I also like it. In fact, the bit I like the most is the yellow box" I like the "1. 2. 3." thing - nice way to ease people into Wikipedia. Only thing I have reservations about is the Featured Article box not having all the FA first para in it. I think that the current system is better. But nice experimentation! Batmanand11:42, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I don't think there's much point more than a few sentences from the FA on the Main Page. Certainly there's far too much on there currently - I don't believe many people read it all, and after all the full article is only a single click away. Better to just tease with the start if you as me. Tom-14:13, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
We can't. But how many pages will really want to use a semi-transparent magnifying glass against a specific yellow background? Tom-17:11, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
It could be used for certain templates though. The whole {{prettytable}} movement shows how people consider style to be a big part of presentation. I tried to test it out but since I'm nowhere near a developer in skill it didn't work. Can you direct me to help. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs)18:15, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
To be honest, I find that new version far too cluttered. However, I do agree with cutting down OTD and DYK, possibly ITN as well. Shorter FA blurbs would be nice as well, but not as curtailed as that version. Cheers, [[Sam Korn]]16:24, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I strongly agree with Sam. It's far too cluttered. It also emphasizs all the wrong things - it drastically cuts down on the featured article, which after the search box is the most popular part of the main page [in the new version, DYK, the *least* popular part of the main page, is larger than the FA]. It's also redundant, with two search bars. It just doesn't look very good. →Raul65418:33, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
To my eyes, it looks far less cluttered. Much more information "above the fold" if you will. My main criticisms are that it seems be aimed at 1024x768 and larger resolutions, and that the 3 columns don't look well on a 800x600 resolution. Also, the way the "sister projects" section sort of dangles below the two left columns looks a bit odd to me. --Codemonkey19:11, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Wow Tom, those background pics! Now with three of them on the page you can really see how their use livens things up. Someone really has to let me in on how to do it. I've been messing around with my monobook.css, sandbox pages etc for hours and can't figure it out. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs)20:39, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
In general I think it is very good thing that the Main Page layout is being changed/discussed. This example looks pretty good to me. Yes its a little busy, but that might just be that I am not used to seeing all the links underlined. I quite like the visual effect of the third column, but it seems to be the primary cause of compressing the first two columns a little too much. Could the third column be made narrower, by making it a vertical column of the sister projects and move the current third column items into continuations of the first two columns? -- Solipsist20:51, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I prefer the one without the headers. The bold text divides it up enough, in my opinion. The headers seem to draw the eye away from the content. And I like no underlines, but I guess that's just a preference setting. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs)21:08, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Looks pretty cool; a significant improvement (IMHO) over the current rather simple design. I can't tell on my 1024x768 display, but make sure that at 800x600 there's no line wrapping in the yellow box on top. I think a few more sentences of the featured article should be included, but other than that, it looks pretty good to me. It is busier, but I think that in alot of ways, that's a good thing, because it presents more information without scrolling ("above the fold", as Codemonkey mentioned). I also like the extra search box; should make it easier for first-time users to get started. --Spangineer(háblame)04:35, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
It's going to be very hard to have no line wrapping in the top bar at 800x600 without having it look totally bare at higher resolutions. I can try and make it wrap in a smarter way though, so it won't look too bad. I don't think the three columns look too bad in 800x600 now - they're all the same size and quite readable. Do get a horizontal scrollbar though (another thing to fix). Thanks for your comments, Tom-05:56, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
The one main advantage the current style has over this proposed one is that the columns are all of the same height. I know it's a pain to do that, but I think it's very necessary. I also agree that the FA blurb should be larger and that "Making the news" should go back to "In the news". violet/riga(t)10:01, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
I don't believe it's possible to make them the same height without using tables, and not using tables is more important than making them the same height. Tom-11:32, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
I love it! But here are my suggestions: Featured picture is out of place in the right bar, and far too small to do justice to it, and the featured article box seems too small. How about putting the featured picture in the box where featured article is now, then make a larger box above the 4 others (with colspan=2, so to speak) for featured article? Coffee16:56, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
An interesting idea, but it doesn't really quite work in practice: the FA text lines become far too long and a lot less readable. I only really put the featured picture in the right column because it needed something to fill the space, I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not as it is quite small. Tom-19:19, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm fairly unconvinced that there's really anything wrong with the status quo. We have a page. It's popular. It clearly does its job okay, and I've only very rarely heard complaints about it. Which makes this a solution in search of a problem - and the "solution" is much more cluttered than the original. It's just unnecessary. I also hope it'll be taken to a vote before being implemented, as I suspect it'll be unlikely to pass. Ambi13:05, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
The main problem with the current page is the {{MainPageIntro}}. It's constantly being changed around to suit what people (yes, I'm among them) think is needed. I think this new version addresses that with a very visual solution. And clutter is in the eye of the beholder. If you're used to a Wikipedia light on color and pictures and heavy on text then yes this may seem cluttered. But if we want a main page to present to the world then we need to take note of what else people have the option of viewing. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs)16:46, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't like that it has two search boxes, one is enough, also, "Search $1 articles" is misleading since the search doesn't just search the main namespace by default as the text would imply. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason15:48, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Two search boxes may be overdoing it, but the box needs to be higlighted in some way. Having it on the main page and nearer to the centre does this. The sidebar is too out of the way to be usefull to the "first time user". Which, I think, is a big part of what the Main page is supposed to do - draw a new user in. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs)16:08, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
On another note [1] this one is the best one yet. I like how the browse bar goes to the top - the page now seems to flow better and feel more related. I liked that 1,2,3 though, and would like to see it in the "final" version.
