[DISCUSION] Front Page Redesign Proposal 08/08/2025

Summary:

finally

[DISCUSION] Front Page Redesign Proposal 08/08/2025

EstrellaYoshte 08 Aug 2025 17:28

This is an update proposal for the SCP Wiki's front page, numero dos, and stage one result of my multi-month-long inquest process.

Mockup (with maximal extensions, unrealistic): https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/workbench:estrellayoshte
Mockup with regular use case: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/moose-s-workbench

Purpose of the Front Page

The front page serves all users, so it needs to perform the following duties:

• Introduce the concept of the SCP Foundation and the wiki (the top header)
• Familiarize the readers with the basic structures of the wiki's contents and how to browse it (the Read section)
• Give snippets or examples of articles to get started with (Features, and to an extent, Explore and Newest Pages)
• Link to the new going-ons of the wiki (Site News, Event Banner, Survey Link)
• Link to important resources and information (Other)
• Be the navigation nexus to spring off of (in stage one, will be built off of in stage two and forward)

Technical Changes

• Removing imported fonts
  • Reduce bandwidth requirements, and because the front page should neither overextend number of visual-textual differences nor does it need to
  • Exceptions for Contest/Event banner can be made
• Separating the header into constituent roles
  • It currently pulls double/triple duty as the flavor text, landing site, link to the introduction page and Contest/Event banner, which reduce the effectiveness of all its non-landing purposes, and is completely displaced whenever there's a contest.
  • Contest/Event banner will be its own fragment/container, which should keep the CSS cleanly separated. As of writing, the current header fragment imports 5(!) fonts + an assortment of leftover unused CSS.
• Read section intuits the 4 primary types of content articles the wiki has.

Collapsing the Side Bar

The foremost positive for me is that we could really use the extra real estate afforded — The front page needed too prioritize too many things with too little space, which resulted in a significant amount of compromises in current design.

The front page's layout, from a user experience perspective, should be identical to the standard layout of the site.

I don't necessarily agree with this — least of which from a UX standpoint.

The sidebar is, IMO, not a good construction when existing on the front page, it's big, bold and nearly flat in hierarchy, with effectively no contextual structure. It's fine enough as a quick list of links when browsing usual pages, but given the aforementioned purposes of the front page, makes it inadequate as a, in practice, front page replacement.

While it's true that it should be consistent in some regards, front pages in general only possess recognizable landmarks (typically headers, design language and color scheme/theme) and does not need to match default layout 100%.

To wit, AO3 and Wikipedia's front pages deviate from its 'standard pages', Super Mario Wiki's (example of a typical wiki) body design emphasizes column layout, and Orion's Arm's (our closest categorical contemporary) default layout is uncluttered and spacious enough that its front page can afford to be a carousel PiP.

To note is that almost none of the abovementioned features a sidebar as prominent as ours (Wikipedia's sidebar is per-page navigation ToC), and that which does (SMW) is very small and to the edge of the browser width.

Which brings me to my personal analysis — The sidebar as it currently positioned is a collateral of the SCP Wiki starting on a wiki platform (Shiny Theme is identical in function to regular wikis' layout) transitioning to Sigma-9's narrow, reader-esque layout.

This resulted in an awkward compromise where the sidebar takes up ~28% of effective content width, while also leaving a noticeable lopsided gap once you scroll past its height. We've grown used to it, but it's not conventional, especially to our reading direction.

People should be recognize the general site structure on the front page

They already do — Last queried, a majority of our readers read on mobile, and should be familiar with the idea of a collapsed sidebar. Additionally, hamburger navigation is an established convention on the web, so I don't see it a a major blocker.

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Should the front page be consistent with its sidebar? Sure, it'd be nice.

Can we afford the downside of Sigma's sidebar UX when it comes at a cost to effective UX with regards to the front page? Personally, I don't think so.

