Wiki :(

[robin1979]

Well, I like the Deutsch page the most. The test page is, like the title suggests, merely a test to try to get it to a sane (in my view, discussion welcome) layout.

The German page is about the way I like it. Some content from the bottom categories needs to go though, there's too much crammed into the main page currently. Also, the 'getting started' needs to be rephrased, it looks way too much like the ten (twelve in this case) commandments, not inviting any new user to read on.

Yeah, the flags.... Turned out a lot less cool then I thought they would be.
For the language support: there is some mechanism to present the user with content in their browsers language (in mediawiki).

The 'Deutsch' layout is clearly the way to go, just the content needs a little cleanup (we really don't want a list with a bazillion issues discouraging new users on the first page). I think we can agree on that one, right?

Sent from my iPad

[waynemcdougall]

Well I was just about to throw in the towel and go Deutsch, but got an email from @Dror.

> I also saw the new wiki -
> and I know some users said it doesn't look good - but I think this is a much
> better display than the previous one. I might chime in and do some work on
> the colors and font sizes, to emphasize the important things.

I've pointed him at this forum topic, but I'm going to hold back a bit. Of course just because he's Waze staff doesn't mean you and I can't tell him he is wrong.

The 'Deutsch' layout is clearly the way to go, just the content needs a little cleanup (we really don't want a list with a bazillion issues discouraging new users on the first page). I think we can agree on that one, right?

Well almost. I don't ant to be disagreeable. Obviously there aren't a bazillion issues. 6-10 in any topic is a good limit (and 6-8 is a better range). I've been categorising and grouping things to do that. Without specifics from you (which I would love), it's hard to comment.

Overall I think that it is important for people to know that Waze is not perfect, but that we are aware of the problems, here are some workarounds, here are things to avoid, and it's being worked on. Maybe that needs to spelled out in a preface. Yes it may put people off. I think more people are put off when they think nothing is being done. Unanswered forum posts, the same questions coming up, the same problems being found. People will find problems.

If they've got as far as the Wiki they show a certain degree of interest. I think they will be put off more by silence, then by warnings of limitations and problems. Better to be forewarned than to meet it in the wild.

Take me. I started Waze. Got a completely empty map. Nothing on it for 2000 miles in any direction. Huh? I didn't have a clue. Pushed some buttons. Tried to route somewhere. Nothing.

6 weeks later I thought I'd struggle through and figure out what was happening. Had no country page for my country, and no maps in my country. Finally found something that explained we make our own maps and how to record roads. Went on from there. Now in top 60 wazers worldwide by points.

Yeah it would have been negative to warn about that on the front page, but boy I would have got started earlier. I very very nearly gave up. It looked defective. No streets at all.

I do hear what you are saying. As I said, I like the way you take negativity away from Banks of Servers. You have a skill and a way with words that I lack Robin. I'm just saying don't make the front page all goodness and light and roses. Not that I think that is entirely your intent. But we can either discuss it, or you go and rewrite with that in mind?

I might go and add some happy little preambles to the sections.

[waynemcdougall]

I'll add a couple of more comments on negativity.

The biggest complaint I see is about people who just turn road recording on and leave it on - especially when their GPS isn't very accurate. Everything is laid out perfectly, and then new roads jaggedly and broken go marching across the city.

Usually by keen and new Wazers. I think it is important to make a big clear warnign to people gettign started, hey don't do this. Its for new roads only.

I'm sure you can word it nicer. But perhaps one Please Do Not has its place

Same deal with editing new roads. Good keen new Wazers. I see this time and again. Add dozens of new roads. Name them. But miss the roads junctions by a few metres. Or don't connect the junctions. Hundreds of roads that look good until you zoom in and see they don't actually connect. Hundreds of roads that have junctions but don't allow turns or only one way. Lots of new roads added that look fine but have no routing or connectivity.

