- Monday: Product Support & Stars
- Tuesday: User Generated Content (UGC) Team
- Wednesday: User Experience Team
- Thursday: Engagement Team
- Friday: Ad Experience Improvements
This year's Community Connect, with the theme "Gears of Progress," was a collaborative event where Fandom Staff, admins, and editors worked together to shape the platform's future. This teamwork led to new initiatives like the first in-person Hackathon and the Virtual Community Connect experience. Now, Fandom is launching "Progress in the Making," a blog series that showcases the real changes made based on community feedback, including new features and tools. The series invites continued input from the community to help keep improving the platform.
Over the past few months, I have been on a bit of a decluttering spree. As my family and I change & grow, I have been trying to sort through ‘’stuff’’ and cut down to things I really need. Marie Kondo’s book took over my life a few years ago, & I am still asking myself if something still sparks joy.
Our lovely chaos goblin, Elsa, won’t let me get rid of any of her old toys. Can a dog be a pack rat?
I realized recently that this declutter and reorganization movement I have been on is a bit similar to what our mission for UX has been at Fandom for the past year. As I go through things, I realize I am making more of a mess than I started with. I go back and forth about where I should put something, but then, no, I don’t like it there, so it should go here, etc. It isn’t until I have figured out what needs to stay and where it should go until I finally find the space that I need.
We are in a similar stage with experimenting in our UX roadmap, so I want to take this opportunity to go over where we are coming from in UX, where the roadmap is taking us, and where we are not.
Acknowledging Our Growing Pains & Charting a New Course[]
Over time, our mobile and desktop experiences have become cluttered. We recognize that this has made it harder for everyone to find what they need quickly and easily. We want to try to find the balance of showcasing what communities have created in ways that are engaging for all kinds of fans and things like ads to make sure we can keep our lights on.
Our priority is to reorganize. We're rethinking the entire user experience to create a platform that empowers you to dive deep into the stories you love, while also making it simpler for casual fans to discover new information. We recognize that there's a big difference between someone who edits daily (remember to stay hydrated and take breaks!) and someone who visits just a few pages for specific details, so we are aiming to provide the best experience for each fan.
Your Values as Our North Star[]
At Community Connect 2024, you shared your vision for the future of our wiki, emphasizing four key values that are guiding our every decision:
- Get in balance: We're striking an equilibrium between providing rich, engaging experiences and ensuring those experiences don't overwhelm or detract from the content itself. We’re looking at the widgets available now and getting a better understanding of how users interact with them and how they can better showcare articles, rather than distract from them.
- Return to basics: We're re-evaluating every feature, prioritizing core functionalities. A big goal for this is to condense space used for widgets, ads, and other features to have less interruption in the wiki article.
- Transform & extend: We want to innovate. We're exploring new ways to make wikis more dynamic, interactive, and engaging, while always staying true to the spirit of our community.
- Story is king: We're focused on designing a platform that celebrates and elevates the incredible content that you create, ensuring it remains front and center.
Where We are: A Collaborative Effort[]
We're not just talking about change; we're actively experimenting with new approaches to address the clutter and find that sweet but difficult balance. This means testing out different layouts, widgets, and navigation options to create a more intuitive and enjoyable experience for everyone.
Our team is experimenting with new ideas to declutter and simplify the platform, while also creating dedicated spaces for new features. These experiments include the Mobile Drawer and the Desktop Drawer, which are being tested with logged-out users. We want to create a dedicated space for widgets that clearly stands out visually. This will improve the experience for users who are reading an article and looking for quick information. Currently, some widgets, like Recent Images and Others Like You Viewed, are located in the Right Rail, while the Fan Feed is at the bottom of the article. This scattered placement is confusing, sometimes driftng into user created content, so we want to consolidate them into a single, easily identifiable area without interrupting the article.
Why focus on widgets? Widgets offer users a visual way to interact with article content and encourage readers to explore other pages. They enhance the overall user experience by providing additional, relevant information without overwhelming the reader.
Widgets and the home we’re building may not be for every user, & we understand that. We also aim to find the best approach for users who are exploring a topic in-depth and may not want to see the same drawer after viewing multiple pages. By considering the needs of both types of users, we can determine the optimal solution for each scenario.
Once we find that home, our focus will be on refining existing widgets and introducing new ones to enhance user experience. Our current widgets may not cater to everyone's needs, so we aim to gain a deeper understanding of what works best. Additionally, we are planning to develop interactive modules that will allow users to engage with wiki content, fostering a more immersive and interactive environment.
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If you are logged out, you may already have seen some of these experiments and may have seen more in the coming weeks and months. If you do, please send us your feedback! We are experimenting to find what works for both the user and Fandom, so we want to hear what you think.
We're committed to making our wiki a place where everyone feels welcome, whether they're a one-time visitor or a dedicated contributor.
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