As part of MinT for Wiki Readers MVP (T359072), this ticket proposes to provide an entry point from the mobile language selector on Wikipedia. In this way, users interested in reading an article in another language will have a way to access a machine translated version in case the content is not available in the language they are searching for.
Currently, the language selector already provides access to content translation from the language selector for users to create a new translation. Based on data, the language selector represents the most common way for users to access Content Translation on mobile.
This ticket proposes to make adjustments on the mobile language selector, in order to present a new option to read a machine translation next to the option to create a translation. Recent research suggests that this contrast may help understanding the different possibilities.
You can check the prototype and the video below:
Below there is more detail on the current situation and the aspects we need to change to support the proposed solution.
Current
Currently on mobile, users have access to the language selector on Wikipedia articles. The language selector provides different mechanisms to find a language:
- Search allows users to type the name of a language. When the search fails the user is shown a "Language not available" view which can happen in two cases:
- The language is identified but content is not available. In this case, the user is invited to make a translation and a set of actions are shown for users to start the translation of the current article into the languages matching the search query or any other language.
- The search query is not identified as a language (e.g., random text), a generic error message is shown.
- The language is identified but content is not available. In this case, the user is invited to make a translation and a set of actions are shown for users to start the translation of the current article into the languages matching the search query or any other language.
- Favorite languages is a section where frequently selected languages by the user are surfaced for easy access. As part of Section Translation entry points, an element shows also when the content is missing in some of the user frequently used languages. Taping on this links users directly to Section Translation.
Proposed
This ticket proposes to make the following changes:
- Update the "Language not available" view to include two different options: "Write a new translation" and "Read an automatic translation". This will only show when the search query is identified as a language. Otherwise the generic messages will be shown as it is now.
- Adjust the navigation from the missing favorite languages. When missing languages are surfaced, tapping on them will have the same effect as searching for the first of them. That is, taping on the "Missing in Igbo and Hausa" message will result on "Igbo" being typed in the search bar and, as a result, the "Language not available" view with the options to "Write a new translation" and "Read an automatic translation" will be shown.
Design details
A Card Codex Component is used to present the options:
- Write a new translation leads to Content Translation with the information pre-filled for the article to translate (current article from which the user accessed the language selector), source language (the content language of the article to translate), and target language (first match for the user search term).
- Title and visual element: "Write a new translation" with "Add" icon.
- Description: "Step-by-step translation process to create a new page in your language."
- Read an automatic translation leads to MinT for Wikipedia Readers Confirm step (T359512) with the information pre-filled in the same way as in the previous case.
- Title and visual element: "Read an automatic translation" with "Robot" icon.
- Description: "Automatic preview of contents in other languages for you to review and fix."
More details in Figma
