4 ms·

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. Decid

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 http://www.wikipediaredefined.com/img/27.png

michaelfeathers 14y ago
Google indexes wikipedia so I haven't seen the front page in years.
- kristianc 14y ago
  That's not a good reason for demolishing its UX.
- fromhet 14y ago
  But google search doesnt replace the wikipedia start page, only it's search feature.
  - jdrake3 14y ago
    To quote Head and Shoulders: "Bingo".
TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
Why the Swiss? They speak French, Italian and German.
adeelk 14y ago
Dear kristianc, You are comparing en.wikipedia.org with their redesign of www.wikipedia.org. Notice that the latter is, with respect to content, the same as their redesign: languages, search, and sister sites. Secondly, in the screenshot you are looking at, the content of the article has obviously pushed down due to the activation of the “quote” mode. Honestly, I doubt you do not realize this and I can’t help but wonder what motivation you have to criticize their work so unfairly.
mdm_ 14y ago
Now I've only got ~300 classroom hours of web design at a community college, not an art/design degree which I'm sure these guys and gals do, but having the main thing that the page exists for start 2/3 of the way down the page is baffling to me. Nine times out of ten, users are not coming to your website so that you can masturbate all over them with sexy widgets and edgy font choices. This design tells me the creator(s) either don't know or don't care what people are using the site for.
aristidb 14y ago
If by Swiss you mean Swiss-German, there is a wikipedia for that language group (http://als.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houptsyte http://als.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houptsyte), but I'm pretty sure most Swiss-German speakers use the German wikipedia instead. I don't know about the situation for Swiss-French, Swiss-Italian and Romansh speakers.

michaelfeathers 14y ago

Google indexes wikipedia so I haven't seen the front page in years.

kristianc 14y ago
That's not a good reason for demolishing its UX.
fromhet 14y ago
But google search doesnt replace the wikipedia start page, only it's search feature.
- jdrake3 14y ago
  To quote Head and Shoulders: "Bingo".

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago

Why the Swiss? They speak French, Italian and German.

adeelk 14y ago

Dear kristianc, You are comparing en.wikipedia.org with their redesign of www.wikipedia.org. Notice that the latter is, with respect to content, the same as their redesign: languages, search, and sister sites. Secondly, in the screenshot you are looking at, the content of the article has obviously pushed down due to the activation of the “quote” mode. Honestly, I doubt you do not realize this and I can’t help but wonder what motivation you have to criticize their work so unfairly.

mdm_ 14y ago

Now I've only got ~300 classroom hours of web design at a community college, not an art/design degree which I'm sure these guys and gals do, but having the main thing that the page exists for start 2/3 of the way down the page is baffling to me. Nine times out of ten, users are not coming to your website so that you can masturbate all over them with sexy widgets and edgy font choices. This design tells me the creator(s) either don't know or don't care what people are using the site for.

aristidb 14y ago

If by Swiss you mean Swiss-German, there is a wikipedia for that language group (http://als.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houptsyte http://als.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houptsyte), but I'm pretty sure most Swiss-German speakers use the German wikipedia instead. I don't know about the situation for Swiss-French, Swiss-Italian and Romansh speakers.