Streamlined Infoboxes

Why Streamline Infoboxes

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w:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-07-10/Dispatches

Goals

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  • Keep the box simple, and limit it to essentials.
  • Must be glanceable.[1]
  • Information must be consistently organized, so a user knows where to find information.

Core Template Types and Data

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Top 7 Template Types:

Places, people, and media, seem to be the most-used types of infobox in the largest Wikipedias. Species taxoboxes (w:Template:Taxobox) are also in the top 3.

Open Questions

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  • Do infoboxes need a main title? In most cases repeating the title name is redundant, can we use this to present alternate names or meta information?

Principles

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  • All templates carry a minimum of 1 section with label-value pairs
  • 2 column layout for label-value pairs
  • The infobox does not reserve the entire right rail

Mockups

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Notes

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  1. w:Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#Design principles: "The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance."