Growth/Personalized first day/tr: Difference between revisions
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{{Wikimedia engineering project information |
{{Wikimedia engineering project information |
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| name = Personalized first day |
| name = <span lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr">Personalized first day</span> |
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| logo =Growth_team_logo_-_en.svg |
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| description = Provide experiences to new editors that help them achieve their goals |
| description = <span lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr">Provide experiences to new editors that help them achieve their goals</span> |
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| start = 2018-10-01 |
| start = 2018-10-01 |
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| end = |
| end = |
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| group = [[Growth]] |
| group = [[Special:MyLanguage/Growth|Growth]] |
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| team = [[User:Tgr_(WMF)|Gergő Tisza]] (software engineer), [[User:Trizek_(WMF)|Benoît Evellin]] ( |
| team = [[User:Tgr_(WMF)|Gergő Tisza]] (software engineer), [[User:Trizek_(WMF)|Benoît Evellin]] (movement communications specialist), [User:Etonkovidova (WMF)|Elena Tonkovidova]] (QA engineer), [[User:KHarlan (WMF)|Kosta Harlan]] (software engineer), [[User:MWang (WMF)|Morten Warncke-Wang]] (data analyst), [[User:RHo (WMF)|Rita Ho]] (senior user experience designer) |
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| lead = [[User:Roan Kattouw (WMF)|Roan Kattouw]] |
| lead = [[User:Roan Kattouw (WMF)|Roan Kattouw]] |
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| EPM = [[User:MFlorence_(WMF)|Marcella Florence]] (engineering), [[User:MMiller (WMF)|Marshall Miller]] (product), [[User:JTanner (WMF)|Jazmin Tanner]] (program) |
| EPM = [[User:MFlorence_(WMF)|Marcella Florence]] (engineering), [[User:MMiller (WMF)|Marshall Miller]] (product), [[User:JTanner (WMF)|Jazmin Tanner]] (program) |
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| Phabricator = |
| Phabricator = |
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| updates = Most updates [[Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Growth team updates|posted here]]. |
| updates = <span lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr">Most updates [[Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Growth team updates|posted here]].</span> |
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| backlog = |
| backlog = |
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}} |
}} |
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Bu sayfada, [[Special: |
Bu sayfada, [[Special:MyLanguage/Growth|Büyüme ekibi]]nin "Kişiselleştirilmiş ilk gün" girişimleri üzerindeki çalışmaları açıklanmakta ve stratejik düşünceyi ve girişim ile ilgili belirli projelere bağlantılar içermektedir. İlerlemeyle ilgili en artımlı güncellemeler, genel olarak [[Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Growth team updates|'''Büyüme ekibi güncellemeleri sayfası''']] yayınlanacak ve burada bazı büyük veya ayrıntılı güncellemeler yayınlanacaktır. Bunlar, "Kişiselleştirilmiş ilk gün" girişimi altındaki üç projeye bağlantılar: |
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* '''{{ll|Growth/Personalized first day/Welcome survey|Karşılama anketi}}''' |
* '''{{ll|Growth/Personalized first day/Welcome survey|2=Karşılama anketi}}''' |
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* '''{{ll|Growth/Personalized first day/Engagement emails|Etkileşim e-postaları}}''' |
* '''{{ll|Growth/Personalized first day/Engagement emails|2=Etkileşim e-postaları}}''' |
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* '''{{ll|Growth/Personalized first day/Newcomer homepage|Yeni gelen anasayfa}}''' |
* '''{{ll|Growth/Personalized first day/Newcomer homepage|2=Yeni gelen anasayfa}}''' |
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* '''{{ll|Growth/Personalized first day/Newcomer tasks|Yeni gelen görevler}}''' |
* '''{{ll|Growth/Personalized first day/Newcomer tasks|2=Yeni gelen görevler}}''' |
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* '''{{ll|Growth/Personalized first day/Structured tasks|Yapısal görevler}}''' |
* '''{{ll|Growth/Personalized first day/Structured tasks|2=Yapısal görevler}}''' |
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<span id="Summary"></span> |
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== Özet == |
== Özet == |
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Yeni editörler hesap oluşturduğunda, hesaplardan asgari kayıt bilgileri istenir ve daha sonra hesap oluşturmayı başlattıkları bağlama geri yönlendirilirler. Bu, yeni editörün neyi başarmaya çalıştığını öğrenmek ve hedeflerine ulaşmalarına yardımcı olan yön veya içerik sağlamak için kaçırılmış bir fırsattır. Bu nedenle, "Kişiselleştirilmiş ilk gün" projesi iki bölümden oluşur: |
Yeni editörler hesap oluşturduğunda, hesaplardan asgari kayıt bilgileri istenir ve daha sonra hesap oluşturmayı başlattıkları bağlama geri yönlendirilirler. Bu, yeni editörün neyi başarmaya çalıştığını öğrenmek ve hedeflerine ulaşmalarına yardımcı olan yön veya içerik sağlamak için kaçırılmış bir fırsattır. Bu nedenle, "Kişiselleştirilmiş ilk gün" projesi iki bölümden oluşur: |
||
1) Yeni editörlere, hesap oluşturma işlemleri sırasında hesap oluşturma nedenleri, neyi başarmaya çalıştıkları, ilgilendikleri konular veya bir mentor ile tanışmak isteyip istemedikleri gibi ek sorular sorun. Projenin bu bölümüne "'''[[Special: |
1) Yeni editörlere, hesap oluşturma işlemleri sırasında hesap oluşturma nedenleri, neyi başarmaya çalıştıkları, ilgilendikleri konular veya bir mentor ile tanışmak isteyip istemedikleri gibi ek sorular sorun. Projenin bu bölümüne "'''[[Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Personalized first day/Welcome survey|karşılama anketi]]'''" denilir. |
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2) Oturum oluşturulduktan sonra, yeni editörleri hedefleriyle alakalı içeriğe yardımcı olmaya veya ilgi alanlarıyla eşleşen Vikiprojelere yönlendirebilir veya potansiyel olarak ilgi alanlarını paylaşan bir danışmanla eşleştirebiliriz. Bu ikinci hedefe ulaşmak için devam etmekte olan iki proje var: |
2) Oturum oluşturulduktan sonra, yeni editörleri hedefleriyle alakalı içeriğe yardımcı olmaya veya ilgi alanlarıyla eşleşen Vikiprojelere yönlendirebilir veya potansiyel olarak ilgi alanlarını paylaşan bir danışmanla eşleştirebiliriz. Bu ikinci hedefe ulaşmak için devam etmekte olan iki proje var: |
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* '''[[Special: |
* '''[[Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Personalized first day/Engagement emails|Etkileşim e-postaları]]''' |
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* '''[[Special: |
* '''[[Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Personalized first day/Newcomer homepage|Yeni gelen anasayfa]]''' |
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Büyüme ekibi ilk olarak 2018/19 2. Çeyrekte (Ekim 2018 - Aralık 2018) sırasında Bölüm 1'i (karşılama anketi) oluşturuyor. Sonuçları analiz ettikten sonra, 2018/19 3. Çeyrekte (katılım e-postaları ve yeni gelen anasayfa) Bölüm 2'yi izlemeye başladık. |
Büyüme ekibi ilk olarak 2018/19 2. Çeyrekte (Ekim 2018 - Aralık 2018) sırasında Bölüm 1'i (karşılama anketi) oluşturuyor. Sonuçları analiz ettikten sonra, 2018/19 3. Çeyrekte (katılım e-postaları ve yeni gelen anasayfa) Bölüm 2'yi izlemeye başladık. |
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== Why this project is prioritized == |
== Why this project is prioritized == |
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[[New Editor Experiences|Research has shown]] us that new editors have their own specific objectives when they begin to edit, and if they are not able to pursue those objectives, they are not retained. We also know that new editors have to learn many [[Growth#Challenges|technical, conceptual, and cultural skills]] in order to be successful editors of the wikis, and that it is best to teach these skills through [[Growth#Solutions|"in-context" and "human-to-human" help]]. The "Personalized first day" project is meant to discover a new editor's goals by asking them, which gives us the ability to give them the "in-context" or "human-to-human" help that they need most to be successful. We prioritized this project because: |
[[Special:MyLanguage/New Editor Experiences|Research has shown]] us that new editors have their own specific objectives when they begin to edit, and if they are not able to pursue those objectives, they are not retained. We also know that new editors have to learn many [[Special:MyLanguage/Growth#Challenges|technical, conceptual, and cultural skills]] in order to be successful editors of the wikis, and that it is best to teach these skills through [[[[Special:MyLanguage/]]Growth#Solutions|"in-context" and "human-to-human" help]]. The "Personalized first day" project is meant to discover a new editor's goals by asking them, which gives us the ability to give them the "in-context" or "human-to-human" help that they need most to be successful. We prioritized this project because: |
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* It helps us address the issues brought up in the [[New Editor Experiences|New Editors Experiences research]]. |
* It helps us address the issues brought up in the [[Special:MyLanguage/New Editor Experiences|New Editors Experiences research]]. |
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* Community members were positive [[Growth/Discussing potential Growth ideas#Personalized first day (6)|in their feedback on the idea]]. |
* Community members were positive [[Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Discussing potential Growth ideas#Personalized first day (6)|in their feedback on the idea]]. |
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* It helps us increase our learning at this early stage of our team's work with new editors. |
* It helps us increase our learning at this early stage of our team's work with new editors. |
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* This sort of feature is almost [[phab:T206373|universally common among other successful software platforms]]. |
* This sort of feature is almost [[phab:T206373|universally common among other successful software platforms]]. |
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== Part 1: Welcome survey == |
== Part 1: Welcome survey == |
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The welcome survey asks newcomers a set of basic questions about why they've created their account and what they are interested in. It was first deployed in Czech and Korean Wikipedias on November 20, 2018, and on Vietnamese Wikipedia on January 24, 2019. The survey has successfully collected actionable data. For details and results, see [[Growth/Personalized first day/Welcome survey|this page]]. |
The welcome survey asks newcomers a set of basic questions about why they've created their account and what they are interested in. It was first deployed in Czech and Korean Wikipedias on November 20, 2018, and on Vietnamese Wikipedia on January 24, 2019. The survey has successfully collected actionable data. For details and results, see [[Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Personalized first day/Welcome survey|this page]]. |
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== Part 2: Personalizing == |
== Part 2: Personalizing == |
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In the [[Growth/Personalized first day#Summary|Summary section]] above, we talk about how this project is divided in two parts. First, we are collecting information from new users about what they are trying to achieve and what they're interested in. We're doing that through the welcome survey. Second, we will use that information to personalize the experience they have on their first day, so that they can accomplish their goals and keep editing. After collecting about a month of data from the welcome survey, our team started to talk about how to take action on that data. Our central question for Part 2 is: '''How might we personalize a newcomer's experience to help them achieve their goals?''' |
In the [[Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Personalized first day#Summary|Summary section]] above, we talk about how this project is divided in two parts. First, we are collecting information from new users about what they are trying to achieve and what they're interested in. We're doing that through the welcome survey. Second, we will use that information to personalize the experience they have on their first day, so that they can accomplish their goals and keep editing. After collecting about a month of data from the welcome survey, our team started to talk about how to take action on that data. Our central question for Part 2 is: '''How might we personalize a newcomer's experience to help them achieve their goals?''' |
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In this section of this page, we've recorded our thoughts and community discussion points around how to do this. '''[[Topic:Uptu596ij1o0iksq|Please participate here in the discussion]]'''. |
In this section of this page, we've recorded our thoughts and community discussion points around how to do this. '''[[Topic:Uptu596ij1o0iksq|Please participate here in the discussion]]'''. |
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=== Identifying newcomer goals === |
=== Identifying newcomer goals === |
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The [[New Editor Experiences|New Editor Experiences research]] identified [[metawiki:File:New_Editor_Experiences_user_personas,_August_2017.pdf|six personas]] that most newcomers fit into. Those different personas have different skills and different goals, and we can increase retention if we develop an experience that is attuned to the persona of each editor. For instance, if we think a newcomer is a "[https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:New_Editor_Experiences_user_personas,_August_2017.pdf&page=3 Reactive Corrector]", we might recommend a set of corrections to make. Our welcome survey questions are not granular enough to ''precisely'' classify newcomers into personas (that would require a much longer survey), but they give us some good information to work with. The table below shows an example of how we're thinking about this. Each row shows one of the six personas, along with a response from the welcome survey that might help us identify them, and a treatment that might go with that persona to help them be retained. |
The [[Special:MyLanguage/New Editor Experiences|New Editor Experiences research]] identified [[metawiki:File:New_Editor_Experiences_user_personas,_August_2017.pdf|six personas]] that most newcomers fit into. Those different personas have different skills and different goals, and we can increase retention if we develop an experience that is attuned to the persona of each editor. For instance, if we think a newcomer is a "[https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:New_Editor_Experiences_user_personas,_August_2017.pdf&page=3 Reactive Corrector]", we might recommend a set of corrections to make. Our welcome survey questions are not granular enough to ''precisely'' classify newcomers into personas (that would require a much longer survey), but they give us some good information to work with. The table below shows an example of how we're thinking about this. Each row shows one of the six personas, along with a response from the welcome survey that might help us identify them, and a treatment that might go with that persona to help them be retained. |
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[[File:Example treatments and new editor personas 2018-12-05.png|center|thumb|900x900px|Example of how we are thinking about using welcome survey responses to identify personas and personalize the first day.]] |
[[File:Example treatments and new editor personas 2018-12-05.png|center|thumb|900x900px|Example of how we are thinking about using welcome survey responses to identify personas and personalize the first day.]] |
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=== Potential interventions === |
=== Potential interventions === |
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To think through the potential ways to take action on the welcome survey responses, we went back through our team's original lists of potential interventions, several of which the community discussed [[Growth/Discussing potential Growth ideas|on this page]]. These are three main approaches we could think of around how to personalize the first day using the welcome survey. |
To think through the potential ways to take action on the welcome survey responses, we went back through our team's original lists of potential interventions, several of which the community discussed [[Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Discussing potential Growth ideas|on this page]]. These are three main approaches we could think of around how to personalize the first day using the welcome survey. |
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'''Approach 1: use responses to surface relevant content somewhere on wiki''' |
'''Approach 1: use responses to surface relevant content somewhere on wiki''' |
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* '''Newbie forum''': create a place where newcomers can have visibility into the work done by other newcomers, along with help materials specifically geared toward being new. |
* '''Newbie forum''': create a place where newcomers can have visibility into the work done by other newcomers, along with help materials specifically geared toward being new. |
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Looking at these together, we realized that if we built any of these things, we would not have a good place to "put" them -- there isn't a page that a newcomer can go to to get resources specifically around being new. Perhaps pursuing this approach might mean building some kind of "newcomer homepage", where they can find and access these things. This idea actually came up in the [[Growth/Personalized first day#User testing|user testing]] for the welcome survey, in which a couple users said they would expect to be taken to "their dashboard" after completing the survey. |
Looking at these together, we realized that if we built any of these things, we would not have a good place to "put" them -- there isn't a page that a newcomer can go to to get resources specifically around being new. Perhaps pursuing this approach might mean building some kind of "newcomer homepage", where they can find and access these things. This idea actually came up in the [[Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Personalized first day#User testing|user testing]] for the welcome survey, in which a couple users said they would expect to be taken to "their dashboard" after completing the survey. |
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'''Approach 2: mentorship program''' |
'''Approach 2: mentorship program''' |
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If substantial numbers of newcomers respond affirmatively to the question about whether they would like to receive help from an experienced editor, that might be evidence that we should consider how to connect experienced and new editors in some sort of mentorship program. This is an idea that has been attempted multiple times in the Wikimedia movement, with varied success (e.g. [[:en:Wikipedia:Adopt-a-user|Adopt-a-user]] in English Wikipedia). The idea of [[Growth#Objective|"human-to-human help"]] is also one of the strongest recommendations from the New Editors Experiences research. The challenge would be how to do this right, and how to rally a community around it. |
If substantial numbers of newcomers respond affirmatively to the question about whether they would like to receive help from an experienced editor, that might be evidence that we should consider how to connect experienced and new editors in some sort of mentorship program. This is an idea that has been attempted multiple times in the Wikimedia movement, with varied success (e.g. [[:en:Wikipedia:Adopt-a-user|Adopt-a-user]] in English Wikipedia). The idea of [[Special:MyLanguage/Growth#Objective|"human-to-human help"]] is also one of the strongest recommendations from the New Editors Experiences research. The challenge would be how to do this right, and how to rally a community around it. |
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'''Approach 3: engagement emails''' |
'''Approach 3: engagement emails''' |
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This is an idea that was [[Growth/Discussing potential Growth ideas#Email new editors their impact (5)|discussed specifically by the community]] in September 2018: send emails to new editors about their impact, or to remind them to make their first edits, or to otherwise encourage them to engage. The results from the welcome survey could help us make such emails more relevant to the user, and speak to the goals, experience level, or topics they indicated in the survey. |
This is an idea that was [[Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Discussing potential Growth ideas#Email new editors their impact (5)|discussed specifically by the community]] in September 2018: send emails to new editors about their impact, or to remind them to make their first edits, or to otherwise encourage them to engage. The results from the welcome survey could help us make such emails more relevant to the user, and speak to the goals, experience level, or topics they indicated in the survey. |
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=== Decisions (January 2019) === |
=== Decisions (January 2019) === |
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We have decided to begin two new projects: |
We have decided to begin two new projects: |
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* '''[[Growth/Personalized first day/Engagement emails|Engagement emails]]''': begin a minimal email campaign containing only 2 or 3 different treatments. |
* '''[[Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Personalized first day/Engagement emails|Engagement emails]]''': begin a minimal email campaign containing only 2 or 3 different treatments. |
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* '''[[Growth/Personalized first day/Newcomer homepage|Newcomer homepage]]''': develop a minimal homepage corresponding to the minimal email campaigns, that is also available for newcomers that are not emailable. |
* '''[[Special:MyLanguage/Growth/Personalized first day/Newcomer homepage|Newcomer homepage]]''': develop a minimal homepage corresponding to the minimal email campaigns, that is also available for newcomers that are not emailable. |
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This is a “breadth-first” approach, allowing us to identify potential in two ideas instead of one, while also increasing our ability to reach people with the email project. For each project, we will make the minimum investment to discover whether something is working before we invest further. We also hypothesize that the projects can be most effective when a newcomer is experiencing them both. It is also worth noting that our approach will capture the "mentorship" aspect discussed above without endeavoring to build an explicit "mentorship program". What follows is the high-level reasoning behind our decision. There are many detailed considerations and potential pitfalls for both the projects. See the linked project pages above for those details. |
This is a “breadth-first” approach, allowing us to identify potential in two ideas instead of one, while also increasing our ability to reach people with the email project. For each project, we will make the minimum investment to discover whether something is working before we invest further. We also hypothesize that the projects can be most effective when a newcomer is experiencing them both. It is also worth noting that our approach will capture the "mentorship" aspect discussed above without endeavoring to build an explicit "mentorship program". What follows is the high-level reasoning behind our decision. There are many detailed considerations and potential pitfalls for both the projects. See the linked project pages above for those details. |
Latest revision as of 17:36, 11 August 2024
Personalized first day
Provide experiences to new editors that help them achieve their goals
|
Bu sayfada, Büyüme ekibinin "Kişiselleştirilmiş ilk gün" girişimleri üzerindeki çalışmaları açıklanmakta ve stratejik düşünceyi ve girişim ile ilgili belirli projelere bağlantılar içermektedir. İlerlemeyle ilgili en artımlı güncellemeler, genel olarak Büyüme ekibi güncellemeleri sayfası yayınlanacak ve burada bazı büyük veya ayrıntılı güncellemeler yayınlanacaktır. Bunlar, "Kişiselleştirilmiş ilk gün" girişimi altındaki üç projeye bağlantılar:
Özet
Yeni editörler hesap oluşturduğunda, hesaplardan asgari kayıt bilgileri istenir ve daha sonra hesap oluşturmayı başlattıkları bağlama geri yönlendirilirler. Bu, yeni editörün neyi başarmaya çalıştığını öğrenmek ve hedeflerine ulaşmalarına yardımcı olan yön veya içerik sağlamak için kaçırılmış bir fırsattır. Bu nedenle, "Kişiselleştirilmiş ilk gün" projesi iki bölümden oluşur:
1) Yeni editörlere, hesap oluşturma işlemleri sırasında hesap oluşturma nedenleri, neyi başarmaya çalıştıkları, ilgilendikleri konular veya bir mentor ile tanışmak isteyip istemedikleri gibi ek sorular sorun. Projenin bu bölümüne "karşılama anketi" denilir.
2) Oturum oluşturulduktan sonra, yeni editörleri hedefleriyle alakalı içeriğe yardımcı olmaya veya ilgi alanlarıyla eşleşen Vikiprojelere yönlendirebilir veya potansiyel olarak ilgi alanlarını paylaşan bir danışmanla eşleştirebiliriz. Bu ikinci hedefe ulaşmak için devam etmekte olan iki proje var:
Büyüme ekibi ilk olarak 2018/19 2. Çeyrekte (Ekim 2018 - Aralık 2018) sırasında Bölüm 1'i (karşılama anketi) oluşturuyor. Sonuçları analiz ettikten sonra, 2018/19 3. Çeyrekte (katılım e-postaları ve yeni gelen anasayfa) Bölüm 2'yi izlemeye başladık.