I like it a lot, I think it's quite clear. Even works well in links. There is room for some little tweaks, for example browse should probably be linked, and we appear to have lost the A-Z list. --Gmaxwell19:19, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
With more thought, perhaps we should just add other brosing options to the bottom of the list.. If we link browse we may be more likely to send people there, and the browse page is probably less useful than they expect. --Gmaxwell21:46, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
I think the Picture Of The Day needs to be moved up "above the fold". The page needs to show that Wikipedia is not all words, but has other media as well. I'd be okay with giving POTD its own box higher up and droping DYK. Maybe put 1 DYK on at a time in a small banner type box. I've put my idea at Main Page/Temp12 - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs)04:09, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree with you regarding moving the featured picture up, but why not leave it in that side bar? I'd prefer putting it above the "Browse" section, or at least above the "useful links" section, and leaving DYK in the main part of the page. --Spangineer(háblame)14:51, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, for me its about the size. Putting it in the Browse section means keeping it in a thumb size. I think it defeats the purpose of showing a beautiful picture if you can't make out the details. A larger size (like is on the main page now) does the job a whole lot better. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs)16:47, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree with most of the comments above; It's a huge improvement but still could use a few tweaks. -Haon00:35, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
One minor thing bugs me about this design and that's that the middle-bottom column On this day: September 29th does not line up with the other two boxes at the bottom (I don't care if they're irregular within the group, but the bottom should line up)... I'm tempted to change it but I don't wanna impose. Other than that I love the design (600x480 and cel-phone surfing issues should probably be handled separately). --Stux00:26, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
More to the point, all of the proposed drafts do not line up at the bottom like the main page does, why is that? Is it intentional or it just hasn't been worked on in the drafts because they are just that -- drafts... ? --Stux19:29, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Comments on the new main page design (moved from Wikipedia talk:Usability)
Giving the main page some design attention certainly seems like a good idea. Here are some comments on the draft proposed at:
Note that the links in the "useful links" section are broken.
I find the number of links into "browse" space to be insufficient. There should at least be a link to Wikipedia:Browse, if not some of its peers.
I don't like the idea of making the font smaller.
The prominent search and "learn about editing" bar is really nice, though the term "user" is somewhat computer-science-y. Perhaps "reader" would be more appropriate?
I would actually entertain the idea of removing the long list of other languages from the main English page, and putting in a prominent link to www.wikipedia.org. I'm having trouble seeing how people who don't speak English would arrive at the main English page instead of the main page for their own language, or the multi-lingual page. The space could certainly be put to better use. I wonder if not having so many international fonts on the page would improve its rendering time. Certainly it looks cluttered now, even more so if some of the characters don't render properly.
It's visually odd to have a section break on the left (between the featured article and the "did you know" section) above the parallel break in the next column to the right. Ideally, I think these should line up.
"Did you know" could use a picture, to parallel the other sections.
It would be nice if each box had a distinct color from its neighbors. There are too many green ones right now, and it's a bit much.
It would be nice if the pictures didn't rise above the first line of text in each section.
It would be nice if the colored boxes ended on the same horizontal line, right above "Sister projects".
I'm actually a little surprised someone didn't just copy the wikitext from the main page and throw it on a temporary page for fiddling with, instead of putting up a non-editable page on a completely different server.
Hello, thanks for your comments, very much appreciated and I'm taking all feedback into account. I put the rough design up on my server simply to demonstrate the search box which I couldn't properly do on Wikipedia. There is now a rough copy of that design up on Wikipedia, feel free to play with it! Tom-18:26, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
The four-column layout (one column provided by the monobook skin, one for article of the day, one for current events, and one for browse) doesn't work well in a browser with a narrow window. As you shrink the window, see how some columns become too narrow to read, while other information moves off the right hand edge of the page. I suggest not having so many columns. Also, careful use of CSS "min-width" and "max-width" in addition to the usual "width" can help a lot. (For example, see how the "width: 25%, min-width: 12em" allows the links to sister projects at the bottom of http://www.wikipedia.org/ to rearrange themselves as you shrink the window width.) —AlanBarrett18:02, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
My comments:
I like the banner with "Welcome to Wikipedia the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" much better. That one looks really really cool.
Anniversaries section is too short.
I think "Did you know" and "Anniversaries" could switch places.
The second column is date-related. So I'd like to see the date at the top of the column, and then the boxes become "Today's News" and "On this Day".
Since the date is important, to include the day of the week and year, so it becomes "Thu 29th September 2005". Can Wikiepdia change the format for Registered users, so that it displays in local formats?
Can we add today's phase of the Moon? It just looks neat.
And since the date is current, how about added the current time?
Since the first column features information, it would make sense to:
Move the featured picture to the first column, where it would look spectacular. Pictures are worth a thousand words, and sell everything.
"Did you Know" is arbitrary and weak, and I would suggest is useful only as a filler, if the Featured Article and Featured Picture were not long enough.
The Browse Wikipedia column could make the page too wide, and since there is space, I would place it at the bottom of the navigation pane.
Good ideas there. Adding the date would be no problem using m:Help:Magic words, and the moon phase is possible if you create a series of templates (this may even exist somewhere else in wikipedia?). I've suggested moving the picture to the first column as well (See:Main Page/Temp12 but I think too many people love their DYK's to ever let that suggestion fly. Keep those suggestions coming, and test them out at Main Page/Temp11. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs)15:05, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Usability/Main_Page mentions that images linking to the image page as a problem. I don't agree. Our current practice is important for providing access to attribution information which is required by the license of many of our images. If there is a move to not make images link to the image page, I'm going to counter that then we need to provide attribution under the image. I think that would be worse for useability than leaving the link to the image page, even though it might be somewhat supprising to new users. --Gmaxwell19:22, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
The images simply must link to articles. It's what users expect, I've seen it again and again. To get to an article, they click the image, and then get hopelessly lost in totally an unfamiliar page. As far as attribution goes, on the Main Page we can fulfill the legal duties via the longdesc attribute (an attribute specifically for linking images to description pages). For practical purposes, the image is almost always the very first image on an article, and clicking that will take the user to the image's page. This only needs to happen on the Main Page, nowhere else. Tom-19:41, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
By doing that we would make the main-page behavior non-uniform with the million other pages on Wikipedia. Longdesc would effectively make the licensing information inaccessible to most users, in effect it is technological obfuscation. Firefox at least provides no accessible way to follow a link stored in a longdesc. I've had a hard enough time convincing photographers to participate with when they must contributed their works when we provide one-click-away attribution and nothing else, this would make matter much worse. I'd personally consider it a violation of the attribution requirements. Getting on the mainpage is the sort of exposure many photographers hope for when they submit their works to our project under a free attribution requiring license, such a change would be disrespectful. Usability is quite important but it does not trump copyright law. --Gmaxwell21:19, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Then put a little link below the image saying (source) or (attribution) or similar. Usability is incredibly important. ~~ N (t/c) 21:29, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
That would fulfil our obligation. How do we go about achieving this? Just creating an image that doesn't link to the image page is going to require a mediawiki feature, since we can't use a CSS hack as the image needs to be updatable. Perhaps we should do a feature request for a new flag on images which makes a borderless image with a positioned attribution link, and accepts a internal wikilink in the place where the comment used to go to be the link target of the image? Like this [[Image:foo.jpg|100px|link|Foo (computer science)]], which would produce the image, with a little attribution link at the bottom to the image page, while the image itself goes to [[Foo (computer science)]]. This would be a nice generalized feature which would be useful elsewhere. --Gmaxwell21:46, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Alternatively (and imo it would look a lot nicer), we could maybe have some kind of "image attribution" footnote section at the bottom of the Main Page, linking to the various picture pages (and making clear which was which)? Tom-20:30, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
How about having a small link directly beneath each image saying "image source" or something to that effect, and use Javascript to hide the link and instead make it pop up over the bottom of the image when the mouse moves over the image? Here's an example of how it could look. - Mark07:04, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Sorry to bore you yet another time, but could the ever so enlightened members of the W.U.G. take note of the famous Matter of the Captionless Images? Even in the new design, they're simply still there. --Leo44 | Talk15:27, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Tom-. The images on the Main Page has to link to the article. It's what the reader expect. It's what every (well almost) other site do. Go to, say, cnn.com. Click an image, and you get the story you'd get if you clicked on "Full story". The same for msn.com, times.com or almost any other news-site. Trying to behave differently is just confusing the reader. Then, in each different article, having a link from the image to the image-description (and a bigger image) is fine. But on the Main Page, the images simply have to link to the story. Who would ever want to see the image description? Very few. If a story is about some painting or a nation or a person, clicking on the image about that person, or whatever, should bring them to the story. Nothing else. Shanes01:28, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Current status
Okay, I've updated the article with what needs to be done if this design is to come reality.
The biggest issue now is very simply making sure enough people think this is a good idea so we don't get into silly revert wars (which is easily the worst thing to happen to the Main Page).
A vote on this is a must, I think. This whole discussion has being made on the basis that a) a change is needed, b) that this severe a change is needed, and that c) it's definitely going to happen. I'm decidedly unconvinced that there's much wrong with the main page at present - there are a couple of small points in the list that do need fixing, but they're very minor, and don't need huge and ugly stylistic changes to implement. Ambi15:17, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
For the most part, I like the new, updated design. I know that I'm challenging a long-held convention, but don't like the Main Page heading. I know this involves the MediaWiki software, but would like the Main Page heading at the top to be customizable to each wiki site. Or have the option to omit the words Main Page. On Wikipedia, maybe it should read Wikipedia instead of Main Page. Or something else? Or just omit it? What do you think? ---Aude17:26, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
I never thought about changeing the "Main Page" heading, but now that I think about it does it really need to be there at all? Not having it adds a good inch of space to move the page up into. I dunno. About the vote, what would the question(s) be? And I think more advertisements are needed. I put one on the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard but where else is viewed by a lot of people other than maybe Community Portal? - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs)22:01, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
The question should be whether this retrograde step is warranted - and it had better receive a decent consensus before being implemented. Ambi07:03, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
I experimented removing the Main Page header, but in the end I decided against it. For one it just looks a bit weird, but I think it also breaks the consistency of the wiki interface. I think trying not to do that is usually a good idea. Tom-01:22, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Okay. I tried removing the Main Page header, and agree... it's strange and breaks convention. I also tried changing what it says from Main Page to Wikipedia – still breaks convention and doesn't seem right. I tried Wikipedia Main Page – too long. Main Page is just fine for Wikipedia, as that's what everyone is used to. ---Aude01:50, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
But is it okay to remove "From Wikipedia, the Free encyclopedia" from the main page? It's sort of superfluous, if we're saying essentially the same in the first line. - Mark09:09, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, what is that for? On the main page now Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia is said three times (the header, the intro, the logo), and on every other page is done twice (logo and header). - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs)16:54, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I think it is fine to remove that line just for the Main Page, as it's repeated so many times. I think it looks nicer visually, and just about anything to move the actual content further up the page is a good thing. Tom-11:41, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
In thinking about what topics are covered in major scientific journals such as Science and Nature, as well as the science section of major newpapers such as New York Times... key topics include biology (e.g. ecology, medicine, microbiology, genetics, etc.), earth science (climate change, meteorology - e.g. hurricanes, geology, etc.), and space (astronomy). ---Aude18:52, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
These are just proposed changes, but think people might be more interested and idenfity more easily with some of these terms. ---Aude18:52, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for thinking about this! I only took the shortest ones from each category, so exactly zero thought has gone into it :) Tom-20:44, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Does anybody even use the browse catagories? I have never found them to be helpfull, and think that they should simply be removed. --T-rex16:26, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
I think that to you and I (as editors) they are not as usefull as they would seem, but to the average reader/user looking for information they would provide a usefull portal to certain subjects. I believe that not providing them on the main page would deny people an easy access to information. For example, if the user wanted to learn about astronomy did not know exactly what they were looking for. They might go Category:Science -> Category:Astronomy, have their interest piqued by Category:Large-scale structure of the cosmos ->Category:Galaxy superclusters and finally find Supercluster (a relatively small article but one that they probably would never have discovered, and it has an abundance of new information/links to learn further). Bingo! We have now drawn another into the fold.
