Wikimedia Blog/Drafts/ACUX
Draft post
[edit]Testing a new signup page for Wikipedia
[edit]
Wikipedia doesn't require to you to sign up for an account. We like giving everything away for free, and even let people edit without creating an account. But if you'd <em>like</em> to register, there are plenty of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_create_an_account%3F">good reasons</a> to do so.
However, it's been a long time since the registration process for Wikipedia got any love. In fact, it's pretty clunky, and it may be contributing to the decline in <a href="https://toolserver.org/~DarTar/reg2/">successful registrations</a> in the last few years.
To address this, we've started testing changes to the account creation page on English Wikipedia. We've updated the visual design to be less cluttered, as well as easier to use on desktop or mobile. We've also added a simple list of benefits to account creation, such as being able to start new pages, upload photos, and have a presence in the Wikipedia community. In a second iteration, we'll be adding live validation to the form, so you know if there are any errors right away.
In 2011, a <a href="https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Account_Creation_Improvement_Project">Fellowship project</a> on the account creation experimented with ways to encourage people to edit during or immediately after the signup process. However, basic limitations in the core functionality still plagued that project, not to mention anyone trying to create an account. For this work, we're focused on simply making the signup page itself be a less frustrating experience, with the secondary goal of gently introducing people to why an account is useful.
Please note that the new look is delivered only 50% of time as part of an A/B test, so the best thing to do is to give us feedback here, or our documents related to <a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Account_creation_user_experience">design</a> and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Account_creation_UX">data analysis</a>. After the trial, we'll be permanently incorporating features that help more people register.
- Steven Walling, Associate Product Manager
- S Page, Software Engineer
- Munaf Assaf, User Experience Designer