Would love some feedback on these potential new redesigns of the home page Concept 1 - Focus on our mission. Call out to our missionThe home page would feature rotating large images from articles, such as this one of a betta fish. (Ignore spelling and grammar errors). After showing the betta fish, it would rotate to another large image, but always having a prominent call out to our mission.Here are some photos where we show the whole page. Note that under the large image will show more articles in image tile format.and Concept 2 - Focus on individual community memembers. Call out to our large readership numbers:Keep in mind that all names and numbers here are fictional
This is just a conceptual mock up. The home page would start hereAnd then rotate to highlight other community members and large article images. Your thoughtsShould we focus the home page on the mission? Or on individual community members and their eye popping readership numbers? Just to be clear these are just concepts at this point, and I don’t even know if we can technically execute either of them.
Jordan
2
I really like the first concept. I think it flows together visually very well. The second concept is cool, and is great in the fact that we can spotlight featured contributors, but the first one feels more “natural” to me. Just my thoughts.
I’m not too keen on the overall site redesign, but I prefer concept 1. I feel like focusing on our mission is more important than displaying readership and community members. I think that given our reputation and popularity, it’s assumed that we’re already helping millions of people. Few questions: - Are those recent FAs or just random articles? - What will be displayed if an article has no intro image? - How does it look like when logged in? - What do you mean by, “ After showing the betta fish, it would rotate to another large image
”? Does it change itself or when the page reloads?
I really like number one, but I really don’tlike number two. My problem with number two is the “popularity” factor. Lots of newcomers (including me when i was new) think that wikiHow is a popularity thing (read: leaderboards). Adding the individual spotlight is cool, but I fear that it will become the new leaderboad, and everyone throws a fit over who is on the front page.
Marina
5
Completely agree with Rosejuice. The initial response to seeing the second one is that it’s a contest, that you should try to ‘beat’ other users for most views, edits, e.t.c. Of course as we’ve discussed in plenty of other threads, that results in dozens of bad edits and low quality contributions. The thing that made it harder for me to decide between the two, though, was that I think it’s cool to throw some personal names out there for newcomers. I think that with a helping hand and names they can go to, they’ll be more likely to edit. I wish we could pull that look on it into the first option. That would be fantastic.
^ When you look at option 2 like that, it seems like a good idea though. I don’t know. I just think it will cause more harm than good
Marina
7
Yup. My vote’s on option one, but I really wish we could incorporate those names from the second into the first. I don’t know if that’s possible, though.
Oh, if we end up with option 2, would we still have the “meet a community member” widget?
Mission-based objectives should always be priority, so I like option 1
I have to echo everyone who says version 1 is the best. You know, because some members tend to create accounts and don’t contribute at all, and wikiHow has a lot of traffic. Another thing I think is that homepages for projects like this one should be focused on their missions rather than what the members do. Another point I have to make (which might have already been made) is that some people might be jealous of others that are on the front page, and focus more on quantity than quality, and this can result in more low-quality edits, incomplete articles, going faster while patrolling (which often results in vandalism being missed), etc. I also like the ‘rotating large images’ thing in version 1, what a pretty cool concept
system
11
I love both but I love the 1st one way better! OMG! Can’t wait!
Marina
12
Also, dang you have a lot of tabs open, Jack!
Concept 2. It shows a big part of the world come together and help.
system
16
I actually like both because I want more people to go on wikiHow! I sometimes feel really lonely.
I kinda like em both. Can’t we have both? As in, when you open wikiHow it shows either 1 or 2 or does it have to be set to one only? Just something real quick. The part where it shows all the articles in tile form looks really confusing. I don’t understand how you would navigate through the website. It looks kinda cluttered.
Haha only just noticed that. Close some down before your computer crashes haha!
I think it’s looks a little bit similar to eHow. Other than that, it also reminds me a bit of Twitter…But as all others said, I like the 1st option . The people featuring thing, is just not needed according to me.
Hibou8
19
Of the two, I agree with everyone about the popularity and like version 1. However, I agree with Shinako. I think this feels like eHow. After feeling like eHow, I think it feels like the mobile version, which i Never Ever use because I can’t stand it. Also, what about the articles that are FA quality but don’t have an intro image-or at least not a good enough intro image to merit being full-screen? Like someone else said, are those the FAs, or are they just random articles. Putting random articles there sounds like a bad idea. And if they are the FAs, where are the Rising Stars?
system
20
Hm… I like the idea behind both concepts. It’s engaging and visually appealing… and does it’s best to draw the reader in with the idea that they too, can help out on this site. I would want to see some pretty careful guidelines for what and who get featured out on the main page though. And… we’d have to protect those pages from vandalism a bit more carefully than the average wikiHow page… but I like both ideas and would like to see a combination of them rotating through the main page.
