Wiki :(

[robin1979]

I like

[robin1979]

Wow, the new page looks pretty good! Much more readable now! Nice work!

[robin1979]

Wow, the new page looks pretty good! Much more readable now! Nice work!

Too bad the Dutch page still has the table... Do you have time to edit it? I am not that much of a wiki editor...

I'll copy the design!

[robin1979]

Wow, the new page looks pretty good! Much more readable now! Nice work!

Too bad the Dutch page still has the table... Do you have time to edit it? I am not that much of a wiki editor...

I'll copy the design!

Done

[svache]

You can't set it back to that original state? And well, it sure is colorful but oh oh oh... what a mess.. it's as if I am in kindergarten all over again :S

[svache]

As for design, please suggest a change

I suggest a change back to what it was, a similar design as in all wiki's. The current version looks like, to say it very blunt, as something a 4 year old would've done.

Personally I really don't see why it had to be changed.

[svache]

I suggest a change back to what it was, a similar design as in all wiki's. The current version looks like, to say it very blunt, as something a 4 year old would've done.

Personally I really don't see why it had to be changed.

I'd really suggest you read http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/Talk:Main_Page

I'd seriously be interested in your response to the points there. As to why it had to be changed: It was unhelpful, unscalable to an increase in countries, languages and activities, unstructured, incomplete, undirected, unclear, inconsistent, unfriendly. And not providing any support or guidance to new users. There were other problems too. But hey, if you think it was better, revert it back.

As to a similar design to all wikis. Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org or http://de.wikipedia.org - all this is covered in the discussion page, but a case can be made - I'm trying to make it, that a front page can be exceptional.

Let me start by saying that it is not the actual information that I didn't like, I agree with your points regarding to the information but that was not my point, it was the looks, the design.

I think, before doing anything with such an impact, you should have opened a thread on the forum to discuss it. Not a discussion on the Wiki as much less people read it (from a quick view on that page you pointed out, I noticed only one person besides you commented there). You get a better reach and response in the forums (just look at this thread for example). The current changes, in my opinion, are similar to working for Waze and changing the webdesign drastically without any colleague knowing, you're bound to get questions when you do that (offtopic: I wouldn't mind to see some professional changes to the website itself though, but that's more from my view as webdeveloper).

Again, I was not after the information on the Wiki, just the looks.

As for both links that you pointed out (the ones in the quote above, not those further down), I like the German version better. The colors make it look a bit cluttered, the German version is more unified and peaceful. Right now it is as if you want to reinvent the wheel, but like Robin also said on the 'talk page', the original way the content mechanism works, works really well.

There's also said something about languages and such. There are a couple of MediaWiki language extensions that work really well with this.

One other problem you might be facing here is the width of the page here. Maybe it would be an idea for Waze to actively break out of the set widths in their Wiki and make it variable to screenwidth (like the original Wiki's do). The current width of the wiki (and I mean the main column, not the navigation pane) is about 745 pixels width, which is just too small for multiple columns with the current font height.

If Waze changes the widths of the Wiki, preferably variable to screensize, then you can easily make a two-column lay-out. But right now, I wouldn't do it as it makes it look a bit unprofessional and cluttered.

a) please consider http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page_Test versus http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/Deutsch
I am NOT happy in the first case with the contents expanding to subcategories - it won't scale and pushes things too far down. It's too many English links at the top.

To be honest, I disagree with you here. The subheadings are actually a great way to quickly find what you need. The less clicks a user has to do, the better the user experience. I might change my view when the list becomes very very long, but right now it doesn't show too many subheaders.

But, now we're on that issue anyways, I'd like to add that the navigation pane on the side is being used too little. The main information should basically be there. When someone is on a sub-subarticle, they shouldn't have to go back all the way to the main page to select another topic and to click their way from there. If you take those 6 main headers, why not put them in the sidebar so people don't have to keep clicking between the articles and mainpage?

As for the discussion further down the topic, putting people off or not with the known issues and such. I think it is a good idea to warn people that Waze is still pretty much learning and that there are known issues. However, I also think we should not put people off. To be honest, in my personal case, I would never have started with Waze if I knew all the known issues beforehand. I would've gone for a different navigation app (I actually still don't use Waze that much for navigation, but more for the social aspect. If I need directions, I rather use my standalone nav device or the Google app since I changed to Android. Waze still cannot be trusted fully). I think it is important to find a balance where we inform people about all the issues, but not as far as to where they're put off to even try Waze. If they want to go deeper into that information, they can always look on different pages within the Wiki.

Also, don't forget that even if the front page of the Wiki shows nothing but known issues, even with big bold letters, you will still see people writing those things in the forums as lots of them don't even bother to check the Wiki. The problem starts also, amongst other things, with the support page itself, it shows little support options. When you then read the technical FAQ, you find only standard information and I can imagine that many users start to think at that point 'never mind the wiki, I'll skip through to the forums'. Also, just look at the forums, many questions have been asked about the same, and even the same questions and such pop up in the same threads. Many people don't bother to read before they post and that is something that cannot be changed easily because it needs a change of themselves.

As for people leaving road recording on, I even see experienced users, and sometimes even area managers do that. It should automatically be turned off when someone exits the Waze app, that way people cannot accidentally leave it on and it would avoid some of the problems. But like you said, it wouldn't hurt to actually inform them about it.

btw, my apologies for the long post

[svache]

Idea #5, well it is more like a request lol.. is to hold off with doing anything for about 5-6 hours, if possible.

Reason is that I started working on something, which I think we may all like (or not, I really have no idea lol), but it gives me the opportunity to show you and explain a bit better what I would like to see (and I think more people can relate with it). However, as much as I wish I could continue and wrap it up within the next hour, my wife is at work and I have to take care of our baby. She just woke up and will most likely not sleep within the next 4 to 5 hours (I also have run for some errands, but the baby just joins me there lol).

I don't mind if you guys continue discussing things, but I would like to ask if you guys could hold off from actually editing the mainpage until I finished what I started (it is not visible on the Wiki btw, I'm doing it in Photoshop).

[svache]

@Wayne, You'll see my thought on the full page thingie in a bit, I'm almost done =)

One thing I just realized, when reading some of the text on the mainpage, is the part with the known issues.. it states the following:

"But they are listed here as a warning, and so you know they are being worked on. "

The word 'warning' could put people off, as it sounds a bit scary (lol, dunno how else to describe it). I think the following would be better:

"But they are announced here, so you know they're being worked on."

Anyways, will put the thingie up in a bit =)

[svache]

Ok, lol, here's the thingie:

wazepedia.png (226.22 KiB) Viewed 1022 times

View or download the full image here

I hope you see what I have tried to do. Personally I liked the German version of the original Wikipedia the best so far, which is why I took that one as an example for the 'Wazepedia'.

The layout is, in my opinion, very clean and it shows everything in a two column width (also because of the variable width). The columns are the same width, not too big, do not have too much information in them, and share the same colors (it is always best to not go too wild with colors if you want to maintain some professionalism in the layouts, 2-4 main colors with some shading colors is usually the best).

I've used the sidebar to put all the 'main categories' in there. As you can also see on the German version, they use a drop-down-like menu (the arrows). This way you can have all the main cats, and sub categories on every page a visitor goes. If one is somewhere really deep into the articles, and has to go back and forth between the mainpage, this could cost time but is also an annoyance to the users. While the drop-down menu contains everything, it doesn't have to look cluttered.

The drop-down menu also fixed the language issue. I've let it stay the same way as it is on the German Wikipedia page, which is probably one of the best ways to do it, especially when you get more countries. Flags are nice, but only when it is not used too much (as you can also see on the current page, it kind of don't look right), and I think you can imagine what happens by the time Waze is translated into 25 languages lol

Currently there is also irrelevant information in the layout that I just made, however, I just did this to show that we don't really have to stick with the current information. It might be an idea to be a bit more playful and show some other information as well (which is also a form of advertisement at the same time, of course).

Also, when it comes down to the content, I just copied most of the current content. I may have changes a thing or two here and there, but nothing major. One thing I would like to propose, however, is not to use very long columns, but preferably more in the way as I did with "How you can help make Waze even better", just show the first paragraph and a link saying 'more', that way the user doesn't get too much information at once. The mainpage should be more of an intro page in my opinion, a place where users can find their way around more easier. The 'real' information comes in their respective articles which are at least a level deeper.

One other thing I noticed is a very inconsistent usage of capitals. I might have accidentally copied some in the lay-out but I tried to keep it at a minimum. The thing is, it looks childish and unprofessional. 12-14 year old girls Type Like ThiS, but a company such as Waze doesn't, of course

The biggest downside of this layout is, however, that Waze will have to change some of their CSS styles. It shouldn't be too hard as it is only for a few items (font/size/colors and such), and of course the width needs to be 100% in order to create something such as this. It is of course not really a downside, but I really have no idea if Waze is willing to make those changes.


@Wayne: I hope this also explained my views a bit on the layout you created, or at least gives an idea of what I had in mind? =)