Wikipedia has added a useful new feature: page previews. The Wikimedia Foundation calls it “one of the biggest changes to Wikipedia in years,” and it provides readers with a pop-up window that displays a little bit of the article’s text.
Reading any page on Wikipedia can turn into a never-ending journey that can take you to places you never expected. This exploration can be a fun, informative adventure, but it can also be a bit distracting, especially if the article you click on isn’t really useful.
See the image below:
The new page previews display an image and a few sentences that briefly describe the article when you hover your mouse over the link. This way, you can decide whether to click on the link or not. Clicking the pop-up window will take you to that article, and moving your mouse will make it disappear.
Wikimedia says it conducted extensive testing during the development of the new feature and found that most users did not disable it. It also found that “each reader interacted with the content of more pages while navigating the site” and that overall page views decreased significantly.
This seems to mean that users are finding useful information from the pop-ups, and thus visiting fewer pages.
The new feature also appears to be working on the Greek version of the online encyclopedia.
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