TLDR version: excessively designed user/talk pages seem to visually clash with the responsive update when viewed on mobile.
Full version:
Back in 2012, the community proposed, discussed, and adopted a set of guidelines governing the appearance of talk pages ( wikihow.com/wikiHow:Talk-Page-Policy
). This policy proposal was made during the “brown skin” era of wikiHow and aimed to improve readability of TP messages by restricting the use of colours and other UI elements. Since the “green skin” redesign update that was rolled out some time in 2013, the appearance of individual TP messages default to a neutral font and white background in spite of other design elements, so “enforcement” of this policy seemed to die down after the initial hype and became more lax.
The policy introduced in 2012 was a response to the increasing number of users who tended to place more emphasis on user/talk page design rather than making quality edits. Over recent years, the community attracted more and more younger people, and thus also attracted more and more page design enthusiasts.
With responsive update being rolled out (albeit the initial bugs of course), it seems like user/talk pages with excessive design seem to visually clash when the site is loaded on mobile. See wikihow.com/User_talk:Beautiful-Bunny108
for an example: when viewed on mobile, the floating elements disrupt the appearance and readability of messages, and although the actual message content is still defaulted to a white background, the dark blue background affects readability of the poster’s username in green hyperlink. See screenshot at paste.pics/85BFS
.
Points to be discussed:
As someone who gave my full support to the talk page policy proposal and who personally has a pet peeve against page designing, I ask:
-
From an engineering standpoint, does excessive page design pose an issue to responsive site UI as a whole?
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Is it in our best interest to spend time and resources responding to users whose pages visually clash with responsive site UI? If so, what would be the best response?
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Should enforcement of the talk page policy be jump started to maintain both text readability and site-wide aesthetics in the “responsive UI era”?
I support discussion on this topic and come in firmly on the side of those who don’t fiddle about with the look of their talk page. All I want from a talk page is readibilty and ease of use. If I couldn’t edit my own talk page I would be perfectly happy. I will monitor this forum post .
Personally I like giving my talk page a border as it creates a personal touch. I do think putting UIBs on talk pages is unnecessary as they can easily go on user pages or pages stemming from user pages. Banners which stay when you scroll down do annoy me greatly, not gonna lie. They have always gotten in the way. Also, the exessive templates on talk pages makes patrolling harder. For me, it was an earlier version of this page
(for some reason, it won’t let me view older version of pages without viewing a diff). The templates are listed in RC Patrol and they cover the actual diff for the edits. That isn’t to do with the update but I do feel it is an issue.
@RubyRoseRain
I appreciate the desire to have one’s talk page personalized. It does add a personal touch and flair to a webpage you constantly visit over and over, as long as it’s tasteful. To be fair, I think mine previously had a lighter background colour back then. I also appreciate the responsive update as someone who does a lot of wiki work on a phone (Google Pixel 3, Android, Chrome browser). The update means the website loads differently on mobile and makes navigation more smoother and fluid. For me, the big picture issue is the degree to which a talk page can be designed before it starts to negatively affect readability for mobile users. Spend a couple minutes viewing some talk pages on a phone and you’ll see my point. On your talk page Ruby, the bluish background doesn’t contrast well with the green hyperlinks of the other person’s username. And on that other page you linked, the excessively thick borders combined with a coloured background drastically squishes all of the text to the point where I can’t even read a full sentence without it overflowing to the next lines.
If I can recall correctly, there is a css class that can be used to stop elements from displaying on mobile. I do not know if that is there on wikiHow, but it would be useful if that feature was enabled (so that the anomaly could be fixed without requiring users to completely scrap desktop.
I have shown some opposition to the new redesign on desktop (in particular because wikiTables do not render properly and padding is off and some magic words do not work). I know the old saying goes: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The redesign still seems largely…incomplete. Why? Because there are still some pages on desktop that render the old design (particularly template and template talk pages and article talk pages). I know that engineering will fix the problem in the coming months, and I know @JayneG
said that there is no going back, but at least I would like a temporary toggle in preferences to bring back the classic design until the responsive design is completed and fixed.
On a side note: @JayneG
I think there is also a way to create an upload form on Google Forms. Can you do that so I can upload my screenshots with more ease than sharing a bunch of links?
