Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Usability/Main Page/Draft/tally archive

message: Draft 4 is done and is ready for your critiques.  Let's get a show of hands below.  Thank you!  Go for it! 16:41, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  '''Main Page Redesign Draft Four''' -- How do you like this one? (7 January 2006)

message: *Essentially the same as the current version, but a bit too bright for me. Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:02, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I Prefer current Main Page (comments welcome): 

message: *Ready for implementation. Retains the simplicity of the current main page, with a bit of clean-up.  Go for it! 16:59, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I Prefer the re-design (comments welcome):

message: Draft 3 is ready for your inspection.  I'm in the process of adding further requests from the last round of feedback into the next draft, but I figured you'd want to see what had been completed so far, so here it is.  I hope you like it!  Please provide your opinion on whether to adopt, forget, or further modify this proposed replacement for the Main Page.  Thank you!  Go for it! 06:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the new design, but it's a bit inconsistent. I like the idea of boxes, but i think they should be fixed heights, no matter how much text they contain; mainly becase then, the idea of consistency in design is achieved. I think it looks a bit wierd when the size of a box changes every day; it gives me a headache with such sites that do it. So, fixed height boxes that align with eachother correctly; and make the pic of the day in a box the same as the featured article box, not the template. Spum 12:26, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

text: —--Aude (talk | contribs) 16:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Both your concerns can and should be addressed (I've done both in a draft mockup on my user page: User:Kmf164/Main page draft).  —--Aude (talk | contribs) 01:26, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  '''Main Page Redesign Draft Three''' -- your feedback is needed! (5 January 2006)

message: *I don't quite get why do you want to change the main page anyway but if you say that the only thing that doesn't change is change, then so be it. I like the current main page because it is just simple. I didn't like the "crayon" color scheme this draft has. If you really want to change the main page then there are several things I would like to see modified in the draft. First of all, yellow box which contains "welcome to wikipedia" text is not very attractive and i didn't like the faded images of the magnifier and the book on it. Secondly, as someone else has stated i didn't like the unfixed boxes because as she/he has stated, it is not quite beautiful to see the width and lenght of the boxes change everyday. i guess there are the main two points i would add, but still I would prefer the curren main page. --Quinlan Vos 16:19, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prefer current Main Page: 

message: *The picture of the day not taking up the full width it can is somewhat annoying. Also, the "Art | Culture | ..." looks rather out of place and scrunched... Also, the Picture of the Day extends quite far down if you are using 1600x1200 (perhaps lower resolutions too)... There is much too much white space... Also, a bit of AJAX integration would be spiffy (but perhaps that is asking too much)... Maybe a logged-in user could customize how they want their homepage to be displayed (what box goes where)... That may be something for a future version... The "On This Day" could possibly be merged with the "Did you know..." On the final version you probably don't want a "purge the server cache" link on the page... Lest you have a ton of Anonymous users pressing that and causing unnecessary load on the page... Perhaps we should take a look at the French Main Page? I like the icons and color scheme.. --Nick Catalano (Talk) 08:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the new design, but it's a bit inconsistent. I like the idea of boxes, but i think they should be fixed heights, no matter how much text they contain; mainly becase then, the idea of consistency in design is achieved. I think it looks a bit wierd when the size of a box changes every day; it gives me a headache with such sites that do it. So, fixed height boxes that align with eachother correctly; and make the pic of the day in a box the same as the featured article box, not the template. Spum 12:26, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

text: —--Aude (talk | contribs) 16:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Both your concerns can and should be addressed (I've done both in a draft mockup on my user page: User:Kmf164/Main page draft).  —--Aude (talk | contribs) 01:26, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prefer the re-design, but with some further modifications (please specify): 

message: *picture of the day moved to the top.
*reduced the white space.
*since this redesign is almost done, AJAX is beyond this project's scope.  Maybe on the next redesign.
*main page customization beyond the scope of this project -- a user can customize it and place it on his user page though.
*purge button will be removed before we go front and center.
*inspected French main page.  It's very much like the format of our "Browse Triumvirate" (term coined by User:Fplay): Wikipedia:Browse, Portal:Browse, Wikipedia:Browse by overview, which we provide access to via the browsebar.  French version is a hodgepodge of the latter two pages.  Placing something like this on the (top of) the Main Page would sacrifice it's Portal-like design, while clicking on the browse bar is easier than scrolling down to see it if we were to put it at the bottom of the page.
*added border to picture, to show what spacing around it will be like.  Unfortunately, the picture comes with a preformatted border, whether you import the template or the picture page.  I've put in a request for an expert from the POTD (picture of the day) project, so hopefully they can help with this formatting glitch.  
*the POTD varies in size, and this too is preformatted, so we'll have to ask the expert when he or she gets here if there is anything we can do to standardize box or column height.
*meanwhile I'm putting out a request to a page-markup expert to see about getting the bottom edge of the 2nd row of boxes to line up.
*I'm looking into fixed-height boxes.
If you have any other ideas, please let me know.  Go for it! 15:37, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Changes made according to your requests, and answers to the rest:

message: [ TOC above WELCOME as has been implemented on Main page. ]
Very good caps and small caps Portal bar immediately above main page content, as redesigned. It uses the same space as the old portal bar, which was invisible; the extra oomph and better placement make it obvious. Template change could be immediate.
The top of the page is much cleaner. Metarhyme 17:25, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prefer modified re-design (with Table of Contents, and Portal bar): 

message: :Run! 16:10, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the main page the way it is sorry.... Spawn Man 03:46, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prefer current Main Page: 

message: * The TOC has just been adopted on the Main Page browsebar, and I think should be kept that way; which means the boxed version of the TOC on the redesign draft should go bye bye.  I removed the redundant search box -- the number of articles in Wikipedia should go above the existing search box in the menu.  And if there's a way to suppress the page-title (it shows up in the main namespace as "Main Page", with a line below it and the subtext "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia") let's get rid of it -- it is completely redundant.  Go for it! 04:53, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prefer the modified re-design, but with some further modifications (please specify): 

message: I know wikipedia isn't a democracy, but it's hard to get a general idea from this talk page, so let's have a quick show of hands (or tildes, as the case may be) Run! 18:45, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A quick show of hands (5 December 2005) 

message: # Brian | (Talk) 23:00, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prefer suggested re-design 

message: # Run! 18:45, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prefer current Main Page 

message: Prefer suggested re-design, without the third, right-hand column.  Simplify the browse bar and place elsewhere. (I can't vote for either option, but propose this third choice.) ---Aude 01:09, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prefer suggested re-design, with some modifications