Again if they are so keen to work with Cartouche, I don't think it is too negative to say hey, slow down and lets do this properly and we are all benefiting. If they are adding the roads they will often want to use them themselves. If they don't connect they won't route. And they'll think Waze sucks, rather than "I did a half-assed job". I've seen this happen again and again. We lose Wazers - good potential, because they don't get a 30 second read on how to map edit properly.

Again, maybe it can be worded differently, but sometimes peope need to be told Do Not Touch. High Voltage. Be Careful.

[svache]

I suggest a change back to what it was, a similar design as in all wiki's. The current version looks like, to say it very blunt, as something a 4 year old would've done.

Personally I really don't see why it had to be changed.

I'd really suggest you read http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/Talk:Main_Page

I'd seriously be interested in your response to the points there. As to why it had to be changed: It was unhelpful, unscalable to an increase in countries, languages and activities, unstructured, incomplete, undirected, unclear, inconsistent, unfriendly. And not providing any support or guidance to new users. There were other problems too. But hey, if you think it was better, revert it back.

As to a similar design to all wikis. Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org or http://de.wikipedia.org - all this is covered in the discussion page, but a case can be made - I'm trying to make it, that a front page can be exceptional.

Let me start by saying that it is not the actual information that I didn't like, I agree with your points regarding to the information but that was not my point, it was the looks, the design.

I think, before doing anything with such an impact, you should have opened a thread on the forum to discuss it. Not a discussion on the Wiki as much less people read it (from a quick view on that page you pointed out, I noticed only one person besides you commented there). You get a better reach and response in the forums (just look at this thread for example). The current changes, in my opinion, are similar to working for Waze and changing the webdesign drastically without any colleague knowing, you're bound to get questions when you do that (offtopic: I wouldn't mind to see some professional changes to the website itself though, but that's more from my view as webdeveloper).

Again, I was not after the information on the Wiki, just the looks.

As for both links that you pointed out (the ones in the quote above, not those further down), I like the German version better. The colors make it look a bit cluttered, the German version is more unified and peaceful. Right now it is as if you want to reinvent the wheel, but like Robin also said on the 'talk page', the original way the content mechanism works, works really well.

There's also said something about languages and such. There are a couple of MediaWiki language extensions that work really well with this.

One other problem you might be facing here is the width of the page here. Maybe it would be an idea for Waze to actively break out of the set widths in their Wiki and make it variable to screenwidth (like the original Wiki's do). The current width of the wiki (and I mean the main column, not the navigation pane) is about 745 pixels width, which is just too small for multiple columns with the current font height.

If Waze changes the widths of the Wiki, preferably variable to screensize, then you can easily make a two-column lay-out. But right now, I wouldn't do it as it makes it look a bit unprofessional and cluttered.

a) please consider http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page_Test versus http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/Deutsch
I am NOT happy in the first case with the contents expanding to subcategories - it won't scale and pushes things too far down. It's too many English links at the top.

To be honest, I disagree with you here. The subheadings are actually a great way to quickly find what you need. The less clicks a user has to do, the better the user experience. I might change my view when the list becomes very very long, but right now it doesn't show too many subheaders.

But, now we're on that issue anyways, I'd like to add that the navigation pane on the side is being used too little. The main information should basically be there. When someone is on a sub-subarticle, they shouldn't have to go back all the way to the main page to select another topic and to click their way from there. If you take those 6 main headers, why not put them in the sidebar so people don't have to keep clicking between the articles and mainpage?

As for the discussion further down the topic, putting people off or not with the known issues and such. I think it is a good idea to warn people that Waze is still pretty much learning and that there are known issues. However, I also think we should not put people off. To be honest, in my personal case, I would never have started with Waze if I knew all the known issues beforehand. I would've gone for a different navigation app (I actually still don't use Waze that much for navigation, but more for the social aspect. If I need directions, I rather use my standalone nav device or the Google app since I changed to Android. Waze still cannot be trusted fully). I think it is important to find a balance where we inform people about all the issues, but not as far as to where they're put off to even try Waze. If they want to go deeper into that information, they can always look on different pages within the Wiki.

