“Wikipedia is like God, it’s always there,” said a user being tested at Webitects’ office on East Adams and State in Chicago last week. Webitects is researching how users respond to over 15 different Wikipedia donation form designs. Their goal is to increase conversion rates of clicks to actual cold, hard cash donations on the Wikipedia website. Webitects is known for their user-based research, specifically on Obama campaign software, as well as for Children’s Memorial Hospital, CREDO Mobile, and Models for Change, a national initiative to accelerate reform of juvenile justice systems across the country.

This user’s comment is exactly why this type of research is crucial to the future of Wikipedia. Many of us assume that Wikipedia is an omnipotent tower of strength that is worth millions, even billions, of dollars, when in reality they survive on only $10 million per year. With 78 million US users monthly, 350-400 million users worldwide and only 1 in 5,000 of those users donating money, even a conversion rate increase of half a percent could raise their budget and funds by millions of dollars and allow Wikipedia to survive, perhaps even thrive.

Generally speaking, Paul and Billy explained, the larger the site, the more important the clarity of the user experience. With a small organization, the design of transaction forms may be restricted by packaged solutions and the total revenue loss doesn’t seem enough to do a lot of fine-tuning. However, given the size of Wikipedia and its need for funds, it is imperative that the user interface confuse the fewest number of people.

This is the first time in the decade that Wikipedia has been alive (it virtually is a living and breathing website, let’s be honest) that anyone has seriously researched the impact of the donation form design. And who better to ask than the people who use Wikipedia?

In order to find the right people, Webitects sent out email blasts, tweeted and posted on a few relevant websites, saying:

“We’re not looking for designer and developer “geeks”–like most of you–but rather, “average” web users. Please pass this along to others you work with, or know, who are not web “experts.” They’ll have an interesting experience to share with friends.”

Wikipedia also connected with about 250 previous donors in the Chicago area.

The entire research process for each individual took from 20 to 30 minutes using an atypical, open-ended format. Each user went through 3–5 screens for a donation process. Each page had separate payment options using different variations on the same theme. Webitects focused on qualitative testing and contextual inquiry. For the next step, Wikipedia flashes the forms up on Thursday afternoons for one hour to do quantitative testing on the best-performing forms from Webitects’ research. Finally, during a two month period, mid-November to mid-January, the study will literally pay off when Wikipedia launches banners and new forms on the site.

Webitects findings are fascinating.

One of the major issues they were trying to solve is how to balance the presentation of two payment flows–PayPal vs. credit card. They found that users are mostly split into two separate camps – PayPal lovers and PayPal haters. The PayPal lovers generally feel that PayPal is quick, easy, secure, and less hassle. The PayPal haters typically distrust PayPal because a family member had a bad experience, they don’t understand it, or they don’t believe that security is tight enough.

They found that if the Credit Card logos are larger than the PayPal logos, the PayPal lovers tend to ignore the donation form altogether and skip giving money. The same goes for prominent PayPal logos affecting the PayPal haters group. After going through approximately 15–18 forms with different arrangements, they discovered that with radio buttons of equal size for PayPal and Credit Card logos, presented on one line, users were most likely to donate.

It’s basic, but revolutionary – connect to the users and find out what they do in the context of a website. Webitects certainly has the right idea.

Take a peek this Thursday afternoon on Wikipedia.org and look for their donation form. We’ll be following up in a couple of weeks to check on more of their findings.