Research:Reader Discovery
Wikipedia users are highly varied with different goals, expectations and journeys through the site. This research aims to understand the experience of deep reading, particularly around pain points and unmet needs related to search and discovery experience, of users who visit Wikipedia for more than just an overview or quick fact/answer.
Background & Goals
[edit]Background: Accurate, safe and private access to knowledge is the cornerstone of the Wikimedia Foundation, but the creation of the information is not enough; we also need to provide functionality to discover it. While we’ve collected behavioral data detailing users’ navigation and reading habits, we know less about why readers choose to move through Wikipedia in this way - also called wayfinding.
Study goal: Detail the experiences of visiting Wikipedia to “get an in-depth understanding of the topic” for each of the following three motivations (Source):
- “I have a work or school-related assignment”
- “I need to make a personal decision based on this topic (e.g., buy a book, choose a travel destination)”
- “This topic is important to me and I want to learn more about it (e.g., to learn about a culture)”
by highlighting highs, lows and opportunities for improving mechanisms of discovery and search
Research Questions
[edit]- For deep reading sessions, what are motivations for visiting Wikipedia? What does onsite behavior and wayfinding look like for these sessions?
- What challenges do deep readers face when navigating Wikipedia that are addressable through product iteration and/or net-new features?
- As part of these deep reading journeys, how do information seekers navigate between various on-Wikipedia reading components, but also other Wiki projects as well as external sites?
Approach
[edit]Methods
[edit](1) Internal and external desk research
(2) In-depth interviews (IDI) and task observation
Participants
[edit]Users who self-report visiting Wikipedia 1-2 times in the last week for one of the three chosen motivations “to get an in-depth understanding of the topic.”
Phases & Timeline
[edit]Phase 0: Scoping & Desk Research
Phase 1: Interview Preparation
Phase 2: English IDIs
Phase 3: Non-English IDIs
Phase 4: Interview Analysis & Reporting
Results
[edit]The full report is available for download on Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Understanding_User_Needs_for_Deep_Reading_Report.pdf (PDF, English-only).
Resources
[edit]Annotated bibliography
[edit]
As part of this project, we conducted a brief review of literature related to the topic of deep reading user needs on Wikipedia. These sources included independent research and WMF-sponsored research. For each entry, we included a very brief summary of the source, along with some accompanying commentary as related to the current project. The goal of this work was to both ground the investigation in a survey of past work, and it may also serve as a resource for others studying similar topics. This resource can be accessed here.