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Wikipedia’s Redesign Is Barely Noticeable. That’s the Point.

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Re: Wikipedia’s Redesign Is Barely Noticeable. That’s the Point.

#61

Post by _dain_ »

pwinnski wrote: post #56

Old skin, minimum width: https://ibb.co/Pcvn7VP New skin, same width: https://ibb.co/PgxF8hf Old skin, maximum width: https://ibb.co/WsptkCY New Skin, same width: https://ibb.co/x8NmgZq It's probably possible to find screen widths at which comparisons favor the old skin, but all I see is improvement. From old to new, minimum or maximum width, more content is visible, and line lengths are more readable. Kudos on the n…

If you scroll down past the lede and the table of contents the old design has more information. It's just that giant square of whitespace next to the ToC that is holding back the old one.

Re: Wikipedia’s Redesign Is Barely Noticeable. That’s the Point.

#62

Post by pwinnski »

_dain_ wrote: post #61
pwinnski wrote: post #56

Old skin, minimum width: https://ibb.co/Pcvn7VP New skin, same width: https://ibb.co/PgxF8hf Old skin, maximum width: https://ibb.co/WsptkCY New Skin, same width: https://ibb.co/x8NmgZq It's probably possible to find screen widths at which comparisons favor the old skin, but all I see is improvement. From old to new, minimum or maximum width, more content is visible, and line lengths are more readable. Kudos on the n…

If you scroll down past the lede and the table of contents the old design has more information. It's just that giant square of whitespace next to the ToC that is holding back the old one.

On longer articles, you do eventually get to a point where overly-long line widths mean more content fits onscreen at once, but at the cost of readability.

Long line lengths are objectively bad for readability[0] and information retention[1], even among people who claim to prefer them. That said, I believe long line lengths are faster.

0. https://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability

1. https://uxmovement.com/content/how-margins-and-line-lengths-...

Re: Wikipedia’s Redesign Is Barely Noticeable. That’s the Point.

#63

Post by pwinnski »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #53
trfzx wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extra click is an inconvenience that they also noted themselves. But it definitely was designed with multilingual use in mind, see here https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improveme...

Thank goodness they are not as hung up on having a button as it initially appears: "We are currently considering adding single-click functionality for the most-frequently used languages." Sadly, while that means that the overall experience will be improved, it will solve exactly nothing for those who are unlucky enough to use a less-frequently-used language.

It has already taken multiple clicks for users wanting to read English Wikipedia in a language that wasn't one of the nine in the sidebar. In fact, clicking the "287 more" link at the bottom of the left sidebar in the old design brought up the exact same box that clicking the "297 languages" link at the top of the new design does, with the same list of languages in the same order.

Alternatively, one could create an account and set a default language, or visit a wikipedia site dedicated to that language.

https://en.wikipedia.org vs https://zh.wikipedia.org for example.

Once you've switched, further links within the site should keep you in that language.

Re: Wikipedia’s Redesign Is Barely Noticeable. That’s the Point.

#64

Post by rhn_mk1 »

pwinnski wrote: post #63
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank goodness they are not as hung up on having a button as it initially appears: "We are currently considering adding single-click functionality for the most-frequently used languages." Sadly, while that means that the overall experience will be improved, it will solve exactly nothing for those who are unlucky enough to use a less-frequently-used language.

It has already taken multiple clicks for users wanting to read English Wikipedia in a language that wasn't one of the nine in the sidebar. In fact, clicking the "287 more" link at the bottom of the left sidebar in the old design brought up the exact same box that clicking the "297 languages" link at the top of the new design does, with the same list of languages in the same order. Alternatively, one could create an a…

I've always seen all the language links in the sidebar without clicking anything. I can see how, if you have had a different experience, the new arrangement might seem less of a disruption.

Re: Wikipedia’s Redesign Is Barely Noticeable. That’s the Point.

#65

Post by pwinnski »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #64
pwinnski wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has already taken multiple clicks for users wanting to read English Wikipedia in a language that wasn't one of the nine in the sidebar. In fact, clicking the "287 more" link at the bottom of the left sidebar in the old design brought up the exact same box that clicking the "297 languages" link at the top of the new design does, with the same list of languages in the same order. Alternatively, one could create an a…

I've always seen all the language links in the sidebar without clicking anything. I can see how, if you have had a different experience, the new arrangement might seem less of a disruption.

Wow! So if you go to this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia?useskin=vector

You see something different from this? https://ibb.co/pKbgw6w

Are you logged in, perhaps?

Re: Wikipedia’s Redesign Is Barely Noticeable. That’s the Point.

#66

Post by rhn_mk1 »

pwinnski wrote: post #65
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always seen all the language links in the sidebar without clicking anything. I can see how, if you have had a different experience, the new arrangement might seem less of a disruption.

Wow! So if you go to this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia?useskin=vector You see something different from this? https://ibb.co/pKbgw6w Are you logged in, perhaps?

Not logged in.

This is the first link: https://paste.pics/dca5897542c8fb939608262307aeafed

Many thanks for the query workaround!

Re: Wikipedia’s Redesign Is Barely Noticeable. That’s the Point.

#67

Post by pwinnski »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #66
pwinnski wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow! So if you go to this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia?useskin=vector You see something different from this? https://ibb.co/pKbgw6w Are you logged in, perhaps?

Not logged in. This is the first link: https://paste.pics/dca5897542c8fb939608262307aeafed Many thanks for the query workaround!

Fascinating! Thanks.

Re: Wikipedia’s Redesign Is Barely Noticeable. That’s the Point.

#68

Post by [deleted] »

gburdell3 wrote: post #18
prvc wrote: post #17

That's completely false. Earlier, when first viewing a Wikipedia page today, I experienced the same (very) mild panic that typically accompanies visiting the mobile page by accident. A regression in the visual appeal of the layout, in its readability at a glance, and in the efficiency of its use of space. Earlier design could be considered "iconic", so this change is especially detrimental.

I also thought I was served the mobile site at first, but after using the new site a bit I actually quite like it. One of my longstanding complaints with the old design was that using the full width of the screen for text is very hard to read on a modern monitor, so I'm glad to see they narrowed it down a bit. I also really like the floating table of contents.

[deleted]

Re: Wikipedia’s Redesign Is Barely Noticeable. That’s the Point.

#69

Post by rhn_mk1 »

pwinnski wrote: post #67
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not logged in. This is the first link: https://paste.pics/dca5897542c8fb939608262307aeafed Many thanks for the query workaround!

Fascinating! Thanks.

I'm guessing the difference is due to disabled JS in my browser.

Re: Wikipedia’s Redesign Is Barely Noticeable. That’s the Point.

#70

Post by properparity »

trfzx wrote: post #26
chiffre01 wrote: post #4

why is there so much white space ?

Because filling the space with overly long lines, as it used to do, makes for a horrible reading experience.

How?

By making text flow to 100% of the width you can easily resize the browser window for everyone's perfect reading width.

I usually run my browser tiled to 50% of the screen, the new design wastes a lot of space at that size (you have to shrink to really narrow width before it enters 'mobile mode' and uses 100% of the width again - I mean it's pretty insane, you can see more text at say 30% width, but at 40%-60% it pops out that useless white space padding on the left leading to a narrower effective text width)

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