Jeffrey NyeJan 20, 2023

I’m curious to know what other people think of the new interface/design changes at #Wikipedia.

I’m usually an early adopter of new UIs, and I like the new table of contents—but I do not like the new text layout, at all. It took me a couple of days of using it to appreciate why.

Show threadJeffrey NyeJan 20, 2023

The specific change I’m referring to is that there is now a maximum width for article text. The stated purpose is to reduce the information density and make articles easier to read.

I think this suffers from a fundamental misunderstanding of why and how I (and, based on the reaction I’m seeing, many other people) use #wikipedia

Show threadJeffrey NyeJan 20, 2023
Let me start by saying the obvious: I’m a lawyer. I was on #AppellateTwitter for years. I know allllll about formatting for readability, comprehension, and retention, and I’m a big believer in “white space as reader aid” in legal briefs and judicial opinions. The problem is that #Wikipedia is not a brief or opinion. I saw (and have now lost) a comment on here saying “It feels like I’m reading a novel now”—but Wikipedia isn’t a novel either. It’s a *reference work*. That difference matters.
Show threadJeffrey NyeJan 20, 2023

On #Wikipedia, high information density is a feature, not a bug. I want to be able to scan it quickly, with as much information as possible on the page. I want to be able to see other headings in and for context.

It’s not that I dislike the look or feel of the white space as such—it’s that all the white space comes at the expense of the information I came here to find. It undermines, not advances, the purpose of my visit. The site is now less well-suited for its task (as I use it).

Show threadJeffrey NyeJan 20, 2023
Here's a simile that may help illustrate the problem. Reading is like eating. There are lots of different reasons I eat. Sometimes I eat to fill my belly; sometimes I eat to fuel myself for a hike or river paddle; sometimes I eat for pleasure. I eat differently in all those situations (respectively: mainly low-calorie-density, high-fiber foods like vegetables for everyday living; more high-calorie-density and protein-rich foods to fuel a hike; sugary sweets and confections for pleasure, etc.).
Show threadJeffrey NyeJan 20, 2023
I read for different reasons too, and *why* I'm reading matters to *what* and *how* I'm reading. A reference work should not be read like advocation. The change in width is like forcing me to eat celery when I need to be carbo loading. Halving the amount of text on the screen at one time makes it much harder to do what I came to do. It means twice as much scrolling, with huuuuuge seas of dead space on the screen. (Desktop Wikipedia now looks like a mobile site—see here. Crazy!)
Show threadJeffrey NyeJan 20, 2023
(If you don't click that image to expand it, you'll think "Hm. Looks fine." Trust me--click the image. There is a shocking amount of unused white space that's not in the preview.)
Show threadJeffrey NyeJan 20, 2023
So while I absolutely understand "giving the reader a break" and "slowing down the firehose of information" from some documents, it doesn't make sense for this site. I’m knee-deep in RFCs and talk pages about it, and nobody at WMF seems to have considered any of this—they are sticking to “shorter lines are better for retention,” and ignoring that “retention” is only one goal (and, in my case, not the primary goal) of reading an encyclopedia.
Show threadJeffrey Nye
(And on top of this, all this was made worse by bad rollout. I’m a very heavy #Wikipedia user. I use it every day—logged in and out, on desktop, mobile web, app (mostly as reader, sometimes as editor). WMF will say they advertised this for years, but I had no idea this was coming. Never saw a banner, popup, talk message, news article—nothing. ...
Jan 20, 2023 at 7:05pmWeb
Show threadJeffrey NyeJan 20, 2023
After the rollout I searched and found one email from Jan 2021 (not a typo!) that mentioned it, but the topic of the email was “Wikipedia turns 20!,” and the note about a redesign project was an aside at bottom. I certainly never saw it. That’s a pretty bad screw-up from a site that’s supposed to be so user-focused.)
Show threadJeffrey NyeJan 20, 2023
I am really hoping they work quickly to address the other problems with the design (including primarily the lack of persistence to selecting "wide mode") that make the change effectively unrevertable. Here's hoping that #Wikipedia doesn't pull a Twitter with this https://twitter.com/actioncookbook/status/684513321920413696
actioncookbook on Twitter

“USERS: we love twitter but it has problems TWITTER: great we'll fix them USERS: do you want to know what they are TWITTER: absolutely not”

Twitter