This page discusses usability of the MoinMoin wiki. Usability is very important for wikis because the users create the content, which in turn makes the wiki useful. Usability by first time users is especially important for wiki adoption since the utility of the wiki will be lowest when there are the most first time users (because of a lack of content). The perceived cost/benefit of a low-utility, difficult-to-use system could turn off new users.

Schema

To prevent this from being a hodgepodge of observations and to make it open for others to add to, we should agree on a schema for the data that goes here. Ideally this would be the usability version of MoinBenchmarks. What are the equivalent tables and fields?

We need some user categories. For instance, I have lots of technical users who aren't computer programmers (by today's standards). (They graduated in the 60's and programmed with punchcards, but are pretty sure python is a kind of snake.) What are the user categories? Technical/non-technical, programmer/non-programmer, first time user/experienced users, etc. Others?

What about wiki activities? Account creation, logging in, navigating, editing, attaching files, etc.

We'll also need the observations themselves. I'm guessing this will tie together the user categories and activities with some plain text describing the issue. Is there any computer interface standard for doing this stuff?

How you can help


see also http://openusability.org


CategoryDiscussion

MoinMoin: UsabilityObservationDiscussion (last edited 2007-10-29 19:20:56 by localhost)