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Wikipedia is getting a new look

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Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#131

Post by pbronez »

davidivadavid wrote: post #63
Uehreka wrote: post #19

If someone asked me to critique the UX of Wikipedia, the first two things I’d point out would be that I almost never use the left hand side bar (and I have a feel almost no one does) and that when paragraphs are that wide they become harder to read (especially when they snake around floated images). Not changing for 10 years, watching as some trends fade and others become law-of-the-land, and then making two changes…

Reducing maximum column width would also be my #1 suggestion. Maybe that can be taken care of through themeing/browser plugins? If anyone has good ones to recommend, suggestions appreciated.

They are reducing maximum column width, but perhaps not as drastically as you'd wish:

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Reading/We...

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#132

Post by thaumasiotes »

jdlrobson wrote: post #127
pwdisswordfish4 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. And it’s the one thing that annoys me to no end about the mobile version, that the list of language editions isn’t there at all.

The language button is right at the top of the page. If anything its more accessible on mobile?

Well, it's secret on mobile. I had the same problem - I wanted to switch languages on mobile wikipedia, but the page appears to provide no way to do that. Functionality that has been carefully designed so you won't find it isn't really an improvement over functionality that isn't there.

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#133

Post by jrochkind1 »

davidivadavid wrote: post #87
jrochkind1 wrote: post #36

The detail page for the first feature they mention, limiting line-width [1], makes me think: Wow, it sure takes a lot of analysis and discussion to make what is a pretty straightforward and simple change. (Recall, too, this has been in the works for at least a year? And still isn't deployed to English wikipedia?) Which makes me realize there's sort of an ironic situation. When a site is beginning and small, you don't…

Thanks for the link — that subject has been my #1 complaint with Wikipedia for a long time. I'm glad they're finally doing something about it, even though it seems like I still won't be happy with it — judging by the wikis where the update is active, it's still too wide. The rationale in the article is interesting, but IMO wrong — the idea that you need to balance scannability and line length suggests that line lengt…

I just got link from the OP, but yeah!

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#134

Post by zzo38computer »

I use my own CSS (with the Cologne Blue skin), and I would hope that it doesn't break. I customize the CSS in other ways too, because I often don't like what they do with modern ones. (I think would be better to design it to be used without CSS and then it might be better, but they don't do that, so I need to add my own in order to fix the mess they made.)

I do not use any side bar or top or bottom bar; only the text is displayed. I do not want a maximum line width either; I want the entire window to be filled with the text.

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#135

Post by amirkdv »

Uehreka wrote: post #19

If someone asked me to critique the UX of Wikipedia, the first two things I’d point out would be that I almost never use the left hand side bar (and I have a feel almost no one does) and that when paragraphs are that wide they become harder to read (especially when they snake around floated images). Not changing for 10 years, watching as some trends fade and others become law-of-the-land, and then making two changes…

> I almost never use the left hand side bar (and I have a feel almost no one does)

The left sidebar has two killer features for me:

1. Finding canonical translations for technical terms. You need to know what the standard way to translate "hardware acceleration" or "differentiable manifold" is in French? Go to the wikipedia page and hover over the language switcher link in the left sidebar. Done. This has become one of my indispensable tools.

2. Learning about historical events where there are multiple inevitably biased narratives. For example, want to know about the Islamic Golden Age? The English, French, and Farsi versions have significantly different content from different perspectives (I would assume the Spanish and Arabic ones are also equally interesting). I highly recommend this exercise especially for history that one is taught in school, e.g. if you're American and can read Spanish, I bet the Spanish entry on Mexican-American War will teach you a few things you had never heard of.

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#136

Post by beefman »

> much of the wide range of functionality on the site can feel overwhelming and difficult to understand ... we need to provide not only excellent content and an experience that is engaging and easy to use, but also an experience that is on-par with their perceptions of a modern, trustworthy, and welcoming site

MediaWiki's difficulty of use is the primary reason Wikipedia has fared as well as it has during the decline of substantitve online discourse in recent years.

Wikipedia is far from perfect, but it is the best and last of the old web. Putting people who don't understand this in charge of its redesign is a recipe for disaster.

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#137

Post by ksec »

Uehreka wrote: post #19

If someone asked me to critique the UX of Wikipedia, the first two things I’d point out would be that I almost never use the left hand side bar (and I have a feel almost no one does) and that when paragraphs are that wide they become harder to read (especially when they snake around floated images). Not changing for 10 years, watching as some trends fade and others become law-of-the-land, and then making two changes…

Which is why I almost always use the mobile variant of Wikipedia. It is so much better, even on Desktop.

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#138

Post by tasogare »

amirkdv wrote: post #135
Uehreka wrote: post #19

If someone asked me to critique the UX of Wikipedia, the first two things I’d point out would be that I almost never use the left hand side bar (and I have a feel almost no one does) and that when paragraphs are that wide they become harder to read (especially when they snake around floated images). Not changing for 10 years, watching as some trends fade and others become law-of-the-land, and then making two changes…

> I almost never use the left hand side bar (and I have a feel almost no one does) The left sidebar has two killer features for me: 1. Finding canonical translations for technical terms. You need to know what the standard way to translate "hardware acceleration" or "differentiable manifold" is in French? Go to the wikipedia page and hover over the language switcher link in the left sidebar. Done. This has become one…

You summarize it very well. Those are the two big usage I have from that bar. In fact I switch so often between languages I wish they were displayed upper in the bar (btw I don’t like switch language on mobile), and personalized with my 4 most used languages on top. Sometimes a language I want to read is hidden and it’s super annoying to get it.

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#139

Post by pier25 »

Uehreka wrote: post #19

If someone asked me to critique the UX of Wikipedia, the first two things I’d point out would be that I almost never use the left hand side bar (and I have a feel almost no one does) and that when paragraphs are that wide they become harder to read (especially when they snake around floated images). Not changing for 10 years, watching as some trends fade and others become law-of-the-land, and then making two changes…

I agree on both. I actually prefer using their mobile site on desktop.

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#140

Post by dheera »

amirkdv wrote: post #135
Uehreka wrote: post #19

If someone asked me to critique the UX of Wikipedia, the first two things I’d point out would be that I almost never use the left hand side bar (and I have a feel almost no one does) and that when paragraphs are that wide they become harder to read (especially when they snake around floated images). Not changing for 10 years, watching as some trends fade and others become law-of-the-land, and then making two changes…

> I almost never use the left hand side bar (and I have a feel almost no one does) The left sidebar has two killer features for me: 1. Finding canonical translations for technical terms. You need to know what the standard way to translate "hardware acceleration" or "differentiable manifold" is in French? Go to the wikipedia page and hover over the language switcher link in the left sidebar. Done. This has become one…

> 1. Finding canonical translations for technical terms.

OMG yes I do this as well. Google translate is unreliable for technical terms, regional vegetables/fruits, cultural concepts, and lots of other things.

EDIT: Wikipedia is also good at differentiating regional variants of a language, e.g. the country of Laos is 老撾 in Beijing Mandarin and 寮國 in Taiwanese Mandarin and Wikipedia knows this. Likewise, a USB drive is almost universally called "U盤" in Mainland China but this word is virtually unknown outside Mainland China. It's actually a good way for native speakers to look up one-off words like this when writing documents intended to be read by another region because you really just need to replace a few nouns here and there.

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