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The discussion will last for 14 days, after which changes will be implemented unless serious concerns are raised. In the event of negative or split opinions on a proposed item, it will not be implemented.

Timer expired. Changes implemented.

Mainsite Mirror: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-17177859/

Last edited on 23 Aug 2025 15:18 by EstrellaYoshte Show more

Re: [DISCUSION] Front Page Redesign Proposal 08/08/2025

PlaguePJP 08 Aug 2025 17:37

First off, this is an amazing job, Estrella. I'm extremely impressed. Here are a couple things that caught my eye from a UI/UX perspective:

• The art feature is a bit too big. I'd like to see it positioned on the left side and then see what it looks like thinned a bit and positioned on both sides.
  • I'm also wondering if the art box could be halved in size and the Site News is put under it.
• The lines under "Get Started" and "Join the Wiki" are thicker than the other label lines on the page
• I understand the desire to put the Newest Pages on the Wiki in a prominent spot, but in my experience, the Top Rated Pages gets far more interaction. If it has to be between the three of these pages, I think the Top Rated makes the most sense just for navigation purposes.
• The light red/pink backgrounds on the boxes in the Discover, Read, and Other categories are a bit too white.
• I'm wondering if "Get Started" and "Join the Wiki" can swap positions with both "About" categories under the top Classified banner

Last edited on 08 Aug 2025 17:37 by PlaguePJP Show more

Re: [DISCUSION] Front Page Redesign Proposal 08/08/2025

EstrellaYoshte 09 Aug 2025 07:15

I've tweaked the lines, colors and spacing, as well as fixed some bugs - I'm on the fence about placing Site News under the art like that though.

[…] I think the Top Rated makes the most sense just for navigation purposes.

I'm not sure about that - Top Rated Pages already gets a lot of attention, by being top rated in the first place. I feel the front page should bring attention to newest pages in order to keep the voting spread consistent.

I'm wondering if "Get Started" and "Join the Wiki" can swap positions with both "About" categories under the top Classified banner

The classified banner and the attached links are meant for introduction to the world of the SCP Foundation, while the side links regards being a reader/member/user, so I think it's fine as is.

Last edited on 09 Aug 2025 09:14 by EstrellaYoshte Show more

Re: [DISCUSION] Front Page Redesign Proposal 08/08/2025

Jerden 08 Aug 2025 17:49

I've already given some feedback while this was in-progress but I want to say that after seeing the final version, I like it. I am personally in favor of the collapsed sidebar giving us more space to work with, and a lot of the design choices here only make sense with a collapsed sidebar, since there's quite a bit of duplication.

In terms of the prioritisation, I think it makes sense - features kind of have to be pretty high up and they should be a good starting point for new and returning readers alike. Moving down site news may be more contentious but it's usually just the monthly newsletter, we have banners for important announcements.

I suggested adding the new pages feed based on feedback, I like the idea of it but I think it's worth filtering it to only show articles above 0, or maybe even above +10. Depends but the "latest created" feature of Crom is popular, I was imagining this being like an on-site version of that to highlight new pages.

Re: [DISCUSION] Front Page Redesign Proposal 08/08/2025

Yossipossi 08 Aug 2025 22:04

Some concerns:

• There is a plethora of inconsistency in the design (especially in the headers and alignment), which is extremely distracting and visually unappealing. Plague pointed out some (but not all) of these above.
• The use of listpages on the front page results in caching issues, which the Tech Team has specifically argued against in the past (July 22nd, 2021 in the defunct Admin-Captain channel, when Taylor attempted to design the front page), as it hurts user retention and loading times. On a critical page which needs to be loaded frequently, this is discouraged.
• The sheer quantity of links with additional descriptions is overwhelming and is unlikely to be used by new users who want to navigate the site, or worse, turn users off due to information overload. A vast majority of this information can be (and already is!) offloaded onto separate pages like Contribute and Guide Hub. These pages can be compactly linked with descriptions, with important information relating to a specific topic contained almost entirely in those pages.
• The front page is now twice as long as it was before, requiring additional scrolling to get to content you want to access, especially now that the sidebar is hidden by default.

