Encourage Innovation - specific goals

Encourage Innovation - specific goals

Someone seems to be very into google and aardvark (two mentions). I am a little confused by the substance - I was quite happy with the way in which 'hotmail circa '96 worked' and don't see how it or 'word 2010' applies. What are the specifics of this - I'd say myself WSYWIG is part of it - better workflow tools, applications for latest mobile devices ( including editing ability! ). We need some definitives, not some general 'looks more like'. May I suggest something like 'Interface is easy and intuitive to use, with a number of innovative power tools to hand - Both for Reading and editing'.. Measures could be 'number of questions on how to use the interface reduced', 'Number of outstanding feature requests'.

Leevanjackson17:32, 6 May 2010

I moved the list as it was when I came here to this discussion instead, because I agree it really needs specification of what's good with those examples, because it would be too radical to change the Wikipedia interface entirely to that of any of these:

  • Measures [How will we know we have achieved the above goal?]:
    • Measure: In 2015 Wikipedia is more usable because it acts more like Microsoft Word 2010 or Google Docs or Google Wave than it does Hotmail circa 1996.
    • Measure: In 2015 Wikimedia looks more like a mix of Aardvark (the company Google bought) and an MMORPG in that it automatically suggests activities that new members would be interested in such as contributing to certain pages or parts of certain projects. This would give Wikimedia better flow and hopefully help one-time contributors become active contributors.

Personally, I don't even remember Hotmail circa 1996, and I doubt that the part of the population that is less nerdy than me could familiarize with these examples very well.

And the sentence "What about using something like this for discussing what features should be built?", I think it belongs to this discussion, so I moved it here as well. I appreciate if it could be specified exactly what parts of that discussion are applicable and useful for Wikipedia as well.

Mikael Häggström07:07, 8 May 2010
 

I'm concerned about the innovation goals as well.

For me, I'd like to see Wikimedia adopt a culture of innovation. Specifically, that means encouraging experimentation and evaluation rather than discussing things to death and suffering from analysis paralysis.

There are a few possible ways of measuring this:

  • An open infrastructure for testing features and measuring their impact, sort of like an open Google Labs, where the community could see the impact of these measurements. A great example of this is what the Foundation does with its fundraising banner stats. Another good example is the opt-in beta process from the usability initiative.
  • Projects started and spun-out/ended. A healthy ecosystem should have both.
  • Experiments in general. One of my favorites is w:User:WereSpielChequers/Newbie treatment. Anyone can do experiments like these, and they result in data, not just opinions.

Thoughts?

Eekim18:32, 12 May 2010

I agree that something like an experimental arena would be nice. At the bottom of http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page there are backstage wikis like Wikimedia Laboratories and the Incubator. I haven't looked much into them, but they have the potential to play bigger roles.

Mikael Häggström17:01, 15 June 2010

Thoughtful edits, Eekim. However, I still consider an interface for WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editing as a top priority, in order to reach out to the vast majority of the world population that is not familiar with editing in wiki code. Or is there perhaps a more appropriate place to highlight tech details?

Mikael Häggström07:37, 17 June 2010

WYSIWYG is definitely a top priority, but it is a tactical priority that will help us with the goal of improving participation. As such, I don't think it belongs under the movement's strategic priorities.

I also should note that the Wikimedia Foundation tech team has identified WYSIWYG as a near term priority. I hope they'll publish their plans on this wiki very soon.

Eekim22:28, 17 June 2010

I hope so too.

I also agree with your comment below, but something tells me you might have intended to put it in another discussion.

Mikael Häggström06:39, 30 June 2010

I notice we are lacking Innovation (sic - The main page Innovation link is red) this is not true for any of the other specific goals, am I missing something here? MikeBeckett 10:02, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

MikeBeckett10:02, 20 May 2011
 
 
 

Totally agree with this. In order to encourage experimentation, we'll need to have better spaces for that.

For all of the heat that some of the smaller projects have taken, they have been some of the most innovative and experimental. We've borrowed a number of innovations that emerged from English Wikinews here on strategy wiki, for example. I think that this wiki has been innovative as well. From this standpoint, smaller wikis have a huge role to play. It's a bit easier to be innovative, because consensus is easier to reach. There's also a responsibility, however, to document and evangelize successful experiments.

Eekim22:27, 17 June 2010