Wikimania

Submissions/Desktop is not dead: the future of Wikimedia product development

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This is an accepted submission for Wikimania 2015.

Submission no.
3009
Title of the submission
Desktop is not dead: the future of Wikimedia product development
Type of submission (discussion, hot seat, panel, presentation, tutorial, workshop)
Presentation
Author of the submission
Dan Garry
E-mail address
deskana@wikimedia.org
Username
wmf:User:Deskana (WMF)
Country of origin
United Kingdom United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland / Ireland / United States United States of America
Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.)
Wikimedia Foundation
Personal homepage or blog
wmf:User:Deskana (WMF)
Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

Note: This talk may be in the "Technology, Interface & Infrastructure", but it's intended for a nontechnical audience.

The number of page views per month on desktop is flat. Meanwhile, page views per month on mobile is growing, particularly in the developing world. In contrast to the above, the vast majority of the content consumed by our readers, on desktop and mobile alike, is produced by users on desktop computers. What does this mean for where we decide to expend our effort? Should we be trying to boost readership on desktop and make it easier to write articles on mobile? Or can we allocate our resources smarter than that?

The Wikimedia Foundation Product Development Team is tasked with deciding what products we build. In order to do this, we have to understand the needs of our users, create and analyse data that tells us what is working and what is not, and perform analysis of market trends to understand the reason why users use our website. We are a cross-functional, inter-disciplinary team that works with Engineering, User Experience Design, Analytics, Communications, Legal, Community Engagement, and others, to see products through from idea to release.

In this talk, I will describe the way that the Wikimedia Foundation Product Development Team is thinking about our products. I will talk about the entire ecosystem of the Wikimedia products, and how they relate to each other. I will elaborate on how making a good mobile app doesn't mean simply scaling down desktop to fit into a mobile screen, and how certain tasks (e.g. long-form editing) are by definition suited to certain platforms. I will explain the rationale for our ongoing work on desktop, mobile web, and mobile apps, so that Wikimedians can understand why we have allocated our resources in the way that we have. Finally, I will take questions and host a discussion about what Wikimania attendees think the future of Wikimedia product development should be.

Track
Technology, Interface & Infrastructure
Length of session (if other than 30 minutes, specify how long)
30 minutes (can go longer if the Programme Committee wants)
Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?
Unknown
Slides or further information (optional)
Special requests


Interested attendees

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  1. Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:36, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Jaredzimmerman (WMF) (talk) 09:06, 23 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Thryduulf (talk) 07:00, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Mrjohncummings (talk) 15:08, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  5. MSchottlender-WMF (talk) 05:56, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  6. I JethroBT (talk) 20:09, 26 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  7. --Jcornelius (talk) 21:02, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Tar Lócesilion (talk) 02:40, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  9. CT Cooper · talk 17:48, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Ocaasi (talk) 16:58, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 14:40, 6 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Varnent (talk) 22:07, 8 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 06:20, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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