I'm not really a fan of this redesign. There's plenty of elements I think are worthwhile and useful to integrate (such as the explainer for front page features), but there's too much about the design that instinctively feels off for me to approve. I suspect that is largely due to the aforementioned style inconsistency.

While I understand your perspective regarding the sidebar and am more open to it, I am still largely in favor of having the sidebar visible in some capacity for navigational purposes (especially with the increased length of the front page), as I personally often go to the front page and immediately use the sidebar for quick navigation of the site.

Re: [DISCUSION] Front Page Redesign Proposal 08/08/2025

EstrellaYoshte 09 Aug 2025 08:36

• I'll tweak and adjust things as to streamline things (as I just did, in addition to fixing a bug), but I don't appreciate the hyperbole of 'extremely distracting and visually unappealing' if you don't tell me what they are.
• I was not there, so I can't speak for that decision at the time, but I had Croquembouche review a previous version of the layout with three ListPages (thanks Croq!), and they cursorily found a 50ms additional load time on top the usual 200-300ms, which I think is within the acceptable range and would not impede 99% of users.
  • Not to mention that caching isn't monolithic, and page update cache does not invalidate other cached resources.
  • And as stated above, the front page, at the time of writing, imports seven Google Fonts (and doesn't use like 4 of them lmao), eight if you include the WL box, and there has not been any reported dissatisfaction with front page's load time - Any penalty occurred using ListPages does not feel that detrimental in comparison.

The sheer quantity of links with additional descriptions is overwhelming and is unlikely to be used by new users who want to navigate the site, or worse, turn users off due to information overload.

I eminently disagree? Reminder that this is what the sidebar looks like:

Nearly all bold red links in a single file, with effective only one and a half division level, and zero hierarchal visual design. If anything was going to turn users off, its going to be a sidebar that's nearly as long as the front page itself and few contextual clues as to what the navigational structure of the wiki is (Legit, the only immediate context clue that SCP, Tale, GoIF and Art are the 4 primary top level user-made works is the Random section.)

Yourself, as an 8-year veteran of the site, and myself going 5 years strong may be familiar enough with site structure and can locate where to go with the sidebar through muscle memories, but how is a new or casual users supposed to gleam that information through the current front page?

I've skimmed off some more links that may not be immediately relevant for now, but I genuinely don't see how my 4 & 3+1Random structure of Read and Discover, each with its delineated visual hierarchy and enough spacing for breathing room, is any more overwhelming that the current front page + side bar as a whole.

A vast majority of this information can be (and already is!) offloaded onto separate pages like Contribute and Guide Hub

This is literally an overused action and chronic issue with how guides and important information are scattered that Navigation spent the last 2-3 years wrangling on and off. Contribute is its own topic for another day.

These pages can be compactly linked with descriptions, with important information relating to a specific topic contained almost entirely in those pages.

And I did? How would you propose we navigate to those pages from the front page without looking at the top bar?

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The front page is now twice as long as it was before, requiring additional scrolling to get to content you want to access

Three notes on this:

Why is the front page being longer an issue in itself?

1. Historically speaking, the reason it got away with being so short is because it only had the Classified banner, the features and news (ignoring sister site and INT branches); all the important info and navigation landmarks got offloaded into a side bar longer than the main content.

It then proceeded to go through several rounds of revision, and front page's gotten so good at compacting itself (which again, not enough space, I've outlined the reason what in my initial post) that you literally cannot be more compact with outright deleting the banner.

And it still basically has that same problem of dumping all the links to the sidebar as the old ones, even when Rounder's perfected the Site News-Features layout.

