Great news. Congrats for the team which gets now a broaden opportunity to spread their strength. I'm thrilled to look forward to see this initiative go further, and experience the website renewed by the team, as both an editor and an user.
On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 9:14 AM, Erik Moeller <e...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > Hello all, > > our very positive revenue perspective (we have already exceeded our > fundraising targets for the fiscal year, and received the additional > $2M from Google) allows us to do something we've hoped to be able to > do: make our investment in user experience work permanent, as opposed > to releasing most of the current user experience team and ending the > project. > > It makes obvious sense for any major website to have a permanent team > focused on user experience improvements in the broadest sense. This > includes eliminating obvious barriers to entry, but beyond that, we > want to improve the experience as a whole for both readers and > editors. > > We're now referring to this work as "user experience" (UX) work, which > includes usability. > > Naoko will be Head of UX Programs, while Trevor will be the lead > front-end developer on the team. Congratulations to both of them. :-) > Naoko is currently assessing the remaining contracts and will share > further information as these decisions are finalized. > > In the immediate future post-April, we'll be concerned with tying up > loose ends from the usability initiative, and finishing functionality > that we had to put in the parking lot. We'll work on a roadmap and > staffing plan for 2010-11 and beyond as part of our business planning > process. > > Our long-term focus will be determined in significant part based on > the recommendations from the strategic planning process; see > especially the community health recommendations: > > http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Task_force/Recommendations/Community_health > > While we haven't finalized priorities, the single biggest piece of > work is likely going to be the transition to a rich-text editor as the > default editing environment for all Wikimedia Foundation wikis. But, > user experience to us also means assessing how people self-organize > and communicate in Wikimedia projects, how they get stuff done, and > how they read and navigate our projects. Even among the areas of work > we've already identified, there's enough to keep us busy for many > years. :-) > > Please note that the original usability initiative hasn't concluded > yet. The team is working on its final release, which will include some > of the most-anticipated changes, including collapsing of templates to > simplify the editing interface, and the production release of the new > feature-set to all users. As always, we'll continue to communicate > progress through <http://blog.wikimedia.org/> and > <http://techblog.wikimedia.org/>, and feedback and participation is > welcome at <http://usability.wikimedia.org/>. > > All best, > Erik > -- > Erik Möller > Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation > > Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > -- KIZU Naoko http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese) Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
