Generative Research
FINDING 20: People are increasingly getting information online, then consuming or sharing it offline. [1]
Based on research, the following user story is focused on
User Story
As a user, I want the ability to save a soft copy of an article from my mobile phone that I can read/share offline
Problem statement
Currently, when I print>pdf an article on mobilefrontend, the pdf is difficult to read and has issues around images
- Text is unreadable without zooming in
- Missing elements like article title, images etc
- No branding or indication the content came from wikipedia
- Bad typography
Here's how the pdf looks relatively on a big phone
Here's the actual print>pdf
Workflow
User uses print option to export pdf of an article. We will focus on android platform level implementation of print>pdf. The research also suggests android has significantly larger penetration in the areas we are focusing [1]
- User selects to print page from their browser
- User selects to save page as PDF
- System saves PDF to user’s download folder
- PDF displays with updated print styles
Acceptance criteria
Each printed article must contain the following:
- Title
- Wiki wordmark
- Images
- If an image has not yet been loaded due to lazy loading - no GAP must appear where the image is expected to be
- Formulas and symbols must not be lazily loaded
- Page number
- Link to original article
- Last edited date
- Licensing
- All tables in a readable format (readable as determined by Nirzar in the mockups)
- Link to desktop version of print
- Be in legal size format
- Mobilefrontend on tablet should use desktop print styles. not the mobile print styles
Articles must not contain:
- Disambiguation notes (ex: This article is about 2-dimensional Euclidean space. For the general theory of 2D objects, see Surface (mathematics))
- Article notes (ex: main article, see also, further information, redirects, etc - these are currently stripped from the desktop print version)
- Links to other articles appearing in black, styled as normal text
- Every template currently stripped in desktop printing should be stripped for the mobile version
Style must be available (and tested on) for phones and tables on (at least) the following browsers:
- Chrome (iOS and Android)
- Android browser
- Safari
- Firefox (iOS and Android)
- IE Mobile
- Microsoft Edge
- Opera Mobile
- Opera Mini
- UC Browser
Design
Goals
- Improve readability of print>pdf on mobile
- Improve typography
- Include wikipedia branding
- Fix bug for lazy loading images not showing up in Print
- Fix bug for article title not showing up in Print
- persist desktop print styles for mobilefrontend on tablets
Enabling the experimental print styles
- Enable wgMinervaPrintStyles to true
- Verify when printing that the print styles apply
Notes
- there will be no user interface change to mediawiki for this project. the first set of tasks is around fixing the browser-level print>pdf
- The base assumption of doing this change is that users print>pdf to read later and not to actually print from their phones