Fundraising 2009/Donation buttons upgrade

Please add comments and questions to the discussion page. Rand Montoya 21:18, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Intro to Donation Button and Messaging Project

We have begun exploring ideas for enhancing the visibility of the donate button not only within the Wikimedia main skin but also on every page of every Wikimedia project. We hope that enhancement will enable us to better inform our public that we are dependent on their donations as we promote the free and open knowledge movement. We expect that a small change to the Wikimedia main skin will result in big returns in donations -- donations we use to keep the Wikimedia movement alive and growing. I expect that in return for a bit of enhanced visibility, we will see a daily increase of up to 20% in donations.

The objective here is to take the average Wikimedia user and get them to recognize we are a non-profit and that our future depends on their donations. How can we better show our users that we are a charity?

Initial Results

You can find the comments and initial designs from the earlier discussion here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2009/Donation_buttons_upgrade/Round1.

Results:

1. We will be testing 4 button designs in August for comparison and discussion.
2. We will not be making any changes to the article text at this time.
3. We will be using the phrase "Donate Now" for our donation button.

What's Next? Timeline

In short, next we would like to test 4 button designs on the Wikipedia:en skin for one week each.

The current timeline looks like this:

(Update #2: Due to other, newer technical problems, we have delayed the start of the project. When I have new timeline, I will post such here. Apologies. Rand Montoya 21:13, 16 September 2009 (UTC))

(UPDATE: Due to other, newer technical considerations, we are pushing the start of this project until after Wikimania, the second week of September. Rand Montoya 20:54, 19 August 2009 (UTC))

(Note: This time line was updated on 8/16/09...we had some additional technical tests to run. Rand Montoya 23:39, 17 August 2009 (UTC))

1. Update, design, and code four actual working skins for testing. See below. (July 17, 2009)
2. Develop software for automatically inserting button into different skins. Currently being tested on our donation development site. (July 17, 2009)
3. Work with Usability Team [1] to assure potential integration into the future usability project (July 17, 2009).
4. Implement tracking and "hide" code for buttons. (July 24, 2009)
5. Test all designs on our donation development site. (July 31, 2009)
6. Post current data on current week's WP:en donation button results for the time period of July 25 to July 31, 2009 and August 1 to August 7, 2009. (July 31, 2009 and August 9, 2009)
7. Testing and implementation cushion. (August 12th, 2009)
8. Tentative 3 week testing plan: (September 9th 2009 - September 30th, 2009)
   1. The 4 designs will go up concurrently for the 3 week period.
   2. Using the Fundraiser Portal extension we will randomly surface one of four available buttons to all of our users.
   3. Each button will have a 25% chance for each new visitor of being shown and a browser cookie will be set to only show that one button during the full trial.
   4. Visitors without cookies or Javascript will show no change to the WP:EN and will not see any button.
   5. We will post the results on a weekly basis.
9. Return to plain WP:en skin on September 9th and review of results and discussion. (October 1, 2009)
10. Plan implementation of phased rollout on all wikimedia projects. (October 6, 2009)
11. Implement final button on Wikimedia sites. (October 12, 2009)

Buttons to be tested

• 
  #1: File:ruby button.png
• #2: File:blue button.png
  #2: File:blue button.png
• 
  #3: File:ruby text.png
• 
  #4: File:tourmaline text.png

Results

Button	Date Range	Clicks/Hits	Donations	Conversion Rate	Total USD	Average Donation Amount
WP Default	July 25 to July 31	501	29	5.79%	$957.40	$33.01
WP Default	August 1 to August 7	396	46	11.70%	$700.31	$15.22
Button 1	August 18 to September 7
Button 2	August 18 to September 7
Button 3	August 18 to September 7
Button 4	August 18 to September 7