This seems very crowded on a much smaller screen. See the screenshot to the right. It's great to have all the info, but could we consider maintaining the two column format? We really should think about our aims, I feel. We keep talking of giving our content to 3rd world countries, and from what I understand they have old hardware. That means smaller screens. - Ta bu shi da yu09:34, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Still being worked on - it's not exactly a thing of great beauty at 800x600, but I think it can be a lot better. I still want to do a bit of testing to see exactly how many desktop PC users we have at that resolution, though. Tom-10:13, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
The target audience includes browsers on cellular phones and PDAs. The new design needs to be no worse than the old design at low resoultions. The existing Main Page with the default monobook skin remains usable down to a window width of 480px (excluding the links to sister projects, which start extending beyond the right hand margin at a width of around 500px). —AlanBarrett11:19, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, to start it off I use 800x600 and a 13 inch monitor. I can describe one problem. For me, the yellow bar doesn't go all of the way across the screen. The 'Browse WIkipedia' box stops it short because it isn't aligned with the other two boxes as it is in the picture. Message my talk page if you want more explanation. Jaberwocky6669 | ☎Holla!12:58, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
That's done on purpose. Kind of a border made of the two boxes, Intro and Browse, to give the page some style. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs)
What do you think of this experiment? Try resizing your browser to be shorter horizontally. It's very experimental, but does seem to work OK (tested in IE, Opera and Firefox). Oh, and it requires JavaScript to be enabled (I'm trying to come up with a version that doesn't). Tom-16:03, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
That's really the idea (at least it is for you at 800x600) - the browse bar can't really comfortably fit on the screen, so it wraps below the main content boxes. I can't really think of a better solution. Tom-14:06, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
It looks great. This should take care of everyone's concerns—it will be pretty much the same as the current main page for smaller browsers, but a major design improvement for those of us with bigger screens. The only thing I'm not sure about is the featured picture sitting by itself down there at the bottom... but for small screens, that might be the best place for it. --Spangineer(háblame)21:21, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks! I've been trying to come up with an all-CSS version of this, but quite frankly I think it's impossible. What are people's thoughts about having this as JavaScript-only? Everything would work with it disabled, apart from the browse bar wrapping. Tom-01:17, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't see why we shouldn't use javascript when possible. It is also a great a benefit for those with larger resolutions to be able to use all their pixels to display information.
Aw-man, I was hoping that I could see a radical redesign. Harumph, lol, at least its functionality will improve! I have been looking at Wikipedias overall design and it is starting to really give me a headache. Maybe that's a result of my small screen though. Jaberwocky6669 | ☎03:02, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Would it also be possible to make Other Languages shift underneath Sister Projects when on a narrow screen? otherwise the Languages section stretches down ten times as far. Sorry if this's already been covered. --Cherryblossomtree23:47, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
WOW
Every single day I sign up for something and the next day I find osmething else i want to sign up for even more! I think that this is great what you're doing here! I have had complaints about the images linking to the picture and not a news article myself! I especially like TOm's redesign! Keep it up guys (and gals) Jaberwocky6669 | ☎Holla!12:54, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Seeing as Wikipedia is a freely-editable encyclopedia...
Seeing as Wikipedia is a freely-editable encyclopedia, I would like to see a link to the collaboration of the week inviting people to help out with editing. At the moment the main page, nor the redesign, really invite people to start editing, which is one of Wikipedia's raisons d'être (if that is the correct pluralisation). It looks much better than the current version IMHO. Talrias (t | e | c) 13:33, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Browse bar
Wouldn't it be a good idea to get rid of a few things in the browse bar (right)? It's rather longer height is leaving a white space below the featured and did you know on 1280*1024. Or maybe a fixed percentage to avoid this. -- WB23:56, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree with your point. To test it out, in Main_Page/Temp13, I have reduced the browse categories – eliminating mathematics (which could possibly go under Science?). Also the number of subtopics per category is reduced so that they take up just one line beneath each category. Exactly what the categories could still definitely be discussed, but this illustrates the idea of a smaller browse bar. ---Aude00:19, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Newcomer friendly
I'm surprised that nobody's brought this up yet - the current Main Page has no link for a newcomer who's curious about Wikipedia but not exactly sure what it means and if he can help, e.g. "Can ANYONE add information? Even me?" Currently, there's just one sidebar link that says "Community portal" - kind of cryptic and definately not inviting.