Also, don't forget that even if the front page of the Wiki shows nothing but known issues, even with big bold letters, you will still see people writing those things in the forums as lots of them don't even bother to check the Wiki. The problem starts also, amongst other things, with the support page itself, it shows little support options. When you then read the technical FAQ, you find only standard information and I can imagine that many users start to think at that point 'never mind the wiki, I'll skip through to the forums'. Also, just look at the forums, many questions have been asked about the same, and even the same questions and such pop up in the same threads. Many people don't bother to read before they post and that is something that cannot be changed easily because it needs a change of themselves.

As for people leaving road recording on, I even see experienced users, and sometimes even area managers do that. It should automatically be turned off when someone exits the Waze app, that way people cannot accidentally leave it on and it would avoid some of the problems. But like you said, it wouldn't hurt to actually inform them about it.

btw, my apologies for the long post

[waynemcdougall]

btw, my apologies for the long post

That's OK. I'll try (but probably fail) to be short in my reply.

I think, before doing anything with such an impact, you should have opened a thread on the forum to discuss it. Not a discussion on the Wiki as much less people read it (from a quick view on that page you pointed out, I noticed only one person besides you commented there). You get a better reach and response in the forums (just look at this thread for example).

Oh piffle.

Firstly, the change to the main proposed alternative can be made by deleting 10 lines from the source. It's not a big deal.

Secondly, a discussion would have done squat. Sometimes you just have to see it.

Yeah, the flags.... Turned out a lot less cool then I thought they would be.

Thirdly I doubt a forum discussions would have done anything. Morlano started one days ago and no one said boo.

I expected people would say something or revert it. So for 2 weeks people get garish colours. At least they see the Wiki is alive and happening, and changing and there's new stuff, and they'll see something they missed before.

And we get to have this discussion.

So since it is so minor and trivial a matter, so easily changed, and since not everyone agrees with you that it is wrong. I still thing my approach was sound.

You may disagree, but I hope you can understand that I'm not completely bat-insane to hold that view.

Sometimes one grasps the nettle, pushes the button and see what happens.

There's also said something about languages and such. There are a couple of MediaWiki language extensions that work really well with this.

That's outside my experience. I'll just comment that you want people with fluency in more than one language to be able to think "hey, I can help with translating here". If you only saw the French, you might never think to help translate the German. Just a thought. I'm sure it has its place, buit is it available now?

You want me to experiment?

One other problem you might be facing here is the width of the page here. Maybe it would be an idea for Waze to actively break out of the set widths in their Wiki and make it variable to screenwidth (like the original Wiki's do). The current width of the wiki (and I mean the main column, not the navigation pane) is about 745 pixels width, which is just too small for multiple columns with the current font height.

If Waze changes the widths of the Wiki, preferably variable to screensize, then you can easily make a two-column lay-out. But right now, I wouldn't do it as it makes it look a bit unprofessional and cluttered.

Well there's a thought. Maybe @Dror can help there. Based on your experience with Mediawiki can you suggest what they need to change? Coz I think that's both a good idea, and achievable.

And if so, maybe we should hold off on any more layout changes until that is resolved one way or another?

To be honest, I disagree with you here. The subheadings are actually a great way to quickly find what you need. The less clicks a user has to do, the better the user experience. I might change my view when the list becomes very very long, but right now it doesn't show too many subheaders.

But that was only with one section given sub-headings. Previously it took many clicks just to get to see all of the table of contents. I really don't think we want to go down a track that doesn't scale.

It does make it harder. Think. With a table of contents with no subs, you have a choice of six items - one click to get to the area you want, and then you should see it all.

With sub items, there is more reading, scrolling, and you don't see it all at a glance.

Plus it's just annoying clutter for people not speaking English. And it pushes the Language option down.

I think @Robin1979 agrees on this point.

Which just goes to show that kind, intelligent people who love Waze and want the best for it and their users don't always agree. Or so I like to think.

