Agreed. A lot of terrible design practices get voted to the top here. Since it isn't a design-centric board and because we can't downvote (and it's rude to downvote without stating the reason anyway, generally), the best way to convey bad practices is through writing a reply. A good portion of people here have never had to deal with a real design critique and don't know the lingo.
At the same time, this redesign is supposed to be an advertisement for this agency, so much so that they bought a domain for it. It's not just something they did for their mother's crochet club. It is supposed to show the depth at which the agency thinks. It is supposed to show their design chops. It is supposed to illustrate that they can tackle large problems. It fails, incredibly, at every single one. In an industry where everyone bandwagons onto concepts and ideas due to a lack of their own, this behavior needs to be called out. The scale at which they completely botched this project is astounding and people need to stop thinking colors and minimalism will solve information issues.
Take for instance the thread on .Mail (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4291803). The designer does good work, but didn't display the app as well as he could have. The discussion delves into everything from ways to better present the information to does this app even have a place in the ecosystem to I would never use this !@#$%!! While a good portion of the comments are harsh, if you drill down to the intent, there's a lot of good stuff there.
These are the conversations I love about HN, even though they tend to be a little dry. I've yet to find a more passionate group of people who understand the web and have played with and built enough of their own products to know what they're talking about. And not to generalize, but that's how the programmers I've worked with tend to be, and I love that about them.
While some people might see this Wikipedia redesign as a playful experiment and treat it as such, it's intention was to sell you on the agency's talent. When you look at it through that lens, there's a lot to complain about and I don't think it's out of bounds to do so when we all work in this industry and these are the types of people we're (indirectly) competing against.
At the same time, this redesign is supposed to be an advertisement for this agency, so much so that they bought a domain for it. It's not just something they did for their mother's crochet club. It is supposed to show the depth at which the agency thinks. It is supposed to show their design chops. It is supposed to illustrate that they can tackle large problems. It fails, incredibly, at every single one. In an industry where everyone bandwagons onto concepts and ideas due to a lack of their own, this behavior needs to be called out. The scale at which they completely botched this project is astounding and people need to stop thinking colors and minimalism will solve information issues.
Take for instance the thread on .Mail (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4291803). The designer does good work, but didn't display the app as well as he could have. The discussion delves into everything from ways to better present the information to does this app even have a place in the ecosystem to I would never use this !@#$%!! While a good portion of the comments are harsh, if you drill down to the intent, there's a lot of good stuff there.
These are the conversations I love about HN, even though they tend to be a little dry. I've yet to find a more passionate group of people who understand the web and have played with and built enough of their own products to know what they're talking about. And not to generalize, but that's how the programmers I've worked with tend to be, and I love that about them.
While some people might see this Wikipedia redesign as a playful experiment and treat it as such, it's intention was to sell you on the agency's talent. When you look at it through that lens, there's a lot to complain about and I don't think it's out of bounds to do so when we all work in this industry and these are the types of people we're (indirectly) competing against.