Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements

Our desktop interface has been changing over time, yet since the introduction of the Vector skin, most of these changes have been led by volunteers and consolidated into prototypes, user scripts, gadgets, and volunteer-led skins. We think it's time to take some of these ideas and bring them to the default experience. Over the next couple of years, the readers web team will be researching and building out improvements to the desktop experience based on research and existing tools. Our goals are to make Wikipedia more welcoming to new readers and editors, and easier and quicker to use for all (both newcomers and veteran editors).

This project is in the very early stages of discussions. There is no concrete plan or development yet. We need your collaboration and feedback on the general focus areas of the problem, as well as some thoughts on the initial design ideas below.

Please edit and add to the Design ideas sections below, to add new ideas, notes, links to past discussions, links to existing gadgets/scripts, links to good external design-patterns to consider, etc. Longer comments and thoughts welcome on the talkpage.

Constraints
Here is a list of things we would explicitly like to keep in mind:


 * Not touching the content - no work will be done in terms of styling templates or to the structure of pages themselves
 * Not removing any functionality - things might move around, but all navigational items and other functionality currently available by default will remain
 * No drastic changes to the layout - we're taking an evolutionary approach to the changes and want the site to continue feeling familiar

Design ideas
A few of the many ideas that have been suggested:


 * Focusing on the content, distinguish content from user-interface
 * Potential features:
 * collapsible sections in sidebar
 * Past examples: Hebrew Wikipedia, ...
 * collapsible sidebar
 * Past examples: Wide Skin (enwiki script), Hide Vector sidebar (enwiki script), ...
 * Easier access to everyday actions
 * Potential features:
 * sticky header with search, table of contents, edit links
 * Past examples: Usability-wiki (historical research), Winter (historical prototype), Timeless (alternative skin), ...
 * more prominent language switching (moving the language switcher to the top of the page)
 * Past examples: Timeless skin at 1325px or wider and at 1085px or thinner, ...
 * Putting things in logical and useful places
 * Potential features:
 * Consolidated user menu (e.g. collapsing things like "Log out", "Preferences", and "Beta", inside a dropdown menu)
 * Preferences for logged out users
 * Past examples: Accessibility settings/preferences (T91201), ...
 * Moving article actions from the sidebar to within the article
 * Past examples: Winter, Timeless at 1085px or thinner, ...

Additional research
We're currently putting together all the research we've done on past efforts and Wikimania interviews - we'll have it up here soon!