Wikipedia:2008 main page redesign proposal/Redesigns

Full redesigns
These designs are almost completely different from the current page layout:

EricV89

 * 2008 main page redesign proposal/EricV89

Browser/screen resolution compatibility:

Pros:

Cons:
 * Incomplete. MER-C 11:41, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Comments:

Futurebird

 * 2008 main page redesign proposal/Futurebird
 * Previous discussion

Browser/screen resolution compatibility:
 * 800 x 600, 1280 x 960 OK. MER-C 05:27, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Pros:

Cons:

Comments:
 * Should be a great candidate for a minimalist design intended for dial-up/fraudband/mobile users, but the casual user might find it a bit boring. There's also a large amount of dead space under "sister projects" that padding DYK cannot hope to cover at 1280 x 960, which can be eliminated by shortening the interwiki list or adding something else. MER-C 11:38, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Mr Grim Reaper

 * 2008 main page redesign proposal/Mr Grim Reaper
 * Previous discussion

Browser/screen resolution compatibility:

Pros:

Cons:

Comments:
 * Seems incomplete. Addition of the interwiki list will cause lots of dead space at the bottom of the page. As it stands, there's some more white space to the right of TFA at 1280 x 960, but this can be fixed. MER-C 07:03, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Pretzels

 * 2008 main page redesign proposal/Pretzels
 * Previous discussion

Browser/screen resolution compatibility: Coded in percentages - adjustable width and text size. P retzels chatters 16:20, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Pros:

Cons:

Comments:
 * I like the "advanced search" link, but it's a pity the feature is so crappy. DYK is only one line, are you going rotate these randomly? POTD is a shade too small, it needs width=100% for wide images. I'd swap TFA and the ITN/OTD amalgram and rename "areas of study" to something else ("portals", perhaps?). MER-C 07:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Renamed Areas of Study"" to "Topic Portals" - it's important we don't assume non-wikipedians will know what a Wikipedia portal is.
 * Many people have said POTD needs to be 100% for panoramas - if you look back at the featured picture archive, there are next to no panoramas so it would be foolish to misdesign the Main Page soley for their sake.
 * The idea of the DYK is that it changes every day, as consensus was that many of DYK's facts were obscure and uninteresting. This way we should be able to find one good fact p/day.
 * Re swapping Best of Wikipedia and the Today section: the featured articles' subjects are likely to be of no interest to many users. A selection of news points, however, are more likely to have wide appeal. Also, the Best of Wikipedia box is very text-heavy and quite a lump to read, as opposed to Today, which is bullet points with a large graphic. Thanks for your points! P retzels chatters 16:28, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * POTD breaks at 800 x 600, that's why it's too small. MER-C 03:42, 16 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Regarding the comment "if you look back at the featured picture archive, there are next to no panoramas ... so it would be foolish to misdesign the Main Page soley for their sake": Even one featured panorama image such as this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and that may be enough to break the design on your current proposal, especially on an 800x600. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 13:44, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Panoramas can be thumbnailed, or a middle section selected. We have to remember this is just a promotion of a picture, not the actual picture page. Anyhow, less than 1% of internet users use 800 x 600, and the layout doesn't break, the image just gets neatly cropped. P retzels chatters 14:58, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * "This is [...] a promotion of a picture" therefore you should show the entire picture. You also have vastly underestimated the amount of users on 800 x 600, see my comment under AndonicO above. A 20% crop on a typical 4:3 picture due to design constraints is unacceptable, and reducing the thumbnail size causes the caption to be larger than the picture and/or making people with higher resolutions squint to see the detail. MER-C 08:27, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Perfect! A very eye-catching design. However, I'd like to comment that the header is a little too plain and could really use some improvement. 206.188.48.230 (talk) 19:35, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think this is a fantastic design - fresh, eye-catching, easy to use and enticing for the new reader. I agree with the point above about Fact of the Day though - maybe this could be expanded? Nice work anyway. Cricketgirl (talk) 23:27, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

RichardF

 * 2008 main page redesign proposal/RichardF

Browser/screen resolution compatibility:
 * Works fine on 1024x768.-Wafulz (talk) 13:20, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * 800 x 600, 1280 x 960 OK. MER-C 05:27, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Pros: Cons:
 * Makes use of all featured content. Good width.-Wafulz (talk) 13:20, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Content doesn't start til halfway down the screen. Featured topic probably should be nested boxes.-Wafulz (talk) 13:20, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I actually think that its fine. Featured content should be pimped, after all. FTs especially are difficult to achieve.--haha169 (talk) 05:23, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I meant that featured topics shouldn't be a nested box.
 * When you templated the New York State Route FT, you brought over its category as well. Is this main page proposal supposed to be part of Category: Featured topics? --haha169 (talk) 05:28, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * All the featured sections are a bit messy, and very long. Also many colours. P retzels chatters 14:37, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Comments:
 * This design simply is a Frankensteinish proof-of-concept for The two-part Main Page proposal. "The encyclopedia" page uses the tabbed intro structure from Portal:Science, the features structure from Portal:Featured content and the remaining structures from the current Main Page. "The project" page basically is a placeholder that shows the types of pages that could be summarized there, similar to Portal:Contents. RichardF (talk) 16:13, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * My favourite one so far.-Wafulz (talk) 13:20, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. This is the best by far. --haha169 (talk) 05:23, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * FT could do with a bit of context, in the form of two or so sentences from the lead article. How often are you going to update the other featured content? Portals (123 and approaching saturation), topics (47) and sounds (18) cannot sustain daily updates. MER-C 07:13, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * First, shouldn't the comma at the end of "Welcome to Wikipedia" be removed? It seems a bit strange.  I don't like that "In the news" is buried way down on the page - I'd rather have that farther up, like where it is now.  I would also like it if the portal links could be collapsed, which would give more room for other content. -- Imperator3733 (talk) 15:01, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

