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Explore Wikipedia's New Look

wikimediafoundation.org

121–130 of 288 posts

Re: Explore Wikipedia's New Look

#121
post #28

Why is everyone moving to so much white space? I wish there was more of an emphasis on information density on the modern web.

Because it emphasizes the distinction between different parts of a website which in turn makes it easier to focus on individual things. Why are so many people against white space when it hasn't been overdone? Obviously "overdone" means different things to different people but in this case the information that matters is still pretty dense.

A border line emphasizes distinctions quite intuitively without wasting space.

Re: Explore Wikipedia's New Look

#122
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Text width is important, but this is not a solution, zooming and changing browser window geometry is.

I'm not saying you are wrong, but it is wrong for me. I have a browser with say 8 tabs open. When I switch between tabs, I don't want to have to keep resizing the browser geometry.

But zoom is only for the current tab, so no need to keep resizing

Re: Explore Wikipedia's New Look

#123
post #8

For people who don't like the new look, you can go to preferences->Appearance and select 'Vector (Legacy)'. It does require you to login first which is annoying but at least you can easily go back to the old look. Edit: You can also have it take up the entire width by hitting the button in the bottom right. Doesn't seem to remember the change for me though so hopefully they add that in soon.

Unfortunately this only works if you have javascript enabled on the site, too, and the awful popups they added made me disable it.

Re: Explore Wikipedia's New Look

#124

Sigh, yet another site that contorts into an absurd distortion of a mobile layout at a still spacious viewport width. Am I the only person with two windows up? Screenshot: https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/QmaovnEHiCo6knhTPpp4XJyr5x9... This actually increased the line length.

Pardon me asking, but what font (cipher? language?) are your tab titles and menus in? I don't recognize it, and I'm familiar with quite a few ciphers. (I initially thought it was another language, but it's clearly a transliteration of English.)

Re: Explore Wikipedia's New Look

#126
post #121
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it emphasizes the distinction between different parts of a website which in turn makes it easier to focus on individual things. Why are so many people against white space when it hasn't been overdone? Obviously "overdone" means different things to different people but in this case the information that matters is still pretty dense.

A border line emphasizes distinctions quite intuitively without wasting space.

Yes, though it also contributes to that "busy" look if you try to cram as many things as possible on the screen. The content might have a logical separation but spatially multiple types of that content would still be close to your focal point which makes them a distraction.

We live in an age where attention is a valuable currency and most people would likely leave your site if they can't quickly find the thing they're looking for. The fewer things you have on your screen at a time, the easier it is for them to find what they're looking for. It doesn't apply everywhere but I think it applies to a good amount of cases which is why lots of white space has become the norm.

Re: Explore Wikipedia's New Look

#127
post #41

I browse with Safari on iOS with JS disabled by default. I do this for privacy and accessibility reasons (gotta stop those annoying popup modals, trackers and other annoyances). One thing I noticed with Wikipedia with JS /enabled/, all the sub-categories of a topic are by default, closed. But when I browse with JS disabled, all the sub-categories are /opened/ and I have the full article . Since most people browse wit…

Closed subsections break page search (at least on iOS Safari), which I find very frustrating.

Re: Explore Wikipedia's New Look

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying you are wrong, but it is wrong for me. I have a browser with say 8 tabs open. When I switch between tabs, I don't want to have to keep resizing the browser geometry.

But zoom is only for the current tab, so no need to keep resizing

Increasing zoom to reduce words per line is a hack though. Why would I want to read Wikipedia in a larger font than I read other websites?

Re: Explore Wikipedia's New Look

#129
post #37

I don't like the extra padding that every designer is adding into every web site and application. I need to keep multiple sites/apps on my screen as I need to look at references, work on my tasks, and communicate with others. but every designer thinks I should maximize their site/app. It's forcing me to resize and move windows all the time.

For whatever reason, especially with a bigger screen, I find that wider text becomes uncomfortable and somewhat exhausting to read. I'm not sure what the right portions/ratio are, but with a 27in screen it's definitely noticeable.

Re: Explore Wikipedia's New Look

#130

Why is everyone moving to so much white space? I wish there was more of an emphasis on information density on the modern web.

Plug: I made https://github.com/phil294/density-userstyle which is a global userstyle to remove unnecessary paddings on common websites. Will probably have to add Wikipedia soon.
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