Board Thread:New Features/@comment-126761-20161201193306/@comment-126761-20170216201726

It's been a little while since we've posted about this test, so it's time for an update!

The quick summary is: later this week, we will be retiring this page header test concept and removing it from all wikis where it's currently displayed. To be clear, this was always the plan. It's part of an incremental approach to product development and releases to help us better gather your feedback and learn from tests.

What have we learned?
First, thanks to everyone who sent us feedback and to the wikis that tested this prototype. We received lots of interesting ideas and data as a result.

In particular, analysis of the data showed us that this restyled page header had a lower rate of user interaction than the existing version. However, this had no effect on overall page views and interaction. We measured interaction here by comparing the clicks on the page header to the rest of the page, as well as on a broader scale to see if these changes made any difference in overall page views. This is to make sure that, as we test the page header, we don't hurt interaction on the rest of the page.

Data historically shows that search and in-content links are the most frequently used method for navigating throughout a wiki. This remained true during the test. So while we didn't see an uptick in overall interaction, it didn't go down either. This is a good piece of data to have, because it shows us that smart change is not a bad thing for the page header.

Previous A/B tests have shown us that simple styling updates and usability adjustments to the existing navigation can improve interaction rates, so we're still confident that there's room for improvements to make it a more modern-looking and useful navigation tool.

What's next?
We'll be looking at alternative concepts for the page header in the coming weeks, and we'll talk more about that when we have something to share. We'll also talk a bit more about it in an upcoming blog post about how we are approaching product development moving forward. That includes discussing what we've learned from tests, how we're using feedback like what you gave us here, and why we do or don't take certain pieces of feedback into account when we make decisions.

Of course, if you have additional feedback on this test concept, please let us know!