RichardF2

 * 2008 main page redesign proposal/RichardF2

Browser/screen resolution compatibility:
 * 800 x 600, 1280 x 960 OK. MER-C 05:25, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Pros:
 * Similar to the one above, but very thorough "The Community" section. --haha169 (talk) 05:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Cons:

Comments:
 * This design is a variation of the above RichardF proposal. This one is The encyclopedia - community two-part Main Page proposal. "The encyclopedia" page for the two proposals is the same. Here, "The community" page is based on the Community Portal. It has some enhancements summarized at the above link and its talk page. RichardF (talk) 16:22, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Same comments as for RichardF above -- Imperator3733 (talk) 15:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Scolaire

 * 2008 main page redesign proposal/Scolaire
 * Previous discussion

Browser/screen resolution compatibility:
 * Breaks at 800 x 600 with portal bullets over search button and horizontal scrolling. MER-C 05:23, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I would be grateful if anybody can fix this - I have no technical savvy. Scolaire (talk) 16:42, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The most obvious way to do it would be to shorten the search box - a width of 50 means one can fit 50 instances of the letter n in there and search queries that long are rare. MER-C 04:55, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, done that. And changed portals from three columns to two.  Scolaire (talk) 13:36, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
 * One last thing: the inner border cuts across the search button, which can be fixed by making the relevant div bigger. MER-C 12:02, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I still don't speak the lingo. How do you make the relevant div bigger? Scolaire (talk) 13:13, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Like this. You're good to go. MER-C 03:12, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks :-) Scolaire (talk) 07:55, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Pros:
 * Simple and user-centered. futurebird (talk) 19:27, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Cons:

Comments:
 * A search box is unneccessary; there's already one on the left side in the MonoBook skin. ♫Deathgleaner 03:24, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Tabbed

 * 2008 main page redesign proposal/Tabbed

Browser/screen resolution compatibility:
 * 800 x 600, 1280 x 960 OK. MER-C 05:26, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Pros:

Cons:

Comments:
 * While I do like the idea of tabs, I'm not certain that it would be feasible to have four different "main pages." —Animum (talk) 00:48, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I like the tabs too but takes too long to load and makes viewers get annoyed or irritated. —voxdafox (talk) 17:04, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

TakuyaMurata

 * 2008 main page redesign proposal/TakuyaMurata
 * It still requires more refinement and filling details, but I hope you get the general idea. I'm not good at the web design, and so if you think you can improve it, that would be nice.

Browser/screen resolution compatibility:

Pros:

Cons:

Comments:

Kollision

 * 2008 main page redesign proposal/Kollision

Browser/screen resolution compatibility: In the default layout, the minimum horizontal resolution is ~680px. In the No sidebar layout, the minimum horizontal resolution is ~580px. There is also a dual column layout feature which users with higher resolutions can select.

Pros: See talk page for detailed walkthrough of proposal. - kollision (talk)
 * Hide or close individual elements
 * Several choices of layouts
 * Friendlier to newcomers
 * Portals
 * Bigger search bar
 * Encyclopedia and Project side by side - kollision (talk)

Cons:
 * Requires Javascript and Cookies turned on for advanced features. Default layout will always work perfectly fine though. - kollision (talk)
 * You need JavaScript and cookies to log in anyway, so this isn't really a problem. What is a problem, however, is that in POTD the caption is much larger than the picture. MER-C 11:34, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * ... the search box goes all weird at 800 x 600. MER-C 07:11, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Comments:

Kpalion
Browser/screen resolution compatibility:
 * 2008 main page redesign proposal/Kpalion
 * The page consists of three tabs labeled with the parts of Wikipedia's welcome slogan: "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". The first, "Welcome to Wikipedia" looks most familiar – it retains the main features of the current Main Page: Today's FA, ITN, DYK, OTD and POTD plus links to other featured content. The second, perhaps most important, tab, "The free encyclopedia", explains that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and offers various ways of finding information in WP. It's the most static sub-page save for the random featured portal. This is deliberate: the goal is to make searching and browsing as easy as possible. Finally, the third tab, "That anyone can edit", is about WP as a community of contributors. It's purpose it not only to attract newcomers, but to be useful for long-time editors as well.
 * I didn't pay as much attention to aesthetics as to functionalty, but I used the one of already proposed schemes which I liked most. I thinks it's elegantly simple, readable, doesn't use a whole palette of bland pastel colors like the current design does, and the only flashy element is the Wikipedia Ad on the third tab. I used templates created by two other users: Kevin baas and RichardF. See User:Kpalion/2008 main page redesign proposal for a complete structure of the proposed design. &mdash; Kpalion(talk) 18:21, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Pros:

Cons:

Comments:

Ric36

 * 2008 main page redesign proposal/Ric36
 * I introduced new content like the Motto of the Day and the Tip of the Day.

Browser/screen resolution compatibility:

Pros:

Cons:

Comments:
 * No real content in the first screen at 800 x 600 (you have to scroll down), general borkage around POTD, JPEG artifacts visible in the banner. And the people who responded to the survey disagree with you relating to (Motto|Tip) of the Day. MER-C 07:17, 22 August 2008 (UTC)