Wikipedia Redesign Concept • Hacker News Board

Re: Wikipedia Redesign Concept

#21

Post by Springtime » Sun, Apr 27, 2014, 4:08 PM UTC

For the goal of processing information quickly presenting the main articles as a single column I felt would be less effective in the state the articles are in currently, especially when there is enough room on widescreens, and where graphics are used. The front page designs utilize the space better, and it would be interesting to see how such a layout might be adapted for the articles.

Another relevant point as someone mentioned earlier is Wikipedia isn't known for beautifully curated professional photographs and design for every subject, which comprises a significant focus of the concepts. Commercial sites with similar grid designs, such as the Verge and other blogs often have a team of photographers and/or designers to maintain the aesthetic, and are more liberal with their use of copyrighted media.

Still love such new takes on established designs. Kudos to the designer for stimulating discussion and bringing a focus to what could be improved.

Re: Wikipedia Redesign Concept

#22

Post by rmrfrmrf » Sun, Apr 27, 2014, 4:15 PM UTC

okasaki wrote: post #4

I'm stuggling to put into words how much I dislike designs like this - superheavy javascript sites that work like ass on my netbook, full of empty space and icons instead of text (so I have to hover over the icons to find out what they do - where's the sense in this??) and customized "UI" functionality that make me forever unsure what my clicks will produce. Wikipedia has a plain but very pleasant interface and this…

I'm guessing that this is just portfolio fodder for the designer. For better or worse, recruiters (and hell, even managers) are looking for UX designers that have the capacity to design trendy looking stuff and have a grasp of what's somewhat relevant. Hence, redesigning a hugely-popular site like Wikipedia to look like a recently-redesigned mobile first news site.

Just wanted to point that out before people rail on this redesign too much. There are a lot of design anti-patterns in this redesign, but, again, it's the result of having to market yourself to people who really don't know what design is.

Re: Wikipedia Redesign Concept

#23

Post by bichiliad » Sun, Apr 27, 2014, 4:22 PM UTC

rburhum wrote: post #17

The problem of re-designing something as popular Wikipedia (especially something useful that has not changed in 10 years!) is that regardless of the result (i.e. better or worse), you will face _fierce_ opposition. Humans are very sensitive to anything that changes their mental model of how they think something should work. Think about radically updating some of these to see what I mean: - Facebook Newsfeed - HNs hom…

Something really interesting (and relevant) is that in cases where a redesign makes an interface markedly easier, it can still perform less favorably simply because people liked knowing how to do something that most people couldn't (i.e. using said interface). Take Ideo's redesign of the Bloomberg example, for example.

http://www.ideo.com/work/bloomberg-terminal-concept

Re: Wikipedia Redesign Concept

#24

Post by aravindet » Sun, Apr 27, 2014, 4:24 PM UTC

I love this redesign. It is definitely more readable and far more enjoyable; removing the clutter of navigation links and bringing focus to the article are massive improvements.

Of course, there will be challenges implementing this, including the lack of images that can serve as article covers (or, for that matter, user avatars). These problems can be solved if the community wanted this design; however the community does NOT want it.

A much more moderate redesign was recently whittled down until it was just an imperceptible font change; there's now a discussion about rolling that back as well.

Your time and considerable talent is probably better spent on some other projects; Wikipedia has a community that is extremely hostile to new people and ideas.

Re: Wikipedia Redesign Concept

#25

Post by Artemis2 » Sun, Apr 27, 2014, 4:32 PM UTC

This kind of design is nice and all, but a site like Wikipedia wouldn't throw everything they have like that: they want before all to keep their interface available for everyone, even if that means it has to look a little rustic.

One change that would be very beneficial though, is improving legibility of articles' text by having a way to adjust the number of character per line (see http://webtypography.net/2.1.2).

Re: Wikipedia Redesign Concept

#26

Post by pekk » Sun, Apr 27, 2014, 4:33 PM UTC

rburhum wrote: post #17

The problem of re-designing something as popular Wikipedia (especially something useful that has not changed in 10 years!) is that regardless of the result (i.e. better or worse), you will face _fierce_ opposition. Humans are very sensitive to anything that changes their mental model of how they think something should work. Think about radically updating some of these to see what I mean: - Facebook Newsfeed - HNs hom…

What if your "forward-thinking improvement" doesn't capture the reasons the original worked. Then actually you are proposing worse over better, just because it is newer.

But you made it, so you won't say that your own baby is ugly ever no matter how many people provide reasoned arguments

Re: Wikipedia Redesign Concept

#27

Post by pestaa » Sun, Apr 27, 2014, 4:41 PM UTC

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #22

okasaki wrote: post #4

I'm stuggling to put into words how much I dislike designs like this - superheavy javascript sites that work like ass on my netbook, full of empty space and icons instead of text (so I have to hover over the icons to find out what they do - where's the sense in this??) and customized "UI" functionality that make me forever unsure what my clicks will produce. Wikipedia has a plain but very pleasant interface and this…

I'm guessing that this is just portfolio fodder for the designer. For better or worse, recruiters (and hell, even managers) are looking for UX designers that have the capacity to design trendy looking stuff and have a grasp of what's somewhat relevant. Hence, redesigning a hugely-popular site like Wikipedia to look like a recently-redesigned mobile first news site. Just wanted to point that out before people rail on…

As a developer with a blind spot for design anti-patterns, can you elaborate on those?

Re: Wikipedia Redesign Concept

#28

Post by chavesn » Sun, Apr 27, 2014, 4:51 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #11

The heavily-graphical "grid" front page assumes that the best Wikipedia articles have curated, attractive graphics to place in the grid. As a rule, they do not. Wikipedia is a volunteer project, and there are no editors or in-house designers to keep articles fashionably decked out. Not only that, but Wikipedia is at a disadvantage w/r/t/ graphics: the site tries to be scrupulous about copyrights, and can't appropriat…

They may not, but I fail to see how that is "as a rule". One of the requirements of featured articles is that they contain media.[1] The review process and competition for main page nomination seems likely to ensure they are at least decent quality.

If you dig around, I also think you'd be surprised how many high quality images Wikipedia and Wikimedia have. There is a Featured Picture[2] process that encourages and curates great images.

Wikipedia basically invented crowd sourcing -- I'm sure editors could handle custom placement, even if it doesn't turn out as perfect as a hired designer would do it.

Overall I can't imagine this is a major problem with this design, even if it doesn't always look as flashy as the mockups.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_crit...

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_pictures

Re: Wikipedia Redesign Concept

#29

Post by dalek2point3 » Sun, Apr 27, 2014, 4:52 PM UTC

isnt there a way to have your cake and eat it too? WIkipedia is CC-BY-SA so it should be possible to maintain a mirror of Wikipedia with a more souped up interface? I guess the costs of maintaining would be pretty high but Wikipedia allows commercial use so you should be able to slap some advertising on it. in fact im suprised people havent tried this already. perhaps they have?

Re: Wikipedia Redesign Concept

#30

Post by 3rd3 » Sun, Apr 27, 2014, 4:55 PM UTC

rburhum wrote: post #17

The problem of re-designing something as popular Wikipedia (especially something useful that has not changed in 10 years!) is that regardless of the result (i.e. better or worse), you will face _fierce_ opposition. Humans are very sensitive to anything that changes their mental model of how they think something should work. Think about radically updating some of these to see what I mean: - Facebook Newsfeed - HNs hom…

I think this is not a general problem, it’s just that it’s very easy to make mistakes when changing a running system. You probably overgeneralize based on the fact that there were so many bad re-design decisions in massively used products lately. Just to name a few:

- YouTube’s failed attempt at improving the comment section

- The new mobile YouTube app entirely covers the video with supersized play/pause button.

- The odd merge of touch and desktop UI elements in Windows 8

I think a huge factor for hate is also whether the re-design was preannounced. I think, ideally the user would have the option to upgrade the page, just as they can decide whether to upgrade their phone or not.