I’m not opposed to simple borders that don’t interfere with readability, but I do think it’d be in our better interest to make some clearer guidelines as to talk page designs. Even aside from excessively-designed pages being problematic on the responsive site, I’ve come across way too many pages that are very visually distracting or even painful on the eyes. Maybe we could make a guideline with a “width limit” on borders, and then add some tips for accessibility?
My main concern is actually the banners. I’ll admit that most of the time I find them incredibly obnoxious, but I have used them in the past to signal when I’m away for a bit, as has Anna (I think she has one up right now). They do have a use if used sparingly
, and out of necessity. I’m wondering if there would be a more efficient way to alert people to that kind of stuff without blocking the page, or if we’d have to restrict use of banners as well.
I personally support user/talk page design (being a page designer myself, here), but this update will certainly result in me redesigning my page quite a bit. I don’t mind that at all (it’s been time for me to undergo a redesign anyway), my main issue is that I still just use the desktop site, so I’m unaware of any issues for talk pages on the mobile devices. When page designing in the future, it’d be good to know what errors occur and such. I’ll probably just change mine to a message and a simple solid or maybe dotted border and remove any floating messages (just to be safe - seems like that’s causing you guys issues?). Are there any other issues regarding talk pages designs currently so I can avoid these?
Thanks for all the insightful opinions.
I think once we all get used to the new responsive UI and all the bugs have been sorted out, we could possibly take minor action on excessively designed pages that disrupt readability. I notice that most of the time, excessively designed pages are done by younger users who tend to be chatters and not make contributions aside from poorly written demoted articles or incorrect RC patrols. They’re the ones we don’t really pay much attention and their talk pages don’t really get much traffic except when coaching. These people we can just ignore for lack of a better word. On the other hand, there are lots of active editors with page design who are more integrated in the community and therefore are more receptive to feedback. These people I think are worth reaching out to re: readability issues on their talk page and asking them to consider tweaking their design elements to something less visually distracting. @HelperOnWikihow
- I appreciate your willingness to redesign!
I reiterate that I’m not opposed to simple borders and lighter-coloured backgrounds. As long as it’s not obnoxious or visually an eyesore, by all means personalize your page however you want. Just try to be mindful of the aesthetics and readability. I would suggest you push your edits on desktop, navigate to your user/talk page on mobile and see how it is with responsive UI, then tweak as necessary.
Just a question as I’ve been reading this for a while, can somebody on mobile take a screenshot of my talk page and its message box? I have this thought that maybe the floating message will cause an issue…
Ok… So the message box is partially covered, if I’m right? Do you think it causes an issue?
JayneG
16
Thanks to all for your input on this. @Zygomatt
I appreciate your summary and agree that once things have settled in responsive-land then we can revisit and see what action to take. We definitely want to be able to focus on the mission at hand, and ideally don’t want talk page design to impede or negatively impact the work everyone is doing.
Ah, ok. Thanks for the feedback! Will remove it next time I remember :).
Alright, now that I’ve undergone the redesigning process, I do see a bit more of what everyone’s been talking about. I think the main issue is really those floating messages - they’re convenient for urgent notices and such since they draw attention, but it seems they’re causing issues. I went ahead and removed any I had, which I’d recommend to anyone else who has them. You can always put a message near the top of your user/talk page, anyhow, which should also work just fine
There may be some styling which will allow floating messages to remain conspicuous, but not obstructive. Perhaps one of you CSS/HTML gurus will know how to accomplish such a thing.
Just a question, how is my talk page looking on mobile now?
Also, are there any problems with my userpage?
I think what we can maybe do is include a link to the classic design of the user/talk pages. Many pages still use the old design as far as I know. For example, on my talk page, because certain elements still do not render correctly, I included a link back to the old design; all that is needed to get there is to append ?mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop to the URL. Just note that even this may be disabled in the future.
system
23
The point of having a talk page is to have a place to communicate with other editors.
Colors, borders, fonts, floaters… none of those actually contribute to the underlying purpose of the talk pages. And frankly… many of these “flair” elements actively distract from the purpose of the talkpage while wasting patrolling time.
Put me down as a supporter of NO … “talk page flair” at all.
I think we should start maybe another policy proposal on what is allowed on talk pages with the new redesign. Thoughts @JayneG
?