I think that somewhere on the Main page we should have a prominent link to a page for new users, which should incorporate the information found at Help:Contents but in a more user-friendly way.
I'm now away until at least Friday 21st, but I'm planning on looking into actually getting this design online when I get back (which will, undoubtably, prove to be great fun). Thanks, Tom-16:02, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Good to hear. I was actually getting a little antsy about this as things seem to have quieted down here. I think people can work on a few things while you're away though. Somebody ought to be able to download and compress those background pics. And if anyone undertands the background picture CSS code stuff...? Are there any more suggestions before we put in online? BTW which one are we planning on using. I assume Main Page/Temp11 but I would like some more comments on Main Page/Temp12 and Main Page/Temp13 as well. And where will it go? Are we planning on immediatly replacing the old one and getting a big reaction? - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs)00:33, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Main Page looks pretty bad on it. Maybe a separate CSS for the mobile devices?
Anyway, I just wanted to let people without PPCs know. -- WB22:12, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I was going to experiment with moving most of the actual layout CSS to global.css, so it's hidden from most mobile browsers (and not forgetting our old friend Netscape 4). Just a question of which ones ignore which. Tom-21:56, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
Three column design is not workable
Sorry, but that just looks horrible on 800x600 screens and completely unreadable on mobile devices. I also really don't like the idea of shortening each section - they are all already at a good size and you will meet considerable resistance from the different groups of people who maintain each of those sections. But I do like the idea of having the search box in a more prominent place on the Main Page and having images somehow automatically link to the article they are about. But how are the images displayed on the Main Page going to know what article to link to or for that matter, if they are linked from the Main Page in the first place? I guess some combination of templates and css is needed. --mav03:56, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Screen size issues are already being discussed, there are still issues but also proposals as to how to fix them. I'm almost certain we'll have a collection of complaints from those who view certain Main Page sections as their own, but those people need realise that there simply is far too much useless text, which just makes the entire thing look bloated. Tom-22:56, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
I think that "bloat" is better suited to describe this new Main page with 3 columns, 7 colors, 6 boxes full of text and small images.GhePeU23:40, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
It certainly has a lot more, but I don't believe it looks bloated like the current design. There aren't any huge chunks of off-putting text, which is one of the most important elements. The additional text is replaced by navigation aids, which are far more useful. Tom-00:05, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
The problem with the Main Page is just that it is unnecessarily evil, and the complexity lies in all these boxes and their pictures jostling left and right. For real optimal usability, we only have to break through the dimensional barrier; that is, the two dimensional barrier. Only with a simple up-and-down arrangement of horizontal boxes can we fit on everything from the PDA to the largest monitor, and in style. See the idea at work at Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Main Page/Horizontal. What's the thought on this?--Pharos16:12, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
It may work for mobile devices, but it doesn't look right on desktop computers - it just doesn't look designed. I believe it is possible through use of CSS and a bit of scripting to make a nice design work on almost all resolutions and all devices, it just takes a bit of experimenting to get it right. Tom-17:57, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, my idea was really not to overdesign it. This was just meant as a draft of an ultra-simple design; it could be of course be improved in a number of ways, including incorporating many of the other suggested changes. I know this looks radically different, but I don't think a simple design could be found wanting in functionality or ease of use for any reader.--Pharos17:21, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
In my opinion, it doesn't look simpler, it merely looks insubstantial. When I see the two big boxes on (the top of) the main page, I imagine I am confronted by a pair of hefty bosoms offering the milk of human knowledge. Smashing! When I see this new design, I rather feel I am being confronted by sausages, snakes and penises. I don't know what you make of this, but I thought the opinion of an aesthete might be of some use. --JohnO05:33, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I would like to propose some changes
Scrapping In The News section and expanding Selected anniversaries. I think ITN is too small (only 4 stories) and often is not very representive of the news headlines and it is rather inferior compared to wikinews. I also think this could allow a more permanent position for Pictue of the Day--Clawed07:40, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Hmm... I doubt scrapping ITN would be a popular move. I use it regularly myself, if I want background information on something that's in the news. I think it's a mistake to compare it to Wikinews, I don't view it as a news source, more links to articles which happen to be currently in international news. Tom-14:13, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I think that ITN highlights a key strength of Wikipedia — it is up-to-date, with changes quickly made in response to news. (e.g. Harriet Miers and Supreme Court articles were updated within minutes of the news breaking of her withdrawal; ITN was updated with this news, within a half-hour). ---Aude14:44, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I very strongly agree with Kmf164, and would oppose this even more strongly if ITN (what I personally find one of the most useful aspects of the main page) were removed. Ambi03:45, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Keeping it simple is sometimes the best choice
Right now the way I see it, Wikipedia is one of the most popular websites on the internet for a few different reasons.
1.) it is easy to use and find what you are looking for
2.) it is appealing to the eye - most pages offer enough text to get the point, while allowing links to supply additional information on the topic. Pictures are everywhere and people like pictures.
3.) it is easy to change misinformation - although that does not seem to be why people come to this site. In talking to people, I have found the majority use this site primarily for research purposes and not the addition of their own personal knowledge - leave that up to the people who know what they are doing.
4.) the current design is obviously working - if not people wouldn't come.
The only changes I would like to see would be to transform the header into a search bar - instead of the current title. Right now that is too jumbled and "texty" to be of much use. I didn't realize myself that there were browsable categories up there until reading this discussion on changing it. I would also suggest moving the list of browsable categories to where the current search bar is located - along the left hand side of the page. This would put the search bar right below the name of the page, and move the less used browsable categories to the left and out of the way.
