Wikipedia is getting a new look • Hacker News Board

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#321

Post by seppel » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 11:07 PM UTC

Izno wrote: post #316

seppel wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sole critique of the UX of Wikipedia that I have is that the normal version of Wikipedia redirects you to the mobile version when using a mobile device, and changes the URL while doing so. This is why we end up with all these m.wikipedia links. The mobile version, however, does not redirect you to the normal page when using a normal computer. So people like myself constantly have to edit the "m." from wikipedia l…

Firstly, at the bottom of the page in either desktop or mobile you can get to the other with a mobile/desktop link. (Discoverability fail maybe?) Secondly, there's discussion about serving everything from a single domain at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214998 , which I guess would enable the normal mobile browser feature of switching between desktop and mobile.

> Firstly, at the bottom of the page in either desktop or mobile you can get to the other with a mobile/desktop link. (Discoverability fail maybe?)

For a long page, scrolling to the bottom might take even longer than just changing the URL. Yes, there are keyboard shortcuts to scroll to the bottom, but so there are shortcuts to edit the URL bar. It is, in any case, an annoyance that always(!) takes some extra time.

[Edit: I love that switching to the desktop version is literally the very last word/link of the mobile version. Even after the link to the "Privacy policy" and the "Terms of Use" that probably nobody in the history of homo sapiens ever clicked]

> Secondly, there's discussion about serving everything from a single domain at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214998 , which I guess would enable the normal mobile browser feature of switching between desktop and mobile.

The last comment on this discussion is, quite ironically: "Have been somewhat expecting this to be fixed for the better part of 7+ years now. Hopefully this can be implemented soon!"

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#322

Post by pueblito » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 11:16 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

That's a great idea, I'm gonna do exactly that tonight. Thank you very much!

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#323

Post by EE84M3i » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 11:20 PM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #250

seppel wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sole critique of the UX of Wikipedia that I have is that the normal version of Wikipedia redirects you to the mobile version when using a mobile device, and changes the URL while doing so. This is why we end up with all these m.wikipedia links. The mobile version, however, does not redirect you to the normal page when using a normal computer. So people like myself constantly have to edit the "m." from wikipedia l…

Also, the mobile version collapsing the zippies, which means search doesn't work.

What are "zippies"? I tried searching but couldn't find a relevant definition.

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#324

Post by chipotle_coyote » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 11:28 PM UTC

msla wrote: post #307

grumple wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope we don't bloat up wikipedia pages with too much whitespace. Getting of borders, "minimal" looks bother me so much because they're sacrificing layout for aesthetics. There is a reason why borders exist. It is a line segment that separates logically laid out content into groups. Wikipedia is difficult to read due to the small font and large column width. Even with the updated versions (I checked French and Heb…

> Wikipedia is difficult to read due to the small font and large column width. Narrow columns make text hard to read due to the eye being unable to see whole sentences at once. It's like the "Dick and Jane" books of old: "See Spot! See Spot Run! Run Spot Run!" Books for adults aren't written like that (as print novels attest) and there's a good reason.

Books for adults aren't given narrow columns in the sense of a newspaper column, but they're absolutely typeset with attention paid to line length -- it's customary to aim for around 55–75 characters per line. On most displays, Wikipedia's lines are, by conventional typography standards, just too darn long.

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#325

Post by seppel » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 11:29 PM UTC

spixy wrote: post #266

seppel wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sole critique of the UX of Wikipedia that I have is that the normal version of Wikipedia redirects you to the mobile version when using a mobile device, and changes the URL while doing so. This is why we end up with all these m.wikipedia links. The mobile version, however, does not redirect you to the normal page when using a normal computer. So people like myself constantly have to edit the "m." from wikipedia l…

I made extension that does exactly that if you want https://github.com/spixy/NoMoreMobile/blob/master/README.md

That's appreciated, thank you. I already have such an extension to redirect reddit to old.reddit. It works and I can somehow see why such a thing might be necessary for commercialized platforms such as reddit.

