A Wikimedia Foudation tem a decorrer uma
iniciativa, que por alto visa melhorar em termos de
usabilidade os seus projectos online.
De acordo com alguns resultados já obtidos, não deverá ser uma tarefa muito fácil.
A seguir, alguns comentários de utilizadores.
"I use Wikipedia all the time. Usually it’s the most information in the easiest spot to access. It always looks very well put together it boggles my mind how many people can contribute and it (still) looks like an encyclopedia." -- Galen, 24, Costume Designer
"I like Wikipedia because it's plain text and nothing flashes" -- Claudia, 64, Database Administrator
"I usually use a Wikipedia shortcut on my computer" -- Suzanne, 50, Paralegal
"It's usually [one of] the first hit[s] on Google" -- Grace, 24, Medical Student
"I don't usually go to the Wikipedia front page." -- Dan, 41, Programmer
"So now I learned how to edit. It was okay, just like editing, I do it every day…. Things like my personal profile on an internet dating site." -- Gene, 64, Retired Public Transit Worker
"Pretty cool, easier than I thought, I just have to get used to it." -- Lisa
"What I did was a hack, I'm not actually using the site" -- Claudia, 64, Database Administrator
"Rather than making a mess, I'd rather take some time to figure out how to do it right" -- Dan, 41, Programmer
"[I felt] kind of stupid." -- 24, Galen, Costumer
"There sure is a lot of stuff to read" -- Dan, 41, Programmer
"This is where I'd give up" -- Claudia, 64, Database Administrator
"I'm sure there is help out there, but I am too lazy to read that." -- Tito, 21, Student and Video Producer
"What's to stop you from just putting in anything?" -- Suzanne, 50, Paralegal
"But it's on the internet and people will read it and believe it's true." -- Grace, 24, Medical Student
"I'm more of a visual person." -- Galen, 24, Costumer
"I couldn’t really understand the format, I didn’t know what it was saying. I would just go to the stuff that’s readable. It looks kinda like a website, lingo stuff." -- Tito, 21, Student and Video Producer
"In many websites, you kind of see the screen just the way you see it in the article, Here it looks like they converted it into plain text. I think what I’ll have to do is open another Wikipedia, so I can compare the views. In blogs, it’s easier to add stuff- you don’t go into the programming mode. This html version- its much easier to edit a blog." -- Saurab, 28, Retail Software Developer
"They should have instructions for what you want to do, but it's really not there." -- Suzanne, 50, Paralegal
"Can't something auto correct my links [to internal pages]?" -- Grace, 21, Medical Student
"Let someone else do it (waves hands)" -- Claudia"
"I don't know by looking at it [here], but by looking at other examples." -- Grace, 24, Costumer
"I like to learn by example because you don't have to digest a whole lot of irrelevant stuff." -- Dan, 41, Programmer
"I want to see instructions for the "edit this page." -- Suzanne, 50 Paralegal
"I would correct people's grammar errors, subject verb agreement" -- Gene, 64, Retired Public Transit worker
"Should[n't] I cite the text that I inserted from Creative Commons." -- Nikki, 16, High School Student
"I'm aware that copying directly from another source is discouraged and that references are needed... I don't want to put in incorrect information, that's one of the main reasons I don't go changing stuff." -- Saurab, 28, Retail Software Developer
"How will people know it's genuine information"-- Dan, 41, Programmer, who spent the majority of our session going to great lengths to verify the validity of his edit.
"I have no idea how to do that, maybe there is a how to?......Help should be on the top right. It's always there." -- Claudia, 64, Database Administrator
"There should be instructions here. It's not immediately clear." -- Suzanne, 50, Paralegal
A margem para progressos é enorme. A curva de aprendizagem ainda é algo elevada, especialmente quando se quer fazer algo um pouco mais complexo. Predefinições? Colocar referências? Quem não se assusta ao ver a amálgama textual, codificada, deste artigo [a escolha do artigo foi aleatória, dentro dos artigos cujo conteúdo é destacado].
Não admira que haja quem se sinta estúpido ao tentar fazer algo nas wikis.
O projecto, penso eu, foca-se sobretudo nas melhorias de interface. Mas essa não é a história toda. Sugerir mudanças no interface, todos as podemos fazer, mas em última análise a implementação depende de aprovação dos developers. Outro dos problemas está na mãos da comunidades. As regras. Diminuir a curva de aprendizagem, tornar o uso das wiki mais aprazíveis, é feito também através de:
> Diminuir a redundância. [10 maneiras de fazer a mesma coisa! Livra!...]
>Simplificar [ou mesmo diminuir] as regras. [o aumento da quatidade das regras pode mesmo levar a um aumento de entropia]
>Diminuir "distâncias" de acesso. [colocar informação sobre como se faz algo a mais de 2/3 cliques a partir da página principal não é boa política]
>E por aí fora...
Coisas que podem ser melhoradas sem ter que recorrer a developers e afins.
Diz-se que uma imagem vale mais que mil palavras. Abaixo links para alguns vídeos.
Vídeo 1
Vídeo 2
Wikipedia makes me feel stupid