Readers are interested in finding content they are looking for. Styling based improvements on special:search page are focused on helping readers get a visually inviting experience that makes scanning and finding content on the special:search page easier. This is integrated in the existing user flow: a user gets to the special:search page after, for example, doing a search in the go bar and not getting an exact article match.

Use Cases

As a casual reader, I want to have an inviting search experience to
-Be able to assess relevance of results
-Easily scan search results
To find content that I am looking for.

Requirements

• Users see improved Special:search UI as per Design Brief: Special:Search and initial designs (see description/requirements below)
• Users should only see what is useful for them in clicking through to an article
• Users should understand what each metadata item is about
• [TBD:] "Create new page/ article not found" text does not give impression of a failed flow [investigation task T306554]
• No regression for contributors – i.e. no automated workflows are broken; all results (meta)data still available for advanced users
• Basic improvements are done progressively for all wikis pending community approval

Product design scope (see designs designs):

• Adding thumbnails to search results: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T306883
• Restyling metadata: File size/Word count/date https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T306885
• Improve general layout of the page https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T306884
• Snippets https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T306884
• Surface sections of articles whenever the snippet shown is from a section https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T306886
• [OUT OF SCOPE] Collapsing advanced search (NTH) https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T307041