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Wikipedia Redefined

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Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#12

Post by bherms »

I'm a big fan of the reimagining of how people interact with the site.. I think that's a major step forward, but I was very displeased with the redesign. I definitely agree a redesign is in order, but I wasn't a fan of nearly any of the design work presented here. So the take away from this is: these guys rock at interaction design and UX, but still have a lot of work to do in the actual design dept. Keep in mind that this is just my opinion, however, and is entirely subjective.

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#13

Post by citricsquid »

copying my comment from reddit:

If a user doesn't recognise the word "English" then they are not going to have any idea what language select. The reason the languages are all listed on the page without any interaction needed is so someone can look at the webpage and recognise their language and select it without having to understand anything else. How do I access the main page of a wiki?

This isn't redefined, it's just a redesign with some bad, some good, aesthetic changes.

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#14

Post by taylorfausak »

jameswyse wrote: post #6

Does anyone else find the font used on that page really distracting? What's with the I looking like a J?

I was going to say the same thing. The font is FF Schulbuch Süd Web Pro, and it looks like this: http://imgur.com/Uvft4. I can't fathom why it's designed like that. (Link to FontShop: http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/singles/fontfont/ff_schulbuch_...)

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#15

Post by kristianc »

The front page of Wikipedia works remarkably well for discovery - go to en.wikipedia.org on any given day, and you are guaranteed to learn something new.

Deciding that users want to see your overbearing minimalism and your 'sound-great-in-concept-meetings-but-shit-on-paper' designs instead of you know, actual information on the front page of an encyclopaedia strikes me as an astonishing act of hubris.

The one piece of information given on the front page (the languages bar) is a nice curiosity, but utterly useless after about one visit. I'm sure the Swiss, the Swedes, the Danes, the Indonesians would also be delighted to find that their languages have been relegated to 'rollover' status.

As for the article pages, too much white-space, nowhere near enough information density. Did it not strike the authors, "Hey, hang on, the article is almost invisible on this page after all the crap we put in?" http://www.wikipediaredefined.com/img/27.png

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#16

Post by jarek »

citricsquid wrote: post #13

copying my comment from reddit: If a user doesn't recognise the word "English" then they are not going to have any idea what language select. The reason the languages are all listed on the page without any interaction needed is so someone can look at the webpage and recognise their language and select it without having to understand anything else. How do I access the main page of a wiki? This isn't redefined, it's ju…

Not to mention the front page colour bar for languages with labels appearing after rolling over has some pretty serious discoverability and accessibility issues.

Re: Wikipedia Redefined

#19

Post by stephengillie »

jwm wrote: post #7
derleth wrote: post #2

Too much space is taken up by navigation in this scheme. There's a reason Wikipedia's design is dominated by text.

I agree. Websites that do this are awful, Google Plus is guilty of this. Re combo-boxing the language list: Wikipedia is the most successful multi-language website by far. Highlighting this to new and old users is a great thing. Its not like the search box takes up any more than one line anyway. For Wikipedia, this redesign blows. I do like the visual style though. This is really just showcasing the webdesign company…

Wikipedia is probably the worst site for this redesign, which is probably why it's so eye catching - we're seeing all of these elements in a shape that's terrible for wiki but great for some other site. Since it's such a terrible fit for wiki, we can clearly see and identify elements we'd glaze over if we liked the changes.
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