Anyway those are just my thoughts Bigal88806:03, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
There's now a full version of the design live on Wikipedia (make sure you clear your cache before viewing). I'd appreciate as much testing as possible with various browsers. More to come soon! Tom-01:10, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Seems to me like you're going at this hammer and tongs - which is nice. A lot of energy and dedication is smashing. But are you listening to the comments? Specifically, are you listening to the users who find the current Main Page in need of no improvement? --JohnO01:56, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Yep, but I strongly disagree that it's not in need of improvement, and it seems to me that most people do. A vote will probably emerge soon, once I've got the design to a stage I'm happy with and got rid of any browser compatability issues. Tom-10:28, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Have you considered the inherent problem with a vote about this sort of thing? The majority of people likely to vote on this are the people who have issues with the main page as it is now. If you like the main page as it already is, you will be less likely to click through to someone else’s new design to evaluate it. The people who do look have already decided how to vote: probably for a change, even if it doesn’t mean improvement. Thus the results of said vote are distorted.
What possible solution to this, then? I can only think that if people really did have a great deal of problems with the layout of the main page they would regularly comment on it in the discussion section of said main page. But that doesn’t happen. 99% of the comments there are about content, not layout. So, before taking a vote to see who likes your new design, how about asking why you would want to redesign it in the first place. “Don’t fix something if it isn’t broken” is what I’d say. --JohnO11:08, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
I am going to have to agree with JohnO on this one. The voting system would be distorted - unles you make it a main page vote where everyone who visits the site has a chance to vote.
Keep the changes to a minimum, I like the site how it is, that is why it is my homepage and why I read through the main page every day. Bring this to a vote with a voting tab on the main page.
Well, I'm on Tom's side here. I think the old page is too bland and doesn't showcase enough of what Wikipedia has to offer besides Featured articles and In the news. I also dont buy into the "If it ain't broke..." thory. That's not what wiki is about. People are often too focused on keeping the status quo instead of trying new things to help Wikipedia grow. And this is just the beginning, check out the other project lined up: Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Future projects, Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Color Tabs - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs)17:50, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Are we supposed to be lauding you or disturbed? There's a whole list of pages there that we're going to have to fight for to keep you two from wrecking in some misguided usability crusade, just as had to be fought over the basic templates Wikipedia uses. Ambi10:10, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
I think the new version looks good but it still needs work. I can't quite put my finger on why but I still like the old design better. I think the main reason being the font on the "welcome to wikipedia" and the titles like "Today's featured article" just don't fit in well with the more compact format. Also, I think the second search bar needs to be a bit more prominent. Maybe center it and make it a bit bigger. It just doesn't feel as noticeable as, say, Google's search bar. But what do I know, I'm not a web designer. Sempron00:42, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
I like to think that when user looks at a page they normally look at the content first, not the navigation. Putting the search bar in the content makes it easier for a new user to find. The current search bar is off to the side and not as prominent. Sempron05:52, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Fantastic. But you fail to answer why you would need a second (more inconspicuous) search bar if the first is so bloody prominent! --JohnO08:30, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Here is a basic draft I just did from a print screen shot of the main page. Basically I just moved stuff around. This is not an official design - but is this somewhere closer to what people are looking for? It is not drastic, yet it takes some of the changes that people have been commenting about. The two main changes I made were moving the search bar to the top and adding a browse section the menu on the left. This was all done in paint as well - so it has no interactivity at the moment. Bigal88801:32, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
One note that just came to me - although the original search bar on the left has been moved in my example - it needs to show up after leaving the main page, so people are able to search even when not viewing the main page. I see now why that search bar (the original one on the left) is where it is. Bigal88801:38, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
It uses a very slightly reduced font (using arial at least, not tried many other fonts) just to fit in a bit more information. I don't think it's really that noticeable. Tom-18:24, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Some considerations...
My message became a bit long, so I've added bold for future skimmability. Hope noone minds.
I've arrived a bit late, and so I hope I'm not too much of an echo. While I applaud Tom-'s hard work, I see some problems with the new design. I think that any redesign should be approached quite carefully, and any great change should be done with major community support -- and on the main page of a website which is 38th in the world, meerly changing a shade of yellow is a "great change".
We are trying to:
redesign (lay out the content in a specific manner)
add features (things that can be added to any design)
change the content (have less or more links/words)
...all at the same time. This means that we are not as able to decide upon small incremental changes ("do we want to have images link to articles?") as easily. Instead of voting on a major change, I think that we should split the new design up into small seperate proposals.
As for the new design:
Switching to CSS is a damned good idea, and should have been done ages ago. I believe that most of the portals use proper CSS - why the main page doesn't is beyond me. On top of being a good idea, it can be done without at all affecting how the page looks on the standard browser.
It seems that the biggest gains are from reducing the amount of content. I don't think that that's the right way to do it. If less content was an acceptable idea, then it would have been brought up on main page talk long ago. But maybe not? Regardless, the design should work no matter how much content it holds (within reason).
While the amount of content has been reduced, the space that the content has has been condensed. This is bad, as it puts a lot of information in front of the user all at once. This is also probably the reason that the current main page looks better to certain people. (More on this below)
Making the text smaller a terrible idea. Small text should be reserved for things that people will know to look for on their own (for example, "photographic credit:", "more featured articles", etc.), but not for regular content. Make the text that needs to be noticed bigger.
Having a 'leading paragraph' for a section is a great idea, but its text should be made to stand out by being bigger, italic, of a different font, bold, etc. - not by making the rest of the text small and hard to read.
