Discoverability boost: search, API accessibility, and aliases

WikiRate Insights Series

The WikiRate Insights project kicked off in March 2021 — an NLnet-supported endeavour to improve the usability of the WikiRate platform and boost the reuse of our open source code.

A number of enhancements have already been added to the platform and we’re excited to share the latest on how the project is progressing.

What has been done so far?

• Proposal to enhance our search functionality: We have defined the technical specifications needed for a comprehensive search solution, incorporating search-engine-like capacities customized to help users navigate the platform.
• Improved API discoverability and accessibility: An API is an interface that allows two applications to talk to each other. They are a vital way for us to share and receive data in an automated fashion. It is now possible for users to easily find, generate and regenerate API keys, and access pre-populated API calls for retrieving JSON Web Tokens through their profile pages. Check out the documentation on github.
• Aliases: On WikiRate, all major content types — including companies, metrics, projects, topics, and company groups — can be renamed. All name changes are tracked, but, until now, there was no standard handling for former names. So renaming, for example, a company because it has gone through a rebrand would break existing name-based links. With our new aliases solution (see documentation on github) former name-based links are tracked and redirected to the new target content which also boosts readability and SEO.

What is coming up next?

The project’s next open source outputs are already in the works! Upcoming releases include:

• Research Page redesign: A structural and stylistic redesign of the research interface to make the process more intuitive and boost data quality. With many sources still not machine-readable, 75% of data added to WikiRate is manually collected through collaborative research projects, underscoring how pivotal this research interface is.
• How-To upgrade: A reorganization of our how-to pages and inline help text to cater to the needs of distinct user groups.
• Company categorization: A high-level company categorization scheme that organizes at least 98% of WikiRate’s 70K companies into one of these categories, and the prominent integration of these company categories into filtering and visualizations.

Expert advice

Other than that, WikiRate had the pleasure of doing an accessibility consultation with NGI’s Accessibility Foundation. Running through some of the platforms’ key pages, conformity with international accessibility guidelines was tested and insights were provided about the ways in which users with disabilities access digital content. In the coming months we will be working to act on recommendations to improve the WikiRate.org experience by reducing distracting visual noise, ensuring adequate color contrast, and offering better support for screen readers.