Text Editors Default Setting
Problem to Solve
In 16.2 groupknowledge released the rich text editor. With this, users can now choose between leveraging Markdown or a WYSIWYG editor in GitLab. When a user submits a comment using an editor, either plain or rich text, that editor is default carried over throughout the project. The rich text editor is not defaulted on. As a result long-time GitLab users, who had to leverage the plain text, might not realize they have additional options. This is a problem as some actions using the plain text editor, like creating tables, can be frustrating for users.
This is evidenced from the data we have collected in Tableau. While the numbers have gone up in the last 1 year, it isn't so significant, especially in Wikis, where RTE was first introduced.
Collected data
Referencing stats from RTE usage:
Product Area | Editor Type Used | September 2023 | October 2023 | November 2023 | December 2023 | January 2024 | February 2024 | March 2024 | April 2024 | May 2024 | June 2024 | July 2024 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Epics* |
markdown_editor | 82.28% | 80.67% | 79.75% | 78.25% | 78.13% | 77.73% | 75.15% | 73.65% | 72.28% | 71.76% | 71.31% |
rich_text_editor | 17.72% | 19.33% | 20.25% | 21.75% | 21.87% | 22.27% | 24.85% | 26.35% | 27.72% | 28.24% | 28.69% | |
Issues | markdown_editor | 86.23% | 86.04% | 85.20% | 84.57% | 84.13% | 83.31% | 82.81% | 81.65% | 81.32% | 81.05% | 80.37% |
rich_text_editor | 13.77% | 13.96% | 14.80% | 15.43% | 15.87% | 16.69% | 17.19% | 18.35% | 18.68% | 18.95% | 19.63% | |
MergeRequests | markdown_editor | 89.92% | 89.51% | 89.10% | 88.91% | 88.50% | 88.10% | 87.81% | 87.52% | 87.19% | 87.03% | 86.80% |
rich_text_editor | 10.08% | 10.49% | 10.90% | 11.09% | 11.50% | 11.90% | 12.19% | 12.48% | 12.81% | 12.97% | 13.20% | |
Wikis | markdown_editor | 93.50% | 93.58% | 93.55% | 94.00% | 93.79% | 93.49% | 93.69% | 93.59% | 93.40% | 93.25% | 92.70% |
rich_text_editor | 6.50% | 6.42% | 6.45% | 6.00% | 6.21% | 6.51% | 6.31% | 6.41% | 6.60% | 6.75% | 7.30% | |
Others* |
markdown_editor | 100.00% | 93.02% | 73.49% | 77.50% | 74.19% | 77.00% | 78.35% | 73.63% | 67.33% | 73.12% | 67.65% |
rich_text_editor | 0% | 6.98% | 26.51% | 22.50% | 25.81% | 23.00% | 21.65% | 26.37% | 32.67% | 26.88% | 32.35% |
* Not statistically significant, since the sample set is quite low.
I created a copy of the workbook since I don't have write access to original one: https://10az.online.tableau.com/t/gitlab/authoring/TextEditorUsagebyProductAreaHimanshuscopy/ByCategoryUserCounts#1
Original workbook: https://10az.online.tableau.com/#/site/gitlab/views/TextEditorUsagebyProductArea/ByCategoryUserCounts
Proposed Solution and Outline of Steps
We want to test enabling the Rich Text Editor for users by Default behind a feature flag. This could be with a fairly small amount of users to begin with (<5%). After enabling by default we can then measure if this is having a statistical impact on RTE usage (which we can view in Tableau).
We hope enabling the RTE by default will improve user experience in interacting with GitLab, especially for non-technical users, and raise awareness around the availability of the RTE.