2. Any amount of redesign will inevitably lengthen the front page, because it's almost impressively anemic? It has 4 things (5 if you count the occasional Event stuff) - The banner, Site News, Features and the Sisters Sites (which takes up an incredible 40% of the height), and it still has to fight for space, given the effort both I and Rounder spent trying previously.

If you count the sidebar, it has anywhere from 5 to 24+ things of topic, depending on how you group it, least charitable of with is the entire sidebar blends into one red blobby sea of links with barest categories, zero description, zero visual hierarchy and scant few contextual hints.

3. The sidebar has not disappeared - For mobile users (the majority of readers), nothing has changed other than gaining some new categories below. For desktop users, all the immediate link branches are still only one scroll or click away.

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Ultimately, I think it comes down to a concession - trading the consistency of sidebar on the front page for a more streamlined, new-user-friendly front page with better UX - which is worthwhile, IMO.

Re: [DISCUSION] Front Page Redesign Proposal 08/08/2025

Yossipossi 10 Aug 2025 05:06

I'm not certain why you've gotten worked up over my opinion (especially to directly quote a comment of mine in your discussion post so you can write several paragraphs of rebuttal, instead of talking to me directly about it on Discord). I understand this is a long-term project, but I am not — and have not been — trying to be antagonistic towards you. I'm a Luddite when it comes to redesigning things because I saw how BHL, ACS, and all the other fancy CSS tools fractured the site's cohesive identity; I'm overly critical about any major layout changes because they risk further eroding what made the site appealing to me in the first place, that being its aesthetic. I have nothing against you as a person, and I want to reiterate that since it seems like you are very upset at my (admittedly fairly unconventional) opinion. I'm sorry for using hyperbole in my own post; it was largely in response to that aforementioned quoting, which made me quite upset, since I've been pariah'd for having dissenting opinions on policy many, many times in the past.

To address the comment:

• A majority of the inconsistencies seem to have been resolved while I was gone for Shabbos and greatly standardized the design. I am definitely more fond of it now. That said, a few more things:
  • The features use a different style from the rest of the page.
  • The Site News has its own styling that is visually distinct from the rest of the front page. I assume it was intentional, but it still looks (to me) out of place (and is in a strange spot).
  • The "Contribute" section has significantly more white space than the other sections.
  • The "Contribute" section having one description and three "See Also" sections for different parts is visually strange; this applies also for other sections, which use links in the subtextual parts in an inconsistent manner.
    • The text under "as a Reader" is also in the "See Also" font-size, which is the only place this is done. I understand it's for visual consistency with the other continuations, but the quantity of text combined with the deviation feels weird.
    • The links under the icons are also different in capitalization, which is recognizable as a continuation of the word "Contribute" upon inspection, but look strange at a glance. I think this is fine as is, but should be preceded by an ellipses to make it more obvious at a glance as to what it's syntactically doing.
  • "Sandbox" should probably be below both "List of Hubs" and "Licensing", which are navigationally more similar to guides and essays.
    • The "Sandbox" link should also point to scp-wiki.wikidot.com/sandbox instead of the sandbox directly, in the event we switch sandboxes again. This is the link in the top bar.
  • The last two sister site boxes are different heights. This was fine when they were stacked on top of one another, but side by side it's much more noticeable.
    • I recognize this is because of the collapsible, but uncollapsed I don't think it's a problem; it's only really a visual issue to me when it looks like that on-load.
• The last I had heard about listpages on the front page it was vehement disapproval from Tech; if Croq's test of the listpage module confirms no issues with loading then I obviously have no problems with it myself.
• I will politely disagree on the basis that the sidebar is immediately obvious as an external navigational element and does not register as something necessary to read by a new user due to the lack of hierarchy and detail. The only thing they would likely notice is social media links (which are images and not difficult to understand) and the visually distinct "Getting Started" section (which I frankly think is a little bloated, but that's also a different discussion). I also include the "Newest Pages", "Contribute", and "Other" sections in my link overload comment; taken together, this contains 39 links + descriptive text (ignoring the preceding and following sections) compared to the sidebar's 38 links + social media icons, ignoring the translation module (which, frankly, should be hidden on the front page, since it makes no sense as a navigational element).
• I still think that offloading information to relevant first-layer pages is necessary, but if it's a topic for another day then so be it.
• You did in some cases, but there's still many links that I don't think are necessary to include in the front page. Some in particular:
  • Two of the "See Also" links in the "Read" section are present in the header's links themselves, and one (Tales) could easily be edited to do that too.
    • Also as I'm writing this, you still have placeholder text for the SCP description. Not sure if you were going to replace it later or accidentally forgot.
  • The "Sandbox" link is largely unnecessary, as it's only useful for people who are authors already, and navigationally you're able to easily find it in the topbar or have it bookmarked already.
  • "New Forum Posts" and "Recent Changes" are more moderative pages, and I don't see the utility of putting them on the front page (or anywhere other than somewhere, that current somewhere being the sidebar).
• I'll concede on the length and sidebar. Though its lack of inclusion in the front page is going to be very irritating for my muscle memory and "old website" style preferences.

