WMDE Technical Wishes/AdvancedSearch/Background & Research

Background & Research

The workshop approach

Search mapping in Cologne, Germany

On our way back to Berlin: Discussing workshop results and implementing the first prototype based on the results

Beside the wishlist approach, WMDE Tech & the German-speaking contributors developed a second way to discuss & identify technical needs in a collaborative way: "User specific" or "topic specific" workshops. The wishlist approach aims to collect, discuss and prioritize different technical requests from a broad community onwiki. The workshop approach aims to dive deeper into one area of the software, or focus on the needs of a specific user group and discuss & identify the critical issues in real life and onwiki (e.g.: "What kind of tools do admins need?").

The advanced search workshop series

Wikipedia's search is already very powerful but hardly anyone knows about it! - This is why Raymond, Lea and Birgit had the idea to conduct the workshop series on advanced search in autumn 2016.

Search parameters like "intitle" or "filetype" are currently only listed on help pages of cirrus search, and not easy to find. Most people - no matter if they are newcomers or longterm contributors - don't know about these keywords and how to use them.

The goals of the workshop series were a.) learn about the existing search options and how to use & combine them b.) design first ideas how those options could be made more visible c.) have a good understanding of what would be important when implementing an advanced search functionality aka making existing search options accessible for everyone.

First prototype and feedback rounds

Based on the results of the workshop serie, a first prototype has been created. With the help of the prototype, we could gather more valuable input to define the concept and requirements for the first "real" product.

Open questions were:

• What can we do that people can easily find the advanced search interface?
• How do we integrate the selection of name spaces into the search interface?
• Which search options and name spaces are the most important ones/often used & how to integrate them best?

The first prototype has been discussed & tested

• on German Wikipedia: de:Wikipedia_Diskussion:Technische_Wünsche/Workshop_spezialisierte_Suche
• in a joint session with the WMF's Search Team at the mediawiki developer summit 2017: T154911
• in real life tests and conversations back in our office in Berlin and at events