User:Niharika (usurped)/MediawikiHomepageRedesinMicrotasks

A Dummy page I made: Link

What are the main problems you see in the current homepage? Which websites do you think we should look at to find good lessons and inspiration, and why?
 * It has too much text and less of visual elements.
 * What can be done: Keep only important information directly and make others into collapsible/expandable links
 * Introduce more pictures/better fonts/ use of icons
 * It doesn't right away tell a person, who lands on that page, what MediaWiki does. We have to navigate over to https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:What_is_MediaWiki%3F to get that information.
 * What can be done: Include more details about Mediawiki and its purpose on the homepage itself, like nodejs.org
 * The columns/boxes are not properly aligned
 * What can be done: Make the Download box on top only, like on most websites and remove that column, align the rest properly etc.

To look for inspiration, I searched other open-source project websites and found several to be quite visually appealing. I'll keep updating this list.
 * Fedora  --> We can remove the left panel from the homepage and introduce a navigation bar like here(the one in blue). This will make the homepage stand out from the rest of the site as well.
 * GNOME --> We can separate content into different tabs which will improve readability and search-ability. It'll make the page look more organized.
 * Mozilla  --> Mozilla pages have an excellent blend of color and minimalism which are attractive to the user. We can improve the colors and fonts on the mediawiki homepage, taking inspiration from this.
 * Grunt --> This is a perfect demonstration of a user-friendly homepage. It clearly defines its purpose and usage on the homepage itself. It's neatly laid out.

'''Pick one element from the current mediawiki.org homepage that in your opinion needs to be changed, and work on a proposal for improvement. You can sketch different options instead of trying to polish a single one, if you wish.'''
 * The one element I want to change, not just on the homepage and a lot other pages too is the Language Picker. The current language picker is a big box with all the languages listed in their own language. I understand this is very important for somebody who has no knowledge of English absolutely, but as per the modern design techniques it feels a bit outdated and unnecessary.
 * Either we can make it into a neat drop-down box at the top of the page(like on most other modern sites)
 * Or we can make the languages box collapsible/expandable
 * Or we could list the most-frequently used languages in the footer itself and collapse the rest in 'Others'.