I'll reiterate again that none of my critiques are intended to be a personal attack on you or another other staff that have worked on this. I respect you as a person (and your work!) quite a lot, which should be apparent based on my past communication with you. I'm sorry if this comes across as harsh; stormbreath can confirm I can be obnoxious about redesigns that alter the appearance of the site, since we've gotten into quibbles about it in the past.

Re: [DISCUSION] Front Page Redesign Proposal 08/08/2025

EstrellaYoshte 10 Aug 2025 09:51

• The Feature boxes are live on the current front page and I'm not at liberty to majorly edit them at this time. That said, I don't think it will be changed much, as it does a fine job highlighting features' weightiness. If it needs to be unified further, I'll leave it to stage three or four.
• Site News has its own design system, and lead to a page that indicate as such; I think it's best to have a self-contained snippet of that. Its placement is more malleable, I'm still pondering on the best place to position it. See https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/quikngruvn-sandbox for alternative layout.
• I've removed some accidental whitespace on Contribute, but I maintain that it keeps some, to be both a visual rest for the eye track, and subtly draw them to one of four paths.
  • I don't have any alternative for Reader, regular text is too big, and it doesn't have any relevant See also links; it also feels weird if we don't do the usual advice of vote and comment.
  • I tried out ellipsis, but it ended up a bit lopsided. It could be capitalized, I don't have any strong feeling on it.
• Fair enough, I've moved sandbox to the bottom and changed the link, and nixed Recent Changes and New Posts.
• As with Features, it's live, so will have to be edited later.

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I think your use case more or less indicates that the sidebar, in its current state, effectively is the front page, which is not ideal, not least of which is because the front page should principally establish the context and navigational structure, upon which the sidebar can piggy off to be a quick access point, because the users have already gleamed the necessary mental map for it.

I feel the presence of additional links is not bad, given that it's already structured to indicate it as a sub-node of the bigger link - That those can be immediately accessed from the front page means one fewer context switch, which is powerful. Whether those should be SCP Picks and CTS is changeable, but being only one degree removed from the front page I feel is important for that, as well as the other links.

I still haven't come up with a good description for SCP, so it's a placeholder for now.

It's important to have the link on the front page, still, if only to make the immediate jump easier as a mental marker, then users can bookmark it. Otherwise, the degree of separation is 2 to 4 for the expected link tree:

• Front Page -> Guide for Writing -> Sandbox
• FP -> About SCP Foundation -> Sandbox (this one is somewhat unintuitive)
• FP -> FAQ -> FAQ About Writing -> Sandbox
• FP -> Guide Hub -> How to Write an SCP -> HtwaSCP - 3. Resources, Templates and Formatting -> Sandbox

(As an aside, the top bar fucking sucks - It's small, effectively unchangeable in presence, and completely overshadowed as a nav element compared to side bar. It's in practice a navigation null point that still has to be accounted for and designed around.)

