User:Bleu Ninja/MainPageRedesign
From Homestar Runner Wiki
The Main Page of the Homestar Runner Wiki would benefit from rethinking its design and layout. The current layout features excessive blank space, undescriptive links, and generally does not utilize existing content of the knowledge base in a way that serves those who browse it.
The HRWiki — particularly in the last 5–10 years — seems to favor an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach to redesigns and adjustments (compounded by the fact that the relatively low active user base makes "consensus" nebulously hard to define or achieve). Though the main page may not be outright broken, it certainly has a great deal of room for improvement. By way of comparison, I would bring up the "Strong Bad" article that was not bad before but I feel I largely improved with the reworked structure, additional paragraphs, and implementation of an infobox.
The main page's design has not been substantially reworked in approximately 20 years. This design was structured for a much more active body of work and knowledge base, with several deprecated H*R elements (such as the weeklies or download page) still linked prominently and "featured content" updated once or twice a year. A bevy of non-descriptive plaintext links fills much of the page, giving little indication to how fans new or old should browse the wiki.
An existing redesign project is being undertaken to address this; however after nearly a decade in development it seems to have simply died on the vine. Without any offense to those who have contributed over the years, I feel that the improvements of this redesign ultimately do little to address the underlying flaws. It, too, is extremely text-heavy, with reams of links that are difficult to parse or navigate. Furthermore, in the time it has gone un-implemented some parts of it have since gone out of date — posts to @StrongBadActual have become dramatically less frequent.
It is not my intention to simply lobby criticism without offering resolutions. In addition to individual points, I plan to eventually build a redesign on this page that can address these issues. I realize that suggesting any further designs is going to be just adding an xkcd-style competing standard at best, but as a longtime and active editor I hope some of this can be helpful and eventually implemented.
Contents |
[edit] Promblems
- This essay is in the process of being written, but it is incomplete.
[edit] Not newbie-friendly
[edit] Poor direction
signposting
What is "The Stick", one might ask
It's not clear that "anyone can edit" is the load-bearing link that it is.
[edit] Text-heavy
I count thirty-one plaintext links on the page (sbemails are linked twice). These are loosely organized, with "miscellany" being a particularly broad category, but not explained well.
Many of these would be better served being linked to from Main Pages and/or NavBar rather than so prominently on the Wiki's homepage e.g., "Downloads" has not been updated in over a decade, "Email" has largely been deprecated, a casual Wiki browser has no need of the "Legal" page, the "Popups" have not functioned in years. These are still important and notable but not in the sense that they need such ready access and emphasis.
[edit] Lack of official links
Small "watch" links, but...
[edit] Explaining what H*R is
I'm working on the (body of work) article, too
[edit] Handling low activity
both on the Wiki's end and from H*R
Any implementation should be low-effort to ensure it is kept up
[edit] Limitations
The HRWiki currently does not support tabbed, collapsible, or scrollbar elements. This limits some of the more stylish and effective approaches for organizing and separating data.
[edit] Solutions and suggestions
[edit] Wiki main pages I like
[edit] Linking to lists
May need to make more signposting/category "meta" articles that can be linked to