[Wikimedia-l] Apparently, Wikipedia is ugly

[John Vandenberg]

A proposal to do that has already been started by yours truely. See
talk:main_page
On Jul 15, 2012 6:47 AM, "Richard Symonds" <richard.symonds at wikimedia.org.uk>
wrote:

> Maybe if we ran a competition for designers to redesign the wikipedia
> mainpage?
>
> Richard Symonds
> Wikimedia UK
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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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