Why this project is prioritized
Research has shown us that new editors have their own specific objectives when they begin to edit, and if they are not able to pursue those objectives, they are not retained. We also know that new editors have to learn many technical, conceptual, and cultural skills in order to be successful editors of the wikis, and that it is best to teach these skills through [[Special:MyLanguage/Growth#Solutions|"in-context" and "human-to-human" help]]. The "Personalized first day" project is meant to discover a new editor's goals by asking them, which gives us the ability to give them the "in-context" or "human-to-human" help that they need most to be successful. We prioritized this project because:
- It helps us address the issues brought up in the New Editors Experiences research.
- Community members were positive in their feedback on the idea.
- It helps us increase our learning at this early stage of our team's work with new editors.
- This sort of feature is almost universally common among other successful software platforms.
- The feature can be built and adjusted incrementally, without a major investment before it starts to show results.
- It will be easy to translate and apply to other wikis in the future.
Part 1: Welcome survey
The welcome survey asks newcomers a set of basic questions about why they've created their account and what they are interested in. It was first deployed in Czech and Korean Wikipedias on November 20, 2018, and on Vietnamese Wikipedia on January 24, 2019. The survey has successfully collected actionable data. For details and results, see this page.
Part 2: Personalizing
In the Summary section above, we talk about how this project is divided in two parts. First, we are collecting information from new users about what they are trying to achieve and what they're interested in. We're doing that through the welcome survey. Second, we will use that information to personalize the experience they have on their first day, so that they can accomplish their goals and keep editing. After collecting about a month of data from the welcome survey, our team started to talk about how to take action on that data. Our central question for Part 2 is: How might we personalize a newcomer's experience to help them achieve their goals?
In this section of this page, we've recorded our thoughts and community discussion points around how to do this. Please participate here in the discussion.
Identifying newcomer goals
The New Editor Experiences research identified six personas that most newcomers fit into. Those different personas have different skills and different goals, and we can increase retention if we develop an experience that is attuned to the persona of each editor. For instance, if we think a newcomer is a "Reactive Corrector", we might recommend a set of corrections to make. Our welcome survey questions are not granular enough to precisely classify newcomers into personas (that would require a much longer survey), but they give us some good information to work with. The table below shows an example of how we're thinking about this. Each row shows one of the six personas, along with a response from the welcome survey that might help us identify them, and a treatment that might go with that persona to help them be retained.
Potential interventions
To think through the potential ways to take action on the welcome survey responses, we went back through our team's original lists of potential interventions, several of which the community discussed on this page. These are three main approaches we could think of around how to personalize the first day using the welcome survey.
Approach 1: use responses to surface relevant content somewhere on wiki
There are four separate ideas inside this approach:
- Task recommendations: surface tasks relevant to the reported goals, experience level, and topic interests of the newcomers.
- Relevant help materials: surface help documents that are specific to the task the newcomer said they're trying to achieve, and the experience level they said they have.
- Community visibility and topic routing: give newcomers visibility into activity and editors in the topics they care about, perhaps by allowing them to filter the Recent Changes feed by category, or by connecting them to WikiProjects. Perhaps by seeing that there is a vibrant community, they will be inspired to plug in and be active.
- Newbie forum: create a place where newcomers can have visibility into the work done by other newcomers, along with help materials specifically geared toward being new.
Looking at these together, we realized that if we built any of these things, we would not have a good place to "put" them -- there isn't a page that a newcomer can go to to get resources specifically around being new. Perhaps pursuing this approach might mean building some kind of "newcomer homepage", where they can find and access these things. This idea actually came up in the user testing for the welcome survey, in which a couple users said they would expect to be taken to "their dashboard" after completing the survey.
Approach 2: mentorship program
If substantial numbers of newcomers respond affirmatively to the question about whether they would like to receive help from an experienced editor, that might be evidence that we should consider how to connect experienced and new editors in some sort of mentorship program. This is an idea that has been attempted multiple times in the Wikimedia movement, with varied success (e.g. Adopt-a-user in English Wikipedia). The idea of "human-to-human help" is also one of the strongest recommendations from the New Editors Experiences research. The challenge would be how to do this right, and how to rally a community around it.
