If you’ve visited Wikipedia recently, you may have noticed a few changes to the reading and editing interface. These changes form part of Wikipedia’s usability and user experience programme, and are the result of qualitative user research undertaken by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Here’s a rundown of the changes you can look out for:

• A new theme, called Vector
• Tabs at the top of each page to more clearly define whether you are viewing the page or discussion page, and whether you are reading or editing a page
• Improvements to the editing toolbar, making page-formatting simpler and more intuitive
• Link wizard, for easily adding links to other Wikipedia or Wikimedia pages, as well as links to external sites
• Improved search suggestions
• Table wizard for creating tables
• Find-and-replace feature to simplify page editing

Other changes planned for later this year include:

• A reduction in the amount of wiki code users see in the edit system
• Allowing users to change data in tables and information boxes through simple forms
• A new outline tool that will help users navigate long articles while editing
• Simplification of the search function
• An improved interface for uploading images and video, and searching the multimedia repository

If you are someone who always wants to try the latest version of software, even if it is a pre release, you might want to take a look at IE9. I downloaded it, and from what I see Microsoft is really trying to step up to the plate by creating a decent standards based browser. While it might not be a Webkit browser like Chrome or Safari, it does support the newer HTML5 standards, including H.264 video codecs right out the box.  IE9 is currently not even in Beta yet, but is primarily focussed on web developers who want to be proactive with their work. When you install it, it does not replace your current IE install, so its not too risky. What this version of IE9 does well is some great new design demos:

You can run the demos in other browsers and just see how they perform. So if you are interested, you can get IE9 preview here.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Obox Design, a premium theme studio based in Hout Bay, Cape Town, has joined up with popular micro-blogging service Posterous to supply their users with a selection of themes. The Obox themes will be included in the official Posterous theme directory, and will all be free. Three themes are already available, with two more in the pipeline.

Themes now available
My.List, a visual theme suited to designers or photographers:

Mad Men, formerly known as Smoke & Tumble:

Post Press, formerly known as Micro.Press:

The two themes currently in development are Minimal (simple design with a clear focus on the content), and Wired Inspired (includes some subtle grunge elements). Read more about the partnership on the Obox blog.

BandwidthBlog posted the scoop a few months ago about the new M&G site layout and I’m sure you remember it. Vincent Maher head strategist for M&G and Amatomu co-founder, showed it to Charl months and months ago, but today ladies and gents the wait is over. We have the final version which should be ready to go live soon.

Took them a lot of time to renovate their website but M&G Online now includes a world-class design that’s based on a more spacious and sophisticated layout, which should offer a very easy and comfortable browsing experience. They’ve also implemented social media functionality by combining features from Thought Leader, South African blog aggregator Amatomu, and News in Photos sites.

Some say it may be faster than the older version. I agree.

Most important features of the new Mail & Guardian Online are:

• Save clippings of favourite articles and publish these on their own clippings blogs.
• The StoryPredictor suggests articles according to reader interests.
• See who is viewing which article on the M&G Online in real time with NewsSwarm.
• Enjoy better and centralised management of newsletter subscriptions.
• Use advanced article printing functionality.
• Add blog and news feeds from other online sources.
• Receive special announcements from the M&G Online.
• Use the ReadersChoice system to vote for articles or add articles from other sites.
• Explore major e-commerce areas: jobs, cars, dating, property and shopping.
• View related articles from other news websites.
• Comment on all articles and debate with other M&G Online readers.
• View a basic video feed of world news from AFP

Just for the records here’s a comparison : before and after.

We at BandwidthBlog have always been harsh and hard with newcomers or changes, but this time it’s almost a perfect A. Good job to all those that worked hard hours on beer and pizza to come up with the new layout. It’s looking great!

Lots of people were expecting the new Facebook user profile layout but the “company” was very slow in delivering. The new layout was supposed to be ready early April, but all we got were more details on their Developers page. Apparently the new layout will contain 5 main tabs : Feed, Wall, Info, Photos, and “Boxes”.

The feed tab seems to be unchanged containing news feeds, but still users may find it hard to “understand” why there is a Wall anymore because it will be text-only from now on. Using a Publisher Tool users will be able to post to their friends’ feed tabs and their own. The tool could be similar to FriendFeed-like conversations but it’s nothing certain until we get more info from the guys.

Existing wide and narrow profile boxes will now appear on a new Boxes tab that every user can enable/disable on their profile.

Though I said there are 5 tabs contained within the layout, users will be able to add their own, too. Facebook will allow up to 5 application boxes to be shown across all tabs but there will be some sort of height restriction.

I’m waiting for the release to give you more info because right now there isn’t much I can dig, except for a not very informative screenshot. Stay tuned.

Building a successful blog has many key elements, one of them is a great design and layout. Now not all of us are design savvy and could easily end up with a horrible looking blog. Luckily we have blogging rockstars like Adii to provide high quality themes with feature packed back ends.

Adii released three new premium WordPress themes, the Live Wire series : Live Wire 2.0, Live Wire Edition and Live Wire Style. The prices start at $99.95 for a single license (website), go up at $149.95 for all three themes and two licenses and if you need to use them on an unlimited number of domains you’ll have to pay $249.95 (includes all three themes).

Here is a list of the features you get when you buy a Live Wire premium theme:

Automatic Image Resizer (requires PHP GD Library to work)
Custom Page Templates for Archives, Sitemap & Image Gallery
Built-in Gravatar Support for Authors & Comments
Author Profiles & Archives
Featured news section
Video Panel (for use with Flash videos)
Navigation Dropdown Menu’s
Sidebar Tabbed Box
2 different homepage layouts (featured section)
Widgetized sidebars
Integrated Banner Ad Management (easily switch this on / off)
Integrated Flickr & Feedburner

The three themes are all magazine-like but