Comment by ilaksh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ilaksh | Hacker News Reader

The biggest problem I have with this sort of thing -- actually probably the whole field(s) of UI/UX design -- is that there is no actual prototype but it seems like they are implying that the programmers didn't include any of those features because they didn't think of them, and that now the real work for the 'redesign' has been done. As if the hard part was making a bunch of pictures.

So this whole thing really irritates me.

Having said that, I think that modernizing Wikipedia or MediaWiki is a an interesting idea (although probably not a priority), and this is actually a decent starting point for discussing how many of the new (mainly, but not entirely, stylistic) UI/UX trends (principles in a few cases I guess) could be applied.

I mean obviously their nav takes up more space than necessary and we don't need Wikipedia's logo to look just like WordPress's, but the minimalism, alternate typography of some sort, monochrome icon widgets, etc. are apparently now required in order to qualify as contemporary design. And the connection clouds and highlighter quote idea is cool. And it probably wouldn't hurt to remove one or two of the buttons on the editor or move them to an advanced section, or spend an hour or two making the editor looking more contemporary.

In case anyone actually reads this, I have a question. Is the thing where buttons and controls are monochrome icons (and usually with no 3d appearance), is that going to stay? I mean, is there a reason you can't have multiple colors in icons now? Also it seems a lot of times you don't get labels on buttons anymore (I know, tooltips). How much of this stuff is likely to stick for the next 5, 10 years, or is it just a short term fad? I mean I coded a UI recently for a component platform thing I am building (actual functional software platform, not pictures) and it had multicolor traditional icons on normal 3d buttons with labels. This UX guy saw that and said I was 'completely out of touch'. So I took the labels, 3d and colors off the buttons.

I read somewhere about how Windows introduced in early versions the ability to make buttons look "3D" (update: here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2004/07/28/19958...), and for the next few years every program made its buttons look more 3D than the previous version, until someone decided they had gone too far and started going in the opposite direction. And now looking at Metro I'd say we are at the other extreme (completely flat and minimalist). I hope it stabilizes somewhere in the middle in 5 years. Just look how fast they ditched the "vista" look.

It's funny if you look at http://stocklogos.com/topic/past-and-future-famous-logos. That page is satire from 2011... well check out the last "Microsoft" logo ;-)

The Nokia one was spot on too.

> The biggest problem I have with this sort of thing -- actually probably the whole field(s) of UI/UX design -- is that there is no actual prototype but it seems like they are implying that the programmers didn't include any of those features because they didn't think of them, and that now the real work for the 'redesign' has been done. As if the hard part was making a bunch of pictures.

Yeah, it really bothered me that the WYSIWYG editor and interactive map features were sold under the guise of a rebranding. The interactive map feature itself would have monumental complexity. Good ideas are a dime a dozen...this is one I've had before. But it's not like "oh, ok let's change some CSS and bingo! An interactive map!". It's probably in the order of years of manpower to do a decent job of this feature.

> Yeah, it really bothered me that the WYSIWYG editor and interactive map features were sold under the guise of a rebranding.

It wasn't under the guise of a rebranding at all. The website is called "Wikipedia Redefined," and adding a WYSIWYG editor and interactive map would certainly redefine Wikipedia.

I think the basic principle of visual simplicity is going to stick around. I do think there's some faddish elements to the adoption though. I like dropping 3d. Embracing the two dimensional property of the screen seems well founded. I doubt the monochrome is permanent: we can simply convey more information with color. I'm conflicted on the lack of labels. They are undoubtedly useful, but do visually clutter the screen. To speculate I suspect that if eye tracking come into wide usage tooltip like extra contextual information on the focus of attention could take over almost completely.

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