Approach 3: engagement emails
This is an idea that was discussed specifically by the community in September 2018: send emails to new editors about their impact, or to remind them to make their first edits, or to otherwise encourage them to engage. The results from the welcome survey could help us make such emails more relevant to the user, and speak to the goals, experience level, or topics they indicated in the survey.
Decisions (January 2019)
After taking in thoughts from community members and discussing amongst our team, we decided in January on a path forward here that we believe will take the best parts of several of the approaches, maximize our chances of finding something that works, and minimize risk.
We have decided to begin two new projects:
- Engagement emails: begin a minimal email campaign containing only 2 or 3 different treatments.
- Newcomer homepage: develop a minimal homepage corresponding to the minimal email campaigns, that is also available for newcomers that are not emailable.
This is a “breadth-first” approach, allowing us to identify potential in two ideas instead of one, while also increasing our ability to reach people with the email project. For each project, we will make the minimum investment to discover whether something is working before we invest further. We also hypothesize that the projects can be most effective when a newcomer is experiencing them both. It is also worth noting that our approach will capture the "mentorship" aspect discussed above without endeavoring to build an explicit "mentorship program". What follows is the high-level reasoning behind our decision. There are many detailed considerations and potential pitfalls for both the projects. See the linked project pages above for those details.
Engagement emails
We believe that after new users close their Wikipedia tab on that first day when they create their account, they’ll generally not hear from Wikipedia again. That means they won’t feel appreciated, won’t get new ideas of how to contribute, won’t find out about the vibrant community, and won’t get helped if they had gotten stuck. We can use email as a proactive communication vector to reconnect with new users off-wiki to encourage them to make their first edits or to continue making edits. Email is an effective engagement channel for most successful contribution platforms, and the conventional wisdom is that emails get the best results when they are relevant to a user’s interests and are actionable.
Our team’s work on the welcome survey allows us to capture information about a newcomer’s goals and interests, giving us a way to create emails that are relevant and actionable. Given a combination of responses on the welcome survey and the newcomer’s edit history, we can choose the right email to send. Here are some of the calls to action we could send through emails:
- Impact: page view counts for the user’s contributions.
- Nurture materials to encourage editing: links to help and introduction materials to appeal to those least interested/familiar with editing on Wikipedia.
- Task recommendations: suggestions for contribution around topics of interest.
- Neighborhood: information and links for discovering activity around the user’s topics of interest.
- Mentorship: information on how to reach out to an experienced editor for help.
There are many open questions around emails, such as how often to send them and how to design them. But one of the biggest questions is: when people click something in the emails, where will that take them? Leading to...
Newcomer homepage
We know from our research that newcomers feel disoriented in the Wikipedia editing world. While experienced editors know how to stitch together disjointed pieces of the wiki into a cohesive experience (talk pages, user pages, WikiProjects, watchlist, categories, page history, etc.), newcomers do not know how to use them together. They wonder, “where do I start?” We can build an entryway to surface the things newcomers need to know and do first — a centralized location to orient them. Such a page could contain the same kinds of content that we want to send via engagement emails, but in more actionable depth:
- Impact: page view counts for the user’s contributions.
- Nurture materials to encourage editing: links to help and introduction materials to appeal to those least interested/familiar with editing on Wikipedia.
- Task recommendations: suggestions for contribution around topics of interest.
- Neighborhood: information and links for discovering activity around the user’s topics of interest.
- Mentorship: information on how to reach out to an experienced editor for help.
Though we would want at first to build a newcomer homepage with sufficient content to be useful, such a page can be modular, with separate components added and subtracted over time. The layout and content of modules may also be further personalized based on difference in newcomer motivations.
There are many open questions around a newcomer homepage, but one of the biggest questions is: how to surface this to newcomers so that they visit and benefit from it? Leading to...
Putting the two together
This newcomer homepage can be the landing place for engagement emails. In other words, they are two sides of the same coin: the emails are our way of proactively engaging newcomers, and the homepage is the place where we bring them. We can send a small amount of actionable information via email, and then have the full set of information available when the user clicks through the email. For instance:
Campaign | Email contents | Newcomer homepage contents |
Impact | Numbers showing impact of first edits | In-depth metrics around contribution |
Neighborhood | Examples of recent activity around topic of interest | Live feed of activity around topic of interest |
Mentorship | Username of an experienced editor available for help | Clear link to talk page of experienced editor for help |