Wikipedia’s Site Redesign is a Subtle Boost to UX

Wikipedia’s brand isn’t known for flashy design, colors, or honestly really being much of a visual brand at all. That’s what makes this site redesign a great study in the value of UX principles in design. In fact, “subtle” was the entire point, so as to keep the site familiar to users. At first glance, the changes may be hard to notice, but start to use and search the site, and you can definitely tell: there’s a new sticky header that follows you down the page, making top level navigation much easier. The search function has been upgraded to show autocompleted terms and images. The sidebar now has collapsible options, for personalization of the user experience. Not every redesign needs to make a giant change to be successful, and this is a perfect example!