Talk:Environment Survey/MediaWiki Skins/Nomination

From Wikimedia Usability Initiative

Preserving screen space

I like the styles of several of the available skins, like Monobook, or Modern, but I hate that, from my user perspective, the're built the wrong way, from a technicians perspective.

Technicians view
There is a page. It has to have a set of blocks of navigational elements, and indispensable informational elements and links. Collect those along the edges of the viewport (window) forming various rectangles occupying "their remainder" of the windows width/height each. Use the remaining innermost rectangle for the page.
Users view
Show me the page content. If I need them, I want to have some navigational links available, but do not bother me with pescribed links to non-informations which I never read, which is all-the-same all-the-time everywhere. Avoid any need to scroll my window!
Consequentially I want
  • the logo shrunk to almost icon size (a wide letter in big headline print) except maybe on the main page - no logo whoud be fine, too, with a sufficiently distinct looking screen layout.
  • no endless needless empty row underneath "toolbox" or "languages".
  • no endless row of language links extending empty space under a short page.
  • nothing but preview, edit box, and helpful buttons on the edit screen, absolutely no legalese (except outside my window frame maybe)
  • best: no scroll bars.
  • second best: scrollbars but no need to scroll - everything I don't want or need is outside my window.
  • third: If scrolling isn't avoidable, e.g. for a long article, keep the few links I would need in my sight via a (small!) fixed float or frame.
    • Downside: Which ones do I need? Ooom, yeah, it depends … :-(
  • as a person I hate java/script (mainly for security reasons) and boxes popping up (my personal taste) but as an advocate of John Doe Average, the user, I must recommend dynamic pop-ups of some of the bigger selections, like toolbox, all-special-pages, language-links, etc. done with CSS.

Maybe, this helps a bit :-) Greetings --Purodha 12:03, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your statement « no endless needless empty row underneath "toolbox" or "languages" ». I think the left margin should be collapsable, as they do on www.legifrance.gouv.fr (a website providing up-to-date versions of French statutes). When you click on "Masquer le panneau de navigation" (hide navigation panel), the left margin disappears, and you can read the text inside the full width of your computer screen. Teofilo 13:45, 20 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
However, it should be done without the page refreshing or reloading. --Michaeldsuarez 13:05, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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