[mvuijlst]

I feel the pain.

"As the comments/votes started coming in, I became frustrated at how unrepresentative of the general public the people voting were. It was a very small group of editors, potentially making a decision for billions of readers. It was also unclear if the people who were voting had participated in past discussions, and/or had taken the time to read through the project documentation, research results, data, etc. It seemed like we were getting a lot of first reactions (as it turned out, only ~28 of the 159 people opposing the new interface had previously engaged in discussions, feedback, etc.). There was a lot of arguing about white space and icons, and people saying they simply didn't like it, rather than discussions of user needs and/or key metrics.

The volunteer communities are generally very change-averse (in some ways for good reason), and changes developed by the Wikimedia Foundation can be particularly challenging to get acceptance for. However I was still left feeling a bit weirdly about the vote. Did we just get lucky? Did all of the previous interactions we had with volunteers actually build support? Did all of the feedback we incorporated lead to a better design? And why do people think whitespace is an indication of a failed design (like holy shit, some people hate it so much)?"

I'm confident this comment section will be the same as it has always been. The 0.01% complaining that they liked it better before.

[specialist]

Alex Hollender is a much better person than me.

> whitespace is an indication of a failed design

One of the reasons I stopped doing UI work was the aggrevation of dealing with crap like this. I can fake being patient until I can't. Then I'm just done.

People like Hollender who can humor all POVs -- because stakeholders, experts, trolls, eeyores, and hairballs must all treated equally by the process -- are nothing short of saints.

[msla]

"Hairball" is an ethnic slur.

[specialist]

Sorry?

Neither urbandictionary, wikipedia, nor duckduckgo reveal whom I've unintentionally offended.

I mean more specifically than "everyone". While I consider myself a (part-time) misanthrope, I'd be mortified to be called a racist.

EDIT:

You wrote elsewhere:

> Whitespace is what happens when the ignorant play at design.

Hysterical.

I love the invective, even though I totally disagree.

[zozbot234]

Actually, plenty of users here seem to like the new Wiki design. The volunteer community did a great job of keeping the changes focused wrt. actual usability improvements and avoiding pointless churn. Most remaining complaints were about "too much white space looks bad", which is hard to avoid in this case since the main point of the redesign was to have a shorter line length on wide screens.

[msla]

> And why do people think whitespace is an indication of a failed design

Because it is. Having an unreadable column of micrographic text on a sea of white is useless.

Whitespace is what happens when the ignorant play at design.

[steponlego]

What if it's a majority of users and you're simply trying to minimize their point of view by implying it's just a vocal minority? That's what I think you're doing.