PBradley-WMF
Wikimedia Apps newsletter – First quarter of 2024
editHello, and welcome to the app’s first newsletter in 2024!
It has been a long year; we published four editions of our newsletter, which you can go through all of them. In this edition, we will cover our work for the last quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024!
Android
edit- Edit Patrol (also known as Patroller tasks on Android) has been released to Beta testers with rollback rights on Test Wiki and Indonesian Wikipedia. We had a productive meeting with Indonesian users to introduce and discuss the new patrolling tasks feature on the Android app, as we provided a detailed presentation on the feature, and collected valuable feedback from the Indonesian community to enhance the user experience.
For those interested, a meeting recording is available.
We conducted outreach to Spanish, and French Wikipedia communities during February 2024. - We hosted two synchronous community consultations & recorded a third where we shared the Edit Patrol suggested edit workflow, and showed designs for Saved messages and templates:
- Places feature is back to the Wikipedia Android app!
Places is a feature that allows you to discover articles by location.
The iOS app was able to maintain the feature via use of Apple Maps, but it was necessary for Android audiences that we continue using an open source map.
iOS
edit- Suggested Edits on iOS prototype is in the experimental build. Instructions to test the feature can be found on this FAQ page.
Alt text is text associated with an image that serves the same purpose and conveys the same essential information as the image.
The app's product manager presented our team's work and prototype (iOS suggested edits) to the GLAM conference audience. All details can be found in the presentation's deck. - It is now possible to donate using Apple Pay directly from the app.
- IOS Native Editor Improvement Development is out!
You will be able to edit, find and replace, and insert links and images directly from Commons without any performance issues!
Additionally, it is now possible to edit a full article page and a talk page.
In the current quarter, we aim to engage with editors from LATAM, Spanish-speaking regions, North America, and the Caribbean to test Suggested edits and the new native editor features.
Community meetings
edit- We participated in the GLAM conference in November 2023. All the details are mentioned in the iOS section of this edition from the newsletter.
- On December 1st of 2023, The Wikipedia Android team met with Indonesian users to introduce and discuss the new patrolling tasks feature on the Android app. The team provided a detailed presentation on the feature and collected valuable feedback. A meeting recording is available.
- We joined the Wiki Editoras Lx editathon on December 16th to gather feedback about an alt-text Suggested Edit task on iOS.
Attendees were generally positive about the prospect of the feature. Experienced editors thought it could be a good task for on-boarding new editors, but also a more casual way of contributing for new editors.
And you can subscribe to this newsletter.
Wikimedia Apps newsletter – Second quarter of 2024
edit
Hello, and welcome to the app's second newsletter in 2024!
In this edition, we will review our achievements and progress from the first half of 2024!
- Android
- Edit Patrol is now available on production for all Wikis!
- Donation through G-Pay is now available within the app.
- iOS
- "Add an image" suggested edit is available for all Wikis! It is available to all users with more than 50 edits.
- We now support full-page editing on Talk pages.
And you can subscribe to this newsletter.
Wikimedia Apps newsletter – Third quarter of 2024
editHello, and welcome to the app's third newsletter of 2024! In this edition, we will highlight the accomplishments and progress made during July, August, and September 2024!
iOS Updates
Over 20,000 images have been added via the "Add an Image" feature across both iOS and Android! (T372954), good opportunity to try it yourself ;) This tool allows users to enhance Wikipedia articles by adding relevant images. It’s a great way to contribute and improve the visual experience for readers.
The iOS team kicked off the Alt Text experiment to improve image descriptions for accessibility. This feature helps ensure that visually impaired users can better understand the content of images through descriptive text.
The iOS App has been transitioning from a primarily reader-focused app, to an app that fully supports both reading and editing. After adding a number of editing features, the navigation system of the app needs to grow and change to support them and future additions. Improving our navigation will allow for more app users to discover editing features, and allow experienced users quicker access to their most-used tools. This refresh incorporates findings from usability testing with multiple variants of the App's navigation. The team is currently planning phased rollouts over the coming year to improve user experience. (Phase 1: T373714)
Android Updates
Improvements were made to the Places feature in response to user feedback, including larger cluster icons and a Wikipedia logo for articles without images (T371067, T370094). Also, the team is exploring designs to allow users to explore articles from multiple language wikis simultaneously and will adjust the zoom logic to show nearby locations upon launch (T352757, T368792).
- WikiTrivia Game
The team prepared for the WikiTrivia Game during a hackathon, selecting a data source and creating initial designs (T371508, T371510).
Work began on adding Recommended Content to search, iterating on design concepts and testing performance (T371613).
The team is now engaging with several wikis to implement Machine-Assisted Article Descriptions based on prior experimental results.
- Sharing reading lists
Android users can now share reading lists with others, expanding community collaboration (T370703).
And some performance enhancements: Revision tags for app edits were successfully implemented (T366731, T366732).
The app now supports URL sharing on Pixel devices, thanks to volunteer developer contributions (T370020).
Stay tuned for future updates as we continue to enhance your Wikipedia experience! And you can subscribe to this newsletter.
--17:17, 7 October 2024 (UTC)