[Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly

Richard Symonds richard.symonds at wikimedia.org.uk
Sat Jul 14 23:46:56 UTC 2012


Maybe if we ran a competition for designers to redesign the wikipedia
mainpage?

Richard Symonds
Wikimedia UK
0207 065 0992
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On 14 July 2012 19:24, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I do think the Wikimedia sites look dated, and very "male", too.
>
> One example I always think of when this issue comes up is Wikifashion:
>
> http://wikifashion.com/wiki/Main_Page
>
> I would love for Wikipedia to have optional skins like that, made by
> graphic designers, just like you can have all sorts of bells and whistles
> for your browser.
>
> Commons is another project that has a very clunky look. I mean, look at
> that main page. This is an image hosting project, for Christ's sake. I
> discussed this with Magnus Manske a few weeks ago at a meet-up, and he
> showed me how Flickr offers people ways to explore their new content, like
> this for example, showcasing recent uploads:
>
> http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
> http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/2012/07/
>
> Here is Pinterest, which also has a real-time format visualising a flow of
> images:
>
> http://pinterest.com/
>
> These sites are beautiful to look at. If Commons were properly designed,
> its front end would not have hundreds of text hyperlinks, but would show
> off its new images.
>
>
> On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 11:42 PM, Michel Vuijlsteke <wikipedia at zog.org
> >wrote:
>
> > On 14 July 2012 23:48, David Richfield <davidrichfield at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I really really don't get all this talk about Wikipedia being ugly.
> > > To me it's a great example of how text really can move from markup to
> > > a well-laid-out website with a coherent design philosophy. Wikipedia
> > > generates results which adapt to window size very gracefully without
> > > taking the cop-out of forcing all the content to run down the center
> > > of the page in a fixed size.
> > >
> >
> > Okay, "ugly" was a poor choice of words. Ugly is subjective.
> >
> > Bad typography and poor layout objectively hinders readers. It slows
> > reading speed and reduces comprehension -- not in some vague "well yeah,
> > that's your word against mine" way, but in an objectively scientifically
> > measurable way.
> >
> > What Wikipedia does is not really "adapting gracefully". It's adding a
> > padding of 1.5em to the left and right of a block of text that spans the
> > entire width of any available window (minus the 11em of the left panel).
> >
> > There's a limit to the amount of text you can put on a line before it
> > becomes hard to read.
> >
> > What you're calling a "cop-out" is not a cop-out at all. The ads, well,
> > they need to be there for The Atlantic to be able to pay the bills, but
> > increasing the number of characters per line in the text column would
> *not*
> > make the better. To the contrary: the amount of words per line is about
> > just right. Here, take the test yourself.
> >
> > This is the article in Wikipedia layout: http://imgur.com/xinFW
> > This is the article as seen on The Atlantic: http://imgur.com/WH1WT
> > And this is the article run through Evernote Clearly:
> > http://imgur.com/sH3HJ
> >
> > Anyone can see, I hope, that the Clearly (http://evernote.com/clearly/)
> > version is by far the easiest and most comfortable to read. Bigger font.
> *
> > Different* font. Contrast less harsh. Fewer characters per line. Margins.
> > Leading. Kerning.
> >
> > It's almost funny there's no article about macrotypography on Wikipedia.
> :)
> >
> > Michel
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