User blog:Brandon Rhea/Wiki Modernization: Videos on Mobile Devices

Wiki Modernization has brought a number of exciting changes to Fandom. Featured wiki videos have been introduced on many of our top communities, giving us the opportunity to test the removal of some ads from the site. So far, Wiki Modernization has focused on desktop, but now it's time to start bringing these updates to mobile web.

Last week we released the first version of wiki videos on mobile web. These were for the rare cases where a page has a wiki video but no infobox, such as the Skills page on Mass Effect Wiki. Beginning on Thursday, May 18th you will also be able to watch mobile wiki videos when they live on pages that have an infobox.

What Do Mobile Videos Look Like?
So how will mobile videos work?


 * Mobile pages without an infobox. In these cases, the video appears at the top of the page in a featured placement. Once you begin to scroll, the video remains fixed at the top of the page at a smaller size until you dismiss it. This behavior is the mobile web equivalent of the video minimizing into the bottom right corner of the page on desktop.
 * Mobile pages with a Portable Infobox. When a page has a wiki video and a Portable Infobox, the video is embedded directly into the infobox and placed under the image. This has been designed in a way to ensure that the video fits smoothly into the infobox and looks like a natural part of its content. When you begin scrolling, the video will remain fixed at the top of the page until you dismiss it.
 * Mobile pages with non-Portable Infoboxes. In these cases, the video adopts the behavior of mobile web pages without an infobox. Here the video will appear at the top of the page and will remain fixed when you scroll.

Here's a preview of how the videos will look on mobile web:



Autoplay and Wi-Fi
One of the concerns users have expressed is whether or not the autoplay feature on videos will impact performance, and we're ensuring that they will not. On mobile we will only enable auto-play if your device is connected to a wi-fi network. That way your mobile bandwidth will not be eaten up by auto-playing videos.

We also believe in giving users a choice about whether they want to continue seeing autoplay videos. On desktop we will give all users, logged in and logged out, the option to disable autoplay. This setting will be saved for a certain period and when it expires you can enable it again if you so choose. If this desktop test is successful, we may introduce it on mobile as well.

What Are the Next Steps?
Bringing videos to mobile web is a big step in making sure that Wiki Modernization is consistent on all platforms. As we move forward we are continuing our work on building the final version of the page and article header redesign, which we will introduce onto mobile after the desktop version is completed. We are also gearing up for our new ad reduction tests this month, and those tests will be introduced on mobile in the near-future as well.

Take a look at the mobile site tomorrow and check out some of the wiki videos that are already live. If you have any questions about our continued progress on Wiki Modernization, please let us know in the comments!