Hi all,
We’re happy to announce that the first two of many changes focused on
improving the desktop experience of the Vector skin [1] have been released
as a user preference to all projects and as default on a set of early
adopter wikis: Basque, Farsi, French, and Hebrew Wikipedias, French
Wiktionary, and Portuguese Wikiversity.
Since its introduction in 2009, the Vector skin has changed little, while
the needs of our readers and editors have shifted significantly, as have
their expectations for a quality reading experience that focuses on the
content itself. Over the next year, the readers web team [2] will be
researching and building out improvements to the desktop experience based
on research and existing tools built by our communities.
Our goal is to create a more welcoming reading and editing experience -
something that feels familiar yet makes it easier and quicker to read,
edit, and perform common functionality.
Our first change, a collapsible sidebar, allows users to collapse the
lengthy menu on the left side of the page. We believe this change improves
usability by allowing people to focus on the content itself - on reading,
editing, or moderating.
Our second change introduces a maximum line width to our content on pages
such as article pages and discussion pages. Studies have shown that
limiting the width can lead to better retention of content, as well as a
decrease in eye strain
You can opt into these features by unchecking “legacy vector” from the
appearance tab of your user preferences.
We’d also like to note that these are the first of a series of changes and,
as such, their visual characteristics are not permanent. Also - there might
be bugs. If you notice an issue or would like to learn more about the
project itself - please head to our project page [3].
Thank you!
Olga
[1]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Skin:Vector
[2]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Readers/Web/Team
[3]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements
--
*Olga Vasileva* // Senior Product Manager // Web
https://wikimediafoundation.org/
*Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. Donate
<http://donate.wikimedia.org/>. *