After over a year of work and countless concepts we built then trashed, we have a redesign that we think will beautifully showcase all the hard work that each of you puts into this site. I’m delighted to say that is finally ready for viewing (but not editing): Go here: https://redesign.wikiknowhow.com/Main-Page
Username: wikihow Password: rocks Then login with your normal wikiHow account. Feel free to surf around, but please don’t edit yet. While the site is on the live database, the test server can’t handle heavy editing yet. So just try to look for now. You’ll probably also notice that this test server is a bit slow. We will speed it up when we move it to production servers. Hopefully you will find a bug or two. We are fixing bugs rapidly in the hopes of getting the site ready for prime time. Please report any bugs you spot here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1WlqerL0MA9K_8D7xXRUBb1Qmf_8hmlRjEbyaQPiP0C8/viewform
And please let us know what you think! We all know from the past that it takes a while to get used to and enjoy a redesign. That said, what is your first impression?
It reminds me tremendously to the mobile version. It has the same feel to it. I personally don’t like the look of the front page, where the pictures of featured articles seems squashed together. I also don’t like that of the pictures are bigger than others. I know it gets used a lot, but it’s not my style (personally). Another thing, is that it doesn’t mention if the articles on the front page are featured articles. For the same money it’d be some random article. I hate to have give so much critique on everything, but again, it’s just my personal opinion and maybe I just have bad taste. Positive points: I like the drop down feature on the top bar, including the fact that it moves with your screen, making it always accessible.
Marina
3
Did we decide not to do anything to the userpage in the sense of statistics? The more I look at it, our old method of siplaying the stats looks a bit dated there. Yeesh, I’m never going to get used to the edit bar being on the left side, though. I guess it makes sense; Putting the admin-discussion-edit-article bar on the right would be insanely cluttered. Should we be expecting a redesign of the forums? I noticed we’ve added that to the pull down. This is going to cause a lot more traffic, I’m sure. And a lot more moderation to have to be committed to the forums. Maybe a more concise set of guidelines should be put down in the forums? I know our younger visitors will be drawn to forum games, especially. The images are still hUgE! When I click on a major article (one with views in the ballpark of 20,000) with good images and great content, the images are just enormous. This is probably what bugs me most. It makes me want to avoid some articles-it feels almost like a smack in the face to view them! The ‘related articles’ and ‘featured articles’ sidebars drive me nuts. I know we have them now as well, but on the redesign I just don’t think the white lettering is easy to see with all the articles. And also, the box that says ‘Why don’t you try patrolling recent changes’ isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I still hate it, but it’s a smaller and more petite hate now.
I’m so glad it’s that faded color. Much easier to ignore. And when I do notice it, it’s great that I can just close it out. I love love love the direct navigation to the Help Team. Thank you thank you thank you. I think it’s so user-friendly to the new people we’re attracting, as is the whole layout. I can’t thank you guys enough for putting this together. We really do appreciate it, despite all the critique we’re shoving in your faces, I promise.
I wasn’t here for too much of the redesign discussion unfortunately. That being said I like the main page-As long as the pictures on the FA’s are of good quality, this is definitely a good implementation in my humble opinion. Taking a while to get used to the new userpages though with the buttons up on the right hand corner!! I’m probably just too old-fashioned and cannot get used to new things easily-hopefully that will change when the redesign occurs. @Confusionist
Re-iterating her points-yes previously the forums were kind of hidden away-now that they are integrated and featured quite largely in the explore page, will there be a redesign for the forums too? An overhaul for the forums would be something I would love to see. And I have to agree-the pictures do seem a bit too large for my liking-kind of in my face. Also a small note (probably just a small bug which will be rectified) I have a bar at the top of my page with this code: {{topbar|’’‘Welcome to my User Page! Please contact me on my talk page :)’’’|color=red|background=yellowfont-size=18}} This for some reason does not appear in the new redesigned site. What is weird is that my bottom bar <!–Toolbar–>works fine on the new site. Thanks for everything Jack and the people who have put a lot into this re-designDespite the minor grievances, it’s better overall-and that is appreciated.
The redesign takes forever to load on my iPad…
system
6
Just a reminder to everyone, the redesign is on a test server, so it will probably be noticeably slow. That’s not a bug, just a temporary issueThank you for all the feedback so far! As for the forums, I think we can follow up with a color update to match the main site, but I don’t want to promise anything…one thing at a timeRegarding forum rules, let’s take it as it comes. We’ve done pretty well so far maintaining a culture of kindness that doesn’t refer to a rulebook. At the end of the day, rules don’t teach people how to be kind, people teach people how to be kind. Hopefully that will continue to work for us, we shall see!
Same for me. I like the idea of messages where it says how many messages we have, but i have a doubt. Will we get to know about our talk page messages only when we click on it or it will function like FB where it shows you have “this many” notifications? Altogether, the hard-work all of you have put is really appreciable. Thanks for the redesign, Jack and others who worked day and night for it! EDIT: Are intro images not going to work from now? Or, am I missing something?
system
8
I think intro images will not be shown in the article, but will be used as thumbnails to list the article Can someone please confirm this?
Lojjik
9
Wow, 3+ edit links for 1 article. Isn’t that a tad excessive?
I think it looks wonderful! A very modernistic yet clean redesign.
Hinni
11
I think it looks great. However where do you find the forums on is when I click on the forum button is goes to another page with different articles.
ok here are my reviews: The redesign in OKAY. Looks windows 8 type (no problem here) The dropdown lists on the navbar are a cool addition. It’s a whole new and awesome experience when reading any article. The fonts are very big in ‘my talkpage’ (not nice) to sum it up i’d like to say “The redesign was nothing revolutionary and new. It was just like putting a theme on your mobile phone. Perhaps introduction of new features to us as well as the readers with make it more appealing” … #thanks_for_the_redesign
system
13
Well, guess it was too slow and it doesn’t work…
It being slow should be fixed once it moves to the new server.
The redesign is a bit faster for me now. And, can we have one or two edit buttons instead of three or four? Three or four edit buttons would be too much. Otherwise, there are no problems.
@JackHerrick
I also have a question. Will the old design stay on wikiHow, or will the new one get moved over to the real wikiHow website?
system
18
After every redesign “green light”, it’s always been the “new design overrides the old design”.
@Maluniu
By “green light”, I’m assuming you mean “approval by the community”?
Hibou8
20
Are the rising stars not going to be on the front page anymore?
