The online encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the most popular websites on the Internet. Now the creators have tweaked the layout of the desktop version – for the first time in over a decade. The result will make the site “even more inviting and user-friendly for everyone,” promises a press release from the Wikimedia Foundation.
The redesign has already been implemented in 94 percent of Wikipedia’s 318 different language versions. However, the German Wikipedia page still looked the same as usual on Friday. But that is likely to change soon.
It is said that users won’t have to do without the features they’ve come to love in the previous design: everything is kept – and a few more options have been added:
An improved item search now also displays images and descriptions. Test groups therefore used the new search query much more often. Also, switching to a wiki in another language is now easier than before. You select this from a menu at the top right.
In addition, there is a new table of contents in the left menu bar, which is next to the text and scrolls with it.
Registered users also always see the headline and some other details above the article, even if you scroll down. All this should result in users having to scroll through the site noticeably less.
Another big advantage: the new design is “responsive”, as it is called in web designer jargon. This means that the display adapts sensibly to the size of the output device. If you open an old wiki page on a very large screen and maximize the window, you’ll see text stretching almost the entire width of the screen. A single line then contains whole sentences, longer articles are hardly readable.
In the new design, there is an upper limit on the width – if there is more space on the screen, it will simply be left free. On the other hand, if space is tight, the text area of the article is first designed narrower, while the left and right menu bar remain unchanged. Above a certain lower limit, the text field no longer becomes narrower, but the website hides the left menu bar and displays the text wider again.
Overall, this significantly improves usability. If you want to try this yourself, you’ll first need to switch to one of the languages that are already supported, such as English. Since the vast majority of wiki pages already support the new design, it should only be a matter of time before it is also available for the German Wikipedia.
(t online)
Source: Watson
I’m Ella Sammie, author specializing in the Technology sector. I have been writing for 24 Instatnt News since 2020, and am passionate about staying up to date with the latest developments in this ever-changing industry.
