If that’s the most severe (or one of the most severe) problems with Wikipedia’s UI that you can think of, then this only proves my point. As you say, Wikipedia is generally pretty good—which cannot be said for the overwhelming majority of modern websites, even—especially!—those that (quite correctly and reasonably) conform to the “limit text column width” typographic guideline.
I didn’t introduce Wikipedia as an example of a site with poor UI. I think it’s pretty good aside from, as I said, the line width issue. It’s also in a space that people have a lot of experience with: displaying textual information to people. Wikipedia could likely benefit from some A/B tests to optimize their page load times, but that’s all behind the scenes.
Wikipedia is generally pretty good, but the “lines run the full width of your monitor on desktop no matter how wide your screen” is terrible.
If that’s the most severe (or one of the most severe) problems with Wikipedia’s UI that you can think of, then this only proves my point. As you say, Wikipedia is generally pretty good—which cannot be said for the overwhelming majority of modern websites, even—especially!—those that (quite correctly and reasonably) conform to the “limit text column width” typographic guideline.
I didn’t introduce Wikipedia as an example of a site with poor UI. I think it’s pretty good aside from, as I said, the line width issue. It’s also in a space that people have a lot of experience with: displaying textual information to people. Wikipedia could likely benefit from some A/B tests to optimize their page load times, but that’s all behind the scenes.