User blog comment:Rupert Giles/Layout Changes: Breakpoints and Typography/@comment-1519608-20150519165421

I'm sure this comment will get drowned out, but I want to post it anyways.

As you might guess, I am not happy with the changes that have been made. I'm sure some of this is just a natural reaction to change. However, I feel there are significant problems with the redesign and the reasoning behind it.

Wikia has determined that a majority of web traffic to Wikia comes from mobile devices. I think it's smart to make sure that those readers are able to read wikis effectively. It makes sense to design a website so that all users can read and use it effectively. It's also good business. But in this case, it's unnecessary.

It's unnecessary, because 50% of traffic is already mobile. If Wikia truly were atrocious to read on mobile devices, then why would our mobile traffic already be so high? With these changes, are we trying to increase that number? Additionally, making these changes drastically affects whole other segments of the population. The target audience may experience a slightly improved site, but that comes at the expense of all other users who get to watch the site decline.

Lastly, I take issue with how this was implemented. Certainly Wikia is not a democracy; Wikia can surely do whatever it feels like doing whenever it wants. Frankly, they could make these changes and completely ignore our feedback, because we as users have no power to stop them. We can't even migrate our wikis off Wikia, even if the community on the wiki backs such an action. We are literally stuck with whatever Wikia chooses to do. Wikia Staff has stated multiple times that they want to be open about the changes they make and that they want feedback. But every time something like this is proposed, it seems to be immediately implemented with little time to discuss or adjust. A change like this, which significantly affects the readability and useability of the site for a large portion of the population, received one lone staff blog post and a month's heads up before it was enacted.

Certainly Wikia is not a democracy, but why do they need to be so aggressive in implementing changes left and right? Why can't they slow down a bit and seek feedback before announcing plans to make changes? Whenever something like this comes up, it's announced in a blog post then implemented soon afterwards. It hardly gives us a chance to give our feedback, before the changes are rammed down our throats. And it always feels like we're playing catch-up, having to mobilize quickly and shout as loud as we can in order to fix even the most minor problems with each new site update.

Tl;dr: Seek feedback before announcing plans to implement major changes. And consider who your target demographic really is, and what we really need to do to handle the wide variety of people who read Wikia.