Re: [DISCUSION] Front Page Redesign Proposal 08/08/2025

Yossipossi 10 Aug 2025 21:14

• Sounds like a plan to me.
• I definitely prefer the alternate layout. It still is a little out of place but it makes more sense there than in the following section.
• Some white space is fine by me. If the ellipses looks weird, I think capitalization is a good alternative.
• o7
• o7

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For the sublinks, I can see the logic there. I still think it's a lot of links and makes it difficult to know where to direct your attention. I think something that could help with this is making sublinks unbolded, which would make them more visually indistinct, directing a user's attention towards the headers first and signaling "this is supplementary". Unbolded links are already used in the features and header section.

That first path is the one that's intended, imo. Users don't have a use for the sandbox until they've read the Guide for Writing first. The plentiful linking to the sandbox on other pages (and top bar, despite it being a navigational null point), means that I think it could be effectively cut from the front page at minimal loss (especially since it's the only link there that goes to another site instead of a guide of some kind).

Re: [DISCUSION] Front Page Redesign Proposal 08/08/2025

Prismal 08 Aug 2025 22:49

I think this looks really good especially on mobile.

I do think Yossi is right both in regards to the listpages and in regards to information overload though.
One thing that I don't like that people haven't mentioned yet, is how the 'Get Started' and 'Join the Wiki' bits sit on desktop. Feels weird for anything to be at the same level as the 'classified' banner.
Or at least the banner should only be as wide as the features area.

I also think that the 'how are features selected' bit should be above, below, or within the features section, not to the right as it is now on PC.

Re: [DISCUSION] Front Page Redesign Proposal 08/08/2025

EstrellaYoshte 09 Aug 2025 08:38

I think if anything should be on the level of the classified banner, its the part where people can join the site.

I also think that the 'how are features selected' bit should be above, below, or within the features section, not to the right as it is now on PC.

But it is still on top? Its inline with the header, which is above the features.

Re: [DISCUSION] Front Page Redesign Proposal 08/08/2025

Prismal 10 Aug 2025 06:30

So, initially I was thinking that the writing features and the art spotlight were two different categories. I don't know why that is but now that I've looked again and see that its all actually under the features umbrella I recognize that's the best spot for it yeah.

Re: [DISCUSION] Front Page Redesign Proposal 08/08/2025

syuzhet 09 Aug 2025 15:26

Hi.

This is everything I've been asking for, so you are an angel to me! However, I have a few minor nitpicks as a designer myself.

• De-emphasize the "How are Features selected?" hover-box. The eye naturally gravitates towards it over the other more important elements in that area of the page.
• The elements under the "Read" and "Discover" section should have a little more contrast. The buttons are too pastel…
• Add backgrounds to the elements under "Contribute" and turn them into clickable tiles.

That is all I have to say…

You have done great work, EstrellaYoshte. I will remember you for all eternity.

Re: [DISCUSION] Front Page Redesign Proposal 08/08/2025

Ethagon 10 Aug 2025 13:53

I think this is overall very good.

It does feel a bit cluttered at the start, so I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea to give the different sections some space to breath. The space between Sister Sites and Contribute is the amount I think would be good to have between the Classified Banner and the Features.

I'm off and on if we should link to the Universe Hub so prominently, but it's probably fine.

The read section and everything after it is great. No notes. Linking to the latest series page still has the problem that people are most likely to start reading down the list from there, but starting with the latest X000 entry is infinitely better then trying to start with SCP-001.

I'm somewhat wondering about Newest Pages here as well. Given how common it is in the community to look at the /latest pages gathered by Crom, it makes sense to me to have a similar up-to-date feature on the Front Page. I think a rating threshold of >=+5 or >=+10 may potentially be a good idea, but it shouldn't be anything higher than that.