Screenshot1

There are, I think, some UI improvements to be made to the reference editor - User:Popcornduff gets credit for these :).

When you first open the reference editor, you're presented with something like screenshot 1, which asks you "What do you want to reference?" If the user is coming to try and add a new reference, this is highly confusing - the first UI element they're presented with prompts them to put time into a series of actions that cannot possibly end with them finding what they want. The cue also doesn't make clear to any user what the search bar is actually doing - filtering existing references. It seems like the blurb here might need changing to align it with what the search bar actually does; "search existing references on this page"?

If you click "create new source", absolutely nothing happens - it's a highlightable element, and after a bit you can puzzle out that it unlocks "create reference", but it's not immediately clear. Still, you end up with it highlighted (see screenshot2). The blurb in "insert reference" is rather confusing; what am I inserting? I'm here to /add/ a new reference, I haven't written it out yet. My suggestion would be to have "create new source" take you straight to the source creation interface using a one-click mechanism, rather than having it free up "insert no references".

Still, you click it, and you get to screenshot3, of a window tagged "reference content". Quoth the user, "Is it reference the verb - am I referencing content here? Or am I giving content to the reference?

What is the Options heading all about, and what does "Use this group" mean?

I have a little window here to type into. I'm not sure what to type. Do I just write out my reference in Wikimarkup and click "Apply changes"? Or do I write them out as if I'm writing a list of references at the end of an essay?

At this point I'm really disappointed. I was hoping to be given a complete list of individual fields to fill out - a box for author, a box for date, a box for date accessed, a box for the title, a box for the URL, and so on - and have this generate the reference nicely for me. Instead, I seem to have the old system in a confusing UI."

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**Version**: unspecified
**Severity**: enhancement
**See Also**:
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51848
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=53590

**Attached**: {F11364}