three user studies - one initial exploration study at the onset of the project, one progress study, and one evaluative study at the completion of the major features.

Our process proved effective for our goals and the goals of the grant. This process however generally takes place outside of view of the community, while also presenting new ways for community members to get involved. As the Foundation matures, it will become increasingly important for this type of work to be done on a larger scale, with limited resources, and across cultures and languages, and community contribution is becoming increasingly critical.

We'd like to jointly present a cross section view of the product management, user experience design and software development processes, focusing on how the community can help the Wikimedia Foundation staff to improve MediaWiki and the user experience of Wikimedia Foundation sites.

Track (People and Community/Knowledge and Collaboration/Infrastructure): Collaboration/Infrastructure

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted? Yes

Slides or further information (optional): Coming soon...

Interested attendees

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