However, I'm suprised that this is neccessary for wikipedia. I guess it was more work to write the extension than to fix whatever is going on on wikipedias side. But then, on the other hand, maybe writing the extension and stop caring about what is going on on wikipedia is easier.

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#326

Post by Tijdreiziger » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 11:31 PM UTC

toxik wrote: post #257

StillBored wrote: post #216

Please, since someone from wikipedia is probably reading this: Keep the JavaScript to a minimum. The plans aren't clear to me, but given what sites like reddit/etc have done during their "updates" the new UI's are terrible on anything that isn't a top of the line device with a screaming fast internet connection. Wikipedia (and a few other "older" sites) is such a pleasure to use as is, don't ruin it. AKA round-trippi…

PSA: old.reddit.com is so much better in these regards. I use it on my phone too, with some custom css to make things bigger. There is also i.reddit.com.

i.reddit.com still works great to browse text-based posts on my Kindle e-reader, of all devices.

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#327

Post by velosol » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 11:32 PM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #285

capableweb wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a US-normal laptop 1MB of JS might not matter too much. But for a world-normal laptop + smartphone, the size of the bundle does matter, not just for bandwidth but for performance as well. Larger JS scripts takes longer time to parse so if you have a lower power device, it still gonna suck. Everything around your program matters, but for different audiences. Wikipedias reach is huge, and getting it to work and work…

This is a valid argument, and you do need to benchmark on underpowered hardware. My gut feeling that a 1 MB blob of JS is not a huge problem even for a cheap smartphone nowadays, and if it is, the HTML/CSS can become the bigger problem. I remember doing really silly-sounding things (like shipping a web app + the entire database) with excellent results. Even if the initial load takes a while, you can't beat the instan…

In addition to underpowered hardware there's underpowered connections (e.g. bad satellite connections and rural cellular) where things like being able to turn off images in a browser can come in handy.

While wikipedia might not be the typical site there, there is something to be said that a site that deals in information (like a generator's manufacturers page) should at least have a low-bandwidth option so you can access the textual information you need without pulling in a presentation layer that isn't critical.

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#328

Post by stevebmark » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 11:32 PM UTC

amyjess wrote: post #176

So does anyone have a userscript to override the maximum line width? I have claustrophobia, and having text forced into narrow columns actively triggers it. Taking a look at the Basque Wikipedia, I can tell right here that it's completely unusable for me. I'm willing to pay real money for someone to write me a script to override it.

All books ever made have text that has roughly the same text width for a reason. It's a well established pattern, and full width websites ignore the most fundamental design principle. Do books make you feel claustrophobic too?

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#329

Post by stevebmark » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 11:34 PM UTC

Thaxll wrote: post #6

I don't know why they did that, now we have empty space on the left and right, it's really useless, why is it better than using the full screen? "Our second change introduces a maximum line width to our content on pages where reading is the focus, such as article pages and discussion pages. Research has shown that limiting the width can lead to better retention of the content itself, as well as a decrease in eye stra…

Yes, all documentation websites should have a max line width. It baffles me when I see people argue against max width in any way. If you disagree with constricting max text width you should _never_ design an interface that humans use.

Re: Wikipedia is getting a new look

#330

Post by userbinator » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 11:34 PM UTC

vvanpo wrote: post #252

userbinator wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why people complain about line length when that really means you should just resize the window to your preference. On the other hand, pages that stay in a narrow column in the middle when I widen the window really infuriate me, because I explicitly asked for wider columns and am not getting it.

Who does that? I think most people browse the web with many tabs open at once, and switch between them constantly. I don't think it should be on the user to resize their browser viewport every time they switch tabs to maintain a comfortable measure. That's the website's responsibility.

every time they switch tabs

The whole idea is that when you have the window at a comfortable width, the content in all your other tabs should also be.