The small bits of introductory information should probably not be screwed with. I'm not going to try to explain why having the seemingly mystery meat link on the # of pages is a good way to do it, but I see the sound reasoning behind it, and from what I understand, it's evolved over the course of... how long has it been?
Having a bunch of new and colored boxes (the central point of the new design) is very bad. I'm not sure if most people understand why there are only two boxes, so I'll try to explain. As it is, we have a lot of content displayed at the same time. By "a lot of content", I mean, on 1024x* resolution and less (quite standard), we have a header, and two sections. Yes, I do mean to say that 3 pieces is already a lot. We've put the sections beside each other because a thin section is easier to read, and having both visible makes them harder to miss. It also makes them just a little more crowded. We added boxes (a warm and a cool box, with the warm box being around the important section) so that the user could focus much more easily upon whichever section they were looking at. The reason the next sections (vertically) are not in their own boxes is because they don't need to be. You just don't need the same amount of seperation on that axis, especially because of and mostly due to the headings. If your browser is capable, turn your images off (for added clarity), and compare the pages. The new design (I hope I won't offend) is like a shotgun blast of information. The old page uses colors to seperate all sections visible on the screen, which is two, plus the header (mostly ignored unless effort is made). The new page makes all the sections visible on the same screen, and naively uses colors to mark sections (instead of using it to seperate them) - all 6 of them.
The background images for the sections do not fit in with wikipedia's style. They are too "cutesy" and cartoonish. But this isn't a major issue.
In summary, very good effort, but the new design is not better than the old. Certain important aspects were overlooked, and too much leave was taken beyond solving the current problems, thus creating new ones. –MT07:42, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
It's wonderful to see such a well thought out response. Too often are we reduced to "No, I don't like it so don't do it." comments that real progress (or compromise) is hampered by the hardening of positions in order to fend off attacks. I hope our talk here will result in an improvement is some form. To illustrate some of your reactions and my responses I've created Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Main Page/Draft2.
You are totally correct in stating that any change to the main page is a "great change". But that should not scare us off of the attempt. I would hope that the community comes together to find a change/improvement that will be accepted. Is some ways the current main page does a good job in other it could use with a dust off and clean-up. On point:
"The small bits of introductory information should probably not be screwed with." - The main page header is a major sticking point. I like the new versions color, style, and conciseness. The old one seemed to hold the page back and was a jumble of information thrown at a new user, who would not intuitively understand what it was presenting. I've added back the Wikipedia link and the link to article count statistics. The rest of the intro is presented in the browse bar.
"Having a bunch of new and colored boxes (the central point of the new design) is very bad." How about three boxes, two for the original content and a new one for browse? (Oh, and the intro makes four, but I don't consider that a box, its more of a styled intro.)
The background images are different than what we're used to , but they add some flavor to an increasingly bland website (and we must remember, we are in competition for users with other websites).
"Making the text smaller a terrible idea." I agree that text that needs to be noticed should be bigger. That's the reasoning behind headers. But how noticable is a 5% reduction in size? For a comparison see this vs. this. Also on this point is your comment about "Having a 'leading paragraph' for a section is a great idea, but its text should be made to stand out by being bigger, italic, of a different font, bold, etc. - not by making the rest of the text small and hard to read." I also don't like the change in style between the two paragraphs and would go for one style only.
"...biggest gains are from reducing the amount of content. I don't think that that's the right way to do it" I think your main point here is the change in the featured article box, correct? I believe that new suggested way of presenting the featured article is the reprint the first few paragraphs of the article directly here and then finish with a link to the aricle itself. Sort of a teaser to the article instead of the current way of summarizing the article (we want to entice the reader into exploring furthur).
In reply to: "Making the text smaller a terrible idea." Actually, I do see a marked difference between the two versions. One feels very crowded overpopulated with text, the other feels a little more relaxed and comfortable. Enough to make a difference. If it was up to me, I'd choose the latter version as the current draft. Even over the original proposed draft (per the same reasons mentioned above). If you would like me to expound I may, but I'd likely be repeating points already mentioned. --Stux19:24, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for your superb comments. It's lovely to see a thoughtful critique beyond "I don't like it". Anyway, on with a reply...
Less content - the main problem is with the Featured Article text. There's normally far too much of it, and it's the single biggest complaint I've had when asking friends/family/colleagues for their opinion on the Main Page - comments like "there's too much text!" and "I don't know where to start" are common.
Smaller text - are you referring to the overall content font size drop, or the featured article text? I'm still not sure about the FA text, but I can't think of another way of having a decent amount of text whilst not making it look like a huge, scary blob of text. Suggestions are very welcome.
Introduction links - I could possibly be convinced about the article count link, but I won't budge on my loathing of linking "Wikipedia".
Content boxes - I'm not sure about this. I partially agree, but Draft2 looks even more crowded at 1042x768 than the original draft... or indeed the current Main Page. I'm wondering how we can somehow keep two boxes without making it look stupidly crowded.