But, now we're on that issue anyways, I'd like to add that the navigation pane on the side is being used too little. The main information should basically be there. When someone is on a sub-subarticle, they shouldn't have to go back all the way to the main page to select another topic and to click their way from there. If you take those 6 main headers, why not put them in the sidebar so people don't have to keep clicking between the articles and mainpage?

Now who's being radical. Hmmm. I don't know if you noticed that I tried to at least make Current Events and Community Portal have something relevant. yes it needs more content but I'm typing as fast as my wife will let me.

I suppose we should get super clever, have the side bar show the content automatically in the rigth language and link them to that section on their own language page....Hmmm, maybe not. We canm tell their language but not which country. So unless we go
[Map Editing in French} which then links to
Map Editing
* France
* Canada
* Belgium
* Switzerland
* Vanuatu

Dunno. May still be easier to let them choose their country manually.

Good ideas though. Time to download Mediawiki and do some mockups. Unless @Dror warns me not to bother.

I know. This is just a cunning plan to keep me off Waze wiki....

As for the discussion further down the topic, putting people off or not with the known issues and such. I think it is a good idea to warn people that Waze is still pretty much learning and that there are known issues. However, I also think we should not put people off. To be honest, in my personal case, I would never have started with Waze if I knew all the known issues beforehand. I would've gone for a different navigation app (I actually still don't use Waze that much for navigation, but more for the social aspect. If I need directions, I rather use my standalone nav device or the Google app since I changed to Android. Waze still cannot be trusted fully). I think it is important to find a balance where we inform people about all the issues, but not as far as to where they're put off to even try Waze. If they want to go deeper into that information, they can always look on different pages within the Wiki.

So many times people say they would just like to be told what was going on. Then they would understand. But people like. They say that, but some people run off at the first sign of trouble. But would they stick with Waze anyway.

I'm open to change, but can we discuss it. Or follow my lead and just make it, and then I'll argue about it.

I rely on waze exclusively and find it better than Tomtom. I use Tomtom if I'm goign where Waze has no maps, but that changes after I've been there.

Also, don't forget that even if the front page of the Wiki shows nothing but known issues, even with big bold letters, you will still see people writing those things in the forums as lots of them don't even bother to check the Wiki. The problem starts also, amongst other things, with the support page itself, it shows little support options. When you then read the technical FAQ, you find only standard information and I can imagine that many users start to think at that point 'never mind the wiki, I'll skip through to the forums'. Also, just look at the forums, many questions have been asked about the same, and even the same questions and such pop up in the same threads. Many people don't bother to read before they post and that is something that cannot be changed easily because it needs a change of themselves.

True but....

My aim is to make the Wiki the 100% complete definitive uptodate source on everything Waze. That when people ask in the forum, the answer is a link to the section in the Wiki. That the Wiki is chosen by Waze to be the first port of call on their support page.

Also people haven't been checking the Wiki because it has been, well not useless, but incomplete. Just read a forum post from July about disconnecting roads. Someone answered. Wow, was the reply. This is great.Why isn't it in the Wiki? Reply: well you could add it now.

Neither of them did. It's there now, by me.

And to link this altogether, you may like a table of contents. For many people it puts them to sleep. Languages and Countries / Getting Started hits them in the face. Not another bland table of contents. Go to the Wiki. See it's got something to get me started, and more advanced stuff further down I can come back to later.

[waynemcdougall]

Summary of some goods ideas for the attention of @Dror

1. Make the Wiki the first link on the Support page, so people don't fall asleep during the Technical Faq and give up on support. Also get @svache to redesign whole website for free.

2. Change the Mediawiki so the main panel isn't fixed in width but will expand to screen size. This is because the Wiki is being enclosed by the main waze website content division. If you can make a special case for the Wiki to run free to the borders, it would be appreciated.

3. Have a rethink on the side navigation panels. Just maybe instead of
* Main Page
* Community portal
* Current events
* Recent changes
* Random page
* Help

We have
* Your Country and Language
* Getting Started with Waze
* Help Improve Waze
* Map Editing
* Known Problems and Issues
* Waze Development Plans
* Technical

If we can do this or some refined variant, it opens up other design options for the main page.

