Input boxes for renaming a Wiki page is confusing

Observation

When renaming a page from the actions, you are presented with two input boxes:

• New name: <already filled in name of current page>

• Optional reason for renaming: <blank>

Most users, (actually all users i ask to rename a page) will fill in the input boxes incorrectly.

They fill in the new name of the page in the 'Optional reason for renaming' field.

Actual behavior would be that the users can fill in this page without any errors.

Task

Rename a Wiki page

Users

Users are mostly technical. (maybe this is the problem? I think they assume the input fields are: renaming "from" and "to" fields without actually reading it.)

Context

I first encountered this myself, then I noticed other users having the same confusion. Then I asked new people to our wiki to rename a page and said nothing, just observed how they would to it. And they were all doing it incorrectly.

We use our wiki for work related things.

Using MoinMoin version 1.7.1 (release), and 1.5.7 (release)

Using default themes: Modern and Modernized.

Windows, Linux, MacOSX: Firefox, Safari

Discussion

Because they were all doing it incorrectly and complained that the renaming fields are really confusing.

• Maybe add an extra field but that is disabled that shows the current page name, exactly next to that field (not below) should be the field for the "new" name. Users can copy paste the old name to the new name if neccessary.
  • that could easily cause formatting problems if the names are rather long
• Other option is to leave the "new name" field blank, but maybe print the current page name as a label not in an input field.

  • I sometimes rename pages to move them to the correct subpage, make some spelling correction or want just to extend the page title a bit. In this case I'm very happy that I can just edit the current page name and hit rename (save my changes). Extrafields with hidden stuff makes the whole stuff more complex then easier.. IMHO, -- MarcelHäfner 2009-04-16 10:27:23.

  • same for me

• Maybe the right aligned labels are confusing, and should be top aligned (above the fields).

I think this is hard to improve. If the users fill out the fields wrong, I guess they didn't read the labels (because "New name" should be rather clear). If we add MORE stuff to read, I am not sure it would improve the situation.

• I'd like you to do an experiment with a few people (preferably technical) that are new to Moin, and ask them to rename a page and see if they can get it right on the first try.

The only thing we could easily do without sacrificing comfort for other users is this:

Old name: CurrentPageName (not editable)
New name: CurrentPageName (editable, but filled out with current pagename to ease fixing typos)
Comment:  _______________

(OTOH "old name" is a bit superfluous, because you see it in the navigation area already...)

This is how TWiki's rename topic looks like:

Change from:
<current page name> (non editable)

To web:
<current web> (does not really apply to moin)

To topic:
<current topic name filled in> (editable)

Notice that there is no field to give a reason.

CategoryUsabilityObservation