In reference to the clutter issue - I just had a few thoughts. In the original draft it seems to me that there are too many boxes in too small a space for how much information is being offered. Four boxes on one page all containing unrealated information may cause the user to have difficulties understanding where to begin. In fact I find it more crowded. As for Draft2 - it reminds me more of a newspaper than anything. What I like is that pertinent information is at the top of the columns and by keeping an unbroken column, your eye is naturally drawn to the bottom to find out where it ends. By scrolling down you are able to read on about recent anniversaries or the picture of the day (which you only get half a view of in certain screen sizes). Scrolling down is no big deal in any screen size - in fact people expect it. Much like in newspaper you should expect to see columns of equal length sperated by a Title and nothing else, with something at the fold (in our case the bottom of the screen) that draws the reader to the next page - still the main page - but containing information that doesn't fit on the front/top page. Bigal88801:56, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Tom, I think the main cause of the crowded look of Draft2 is the fact that it uses the original style DYK, In the news, etc templates. The Draft3 version is much better. I'd go with that one as the leading runner for this proposed change. I would like to try one thing though; currently the Pic O' the day hasn't found a good home. I'd like to try to move it to above the browse box. This would allow a small increase is size (to match the borders of the browse box). I'm not sure how to do it though, do you? I'm not sure if this will be a big enough change to show detail, and if it isn't then I'd like to removed it totally. - Trevor MacInnis (Talk | Contribs) 21:53, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Hi again, one thing I'd like to point out (which has been pointed out by others before), is that even though the drafts generally look *great* at 1024x768, and there's been controversy over 640x480, they still look pretty bad at 800x600, which is still a rather commonly used resolution (I am currently writing this from a friend's place I'm staying at). Of the drafts, Draft3 is the one that looks the best (the other two actually cut the text in the "in the news" section in an unsightful manner). I can upload screenshots if you want to see what I mean. I will reply to the four points mentioned above by Tom- at a later point in time. --Stux19:49, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
Full article
I think a good idea for the new main page is to put the Wikinews link on the end of the news snippets. Obviously this is only applicable if there is an article on Wikinews.
I think one of the main things that makes the main page look cluttered is the huge amount of wikilinks. The current main page today has links to 93 articles! (only counting regular articles, no special pages) My suggestion would be to only keep the links that are currently displayed bold. If people are interested, they will go to the article and find the links there. Compare draft with the same draft with less wikilinks. The latter looks much cleaner. --WS03:25, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia with less links?! What the hell are you on? That just looks freaky. ;) Really though, yeah, a lot of wikipedia pages have around 600 links; terrifying. i think the lack of links is a good idea, although maybe we should leave the links in on the front page to prepare the reader for the rest of the site. :P -- jeffthejiff(talk)15:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, we should probably leave some of the links ;-) But I think it is better on the front page to give focus to some articles in particular than wikifying almost every single word. I think it should link to a maximum of 20 articles or so instead of the sometimes more than 100 now. --WS15:29, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm a bit late with this, but I like the draft main pages, particularly Draft3. I have a few suggestions. I havent exhaustively read through the discussions on it though, so i apologise if these have already been discussed.
There should be some sort of <hr> between the "Today's featured article" and "Did you know?..." sections; likewise with the right-hand column. They just look a bit too close together and as if they're one section.
I'm not too sure why you moved the Browse column to the top of the html after the original draft - this means that things like screenreaders and small screen rendering show the Browse options first, when it should really be the Welcome part.
I don't like it that there's two search boxes on the page, including the sidebar one. Would people really use the one on the main page if theres one on the wikipedia.org front page anyway? In fact, i dont think the sidebar should be there at all on the main page. But thats going a bit far-fetched.
First of all, my apologies if anything I mention here is covered somewhere else - I think I've read through the whole discussion page and clicked the right links, but you never know...
What I haven't seen anywhere in this discussion (and I think it's great the discussion is taking place) is a requirements definition. That is
what should the front page achieve?
This is not an easy thing to decide. Are there statistics on how people use this page? What % only search from this page, how many click a news item etc.. This information would be useful, although not sufficient, as obviously if some features are currently difficult to access they will be used less than they otherwise would be.
From reading the discussion, it's obvious that there are some hard and fast Wikipedia rules - I don't know what the complete list is, but it looks like we need to spec:
minimum resolution
support for mobile devices
support for screenreaders (and accessibility concerns in general - resizeable fonts etc)
I can't create this minimum requirements list, but I generally I think a focus on
bare minimum requirements for ANY front page design
definition and prioritisation of user goals from this page
would be beneficial. I think by doing this, it would be easier to have a discussion around practicalities (which is not in any way to criticise the very good work that's gone on already). Didsbury ryder20:14, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Purpose of main page
The purpose of the main page should be to encourage creation of Quality content in wikipedia. The Main Page Today's featured article is an inducement - a reward for good editing. In the news is not. Keep the one, ditch the other. Harsh but practical. The great glob of in other languages and sister projects encourages contributions - keep the great glob. Distasteful but practical. As for attracting users, Google is tops with a text box. If they know there's content, users seem to be willing to type. Google has no need to foster volunteer contributions, but wikipedia does, so its Main Page can't be as simple as Google's. To improve, give it a squinty-eyed look and do some head scratching, then be bold. Metarhyme21:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
I think it would be a good idea if the one-paragraph lede for the feature article of the day, every day, were concluded with a link that said "Read the full article". I realize the paragraph already includes a bold-faced link to the full article, but it might not be clear to people who are new to Wikipedia, seeing the home page for the first time, that each of the hyperlinks goes to an entire encyclopedia article. They might think that the single paragraph constitutes the whole "featured article"! Andrew Levine11:43, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
There's currently an attempt going on to redesign the main page here so you might want to suggest that there. I think it's a good idea as it really isn't completely obvious. My mum once asked me whether that was all the article had to say so I'm sure there are many more people out there who think (at least at first) it's that short. Jellypuzzle | Talk13:06, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
(Note: The preceding comment and response from Jellypuzzle was originally on the talk for the Main Page itself, I copied it here as per his suggestion.) Andrew Levine18:23, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
