Grants:APG/Feedback

Other questions or comments

This page is intended to collect feedback regarding the design/structure of the FDC portal.

1. I guess I'll start. Let's see, the first thing that I always go looking at the portal for and never find is usually the most basic information about the FDC, and I consider myself too involved in these affairs, others would feel even more confused. The main page assumes that users who arrive there already know about FDC and doesn't brief them. The one burning question I first had upon seeing this portal was finding out Who is actually on this FDC, what is it, what is its mandate, perhaps even a bit of context and difference between GAC or just links to those. I found out after about 5 visits that the small dotted box in the middle had this information but was titled in such a manner that most of that information wasn't noticed. The padding might be excessive in the templates and this generally hollow look, that is becoming common.

I have serious issues with the right nav box which is giant and wastes too much space. I think its supposed to be a calendar of some sorts about the going-ons of FDC, which is really not that important for the prime screen estate it sits on. A smaller box at the bottom would have been enough or some sort of a calendar page would have been better. I would point to the chapters page, and refer to the giant Chapters template Template:Chapters - arguably that smaller template looks better and has more information than anything in the FDC nav box. It also seems more official while the FDC one seems something a bit amateurish with empty spaces and muted blue palette. I would suggest making the Chapters template something worth basing the future design off of.

I detest the central box in the middle. It has 3 agenda items, two of those are really not that important, the third about who makes up the FDC is more important. This should be more prominent and written more concisely - 'Members' or 'FDC members'. Maybe consider tightening things a bit and writing things simply and concisely for non-native speakers. I also hope the next iteration avoids the dotted outline portal intro-type templates, it doesn't look remotely decent. I would also suggest taking a look at the main page for Meta for some ideas - Strong colors, vertical clean lines - most of the FDC page in comparison is a collection of dotted boxes, light blue dividers and empty spaces.

The information about proposals, and happening now, are actually pretty irrelevant to 90% of people who see a link to FDC from en.wp. It's only relevant to chapters applying for those grants. This Calendar information should be relegated while the basic info about the FDC should be prioritized. The proposals are kind of hard to follow, but I realized at some point that the page just has a 'See Proposals page' which makes things a whole lot simpler than looking on that page. I can never understand which round is going on, what proposals are, even what is a letter of intent. A lot is taken for granted about what users know about the FDC - I assure you they don't know a lot.

I hope this helps. Regards. Theo10011 (talk) 00:50, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to leave comments, I really appreciate it. We may need to have a conversation about "who the portal is for" and therefor what information is most important, because different people have different points of view. Maybe I'll start a section if you feel like saying more. heather walls (talk) 14:46, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Sure, I'll help any way I can. I really think the most important decision you guys should make is who the portal is for, that is the biggest point of contention here. I assumed since this was on Meta and not on Chapters-wiki or Internal or another private wiki, was to keep everything open and in-view of the rest of the community. The rest of the community has seriously problems following FDC developments, maybe you can consider a landing page of sorts with general info and then break off in to a separate one for chapters people who want to apply/follow the discussion and dates, and the rest of us, who just want general information.

BTW I also realized the way proposal page is set up, can be improved a bit....I'll add something later but the audience question is perhaps the most important one for now. Regards. Theo10011 (talk) 20:29, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Theo10011 for giving us your feedback and suggestions! It is appreciated, as heather walls noted above. We want tobe clearer about who the FDC portal is for and then build out from there. To date, we have been thinking about the audience of the portal primarily as for interested FDC applicants. In any case, we want the portal to be navigable for the appropriate audience to find what they are looking for, and this is not just for applicants. Keep your ideas coming, and thanks! KLove (WMF) (talk) 17:34, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

2. We conducted a Process survey in June 2013 for all those who were involve in the FDC Round 2 process. There were several comments regarding the portal which I am capturing below:

"portal can be improved to improve clarity."

"Better information organization on the portal."

"portal should be more easy to navigate"

"The portal was a bit confusing in the beginning, and has reached a satisfying pont, although I think it can be more simplified."

"Portal and application [should be] more user friendly"

"Portal and application templates can be made clearer and easier to use."

"FDC portal needs a lot of change. The portal now is very difficult to navigate. Templates need to be changed, visual editor might be a better option for tables."

"the portal is a bit confusing"

Jwild (talk) 21:59, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Uncategorized FDC pages

Please categorize these, if possible. Thanks. PiRSquared17 (talk) 20:32, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

I've categorized the pages not related to central notice since I don't understand the mysteries and requirements of central notice. Is there some way to prevent uncategorized central notice pages in the future? heather walls (talk) 20:44, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

They weren't uncategorized because they were CentralNotices, but because they were translated versions of uncategorized pages. I added categories to all the translations of the CentralNotices except for FDC_portal/CentralNotice2013-2-CZ/en (I don't know how to edit /en translations) PiRSquared17 (talk) 20:58, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Notes from elsewhere

• There should be an explanation about the Wikimedia movement for those coming straight from banner.

• Merge comments pages. Similar comments.

Global metrics in the proposal form

It says in the proposal form "Please note that all grantees will be asked to report on the global metrics, so please review them and keep them in mind as you design your programs, and then track and measure the impact of your programs." Are you expecting us to estimate these for the programs in the proposal or rather that we report on it quarterly? --Jan Ainali (WMSE) (talk) 06:58, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Hello, Jan! Including targets for global metrics in addition to or as part of your program objectives in the proposal form this round is welcome and encouraged, but not required. We will ask you to report on global metrics in future progress and impact reports, Cheers, Winifred Olliff (FDC Support Team) talk 21:35, 19 September 2014 (UTC)