4. Someone smart (failing that, me) is going to think about Language extensions.

[waynemcdougall]

I'd appreciate any comments on:

http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php?titl ... kin=myskin

http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php?titl ... kin=modern

http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php?titl ... ologneblue

[unwallflower]

a) please consider http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page_Test versus http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/Deutsch
I am NOT happy in the first case with the contents expanding to subcategories - it won't scale and pushes things too far down. It's too many English links at the top.

To be honest, I disagree with you here. The subheadings are actually a great way to quickly find what you need. The less clicks a user has to do, the better the user experience. I might change my view when the list becomes very very long, but right now it doesn't show too many subheaders.

This. I think subheadings are a must.

To be honest, as a user, I don't care much about having an EXTRA brief table of contents. I would rather be able to get to the information I need in one click rather than two or three. More efficient, and less chances of me getting distracted by something else along the way.

Now I'm not saying that I think that everything should have a heading or a subheading, or that subheadings should have subheadings which have their own subheadings (you get my point). I'm just saying that sometimes trying to oversimplify things actually ends up making them more complicated.

[waynemcdougall]

This. I think subheadings are a must.

My honest reaction: You are crazy. But I know that you are an intelligent, valuable contributor to these forums. I think you have been deceived by the version of http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page_Test which was a very incomplete test. It has now been completed to the expectations of people here in this forum. Have a loo at it now. You may think it extreme. It is just what people have asked for in every way. Having said that people have said they want to trim the fat. No one will say what though because everyone wants their own part to stay.

I'll say this again:
1You just need one click to get to the topic you want. Really people, OK, I know you have accused me of trying to reinvent the table of contents. Perhaps you are right. Well what is wrong with that. Click on the main heading. Then you can click on the subtopic link there. Or in most cases just read it directly if it is short.

Remember usability. Most people don't click links. Front page is all they will see. You're asking them to scroll through pages of tables of contents.

One click and there's a good chance they have the information they want in front of their eyes.

You are wanting to read screeds of information that is of no relevance, and may not be their native language. This is wrong.

If you're going to insist on a table of contents, at least go to the six topic areas. Like http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/Deutsch

At any event, maybe we should look at getting an administrator to edit http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php?titl ... ction=edit to our specifications.

To be honest, as a user, I don't care much about having an EXTRA brief table of contents. I would rather be able to get to the information I need in one click rather than two or three.

The table of contents with sub levels being asked for would add to the number of clicks. 6 topics - one click. Done.

Now I'm not saying that I think that everything should have a heading or a subheading, or that subheadings should have subheadings which have their own subheadings (you get my point). I'm just saying that sometimes trying to oversimplify things actually ends up making them more complicated.

Yes but look at the page before the redesign http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php?titl ... oldid=4101

Everyone's link is important. People are demanding that all their links be on the front page. That they all be in the table of contents. It will grow like topsy turvy. Wait until different languages want subheadings too.

Think about it. Me, I'm still thinking "crazy". But in a kind and caring way.

Finally, do look at
http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php?titl ... kin=modern

[unwallflower]

I disagree that the front page is all most people will see. I think that the main point you and I disagree on is perhaps one of the most important: what is the purpose of the wiki?

I think that it is there to make the necessary information easily accessible to waze's users. They key words here (for me, this is all my opinion) are easily accessible. The average user is going to get frustrated if they have to hunt for what they are looking for. Heck, I'm a heavy user and I got so frustrated this morning while trying to find useful information for another member that I gave up.

My feelings about this probably stem from the fact that I'm a very logical, linear thinker. If I'm presented with a lot of information at once (the way things are right now, or that last link you posted), I'm not going to bother sifting through it to find what I want (which is exactly what happened this morning). I work quickly. My time is valuable to me. If I feel that something is going to slow down my work flow, I avoid it unless it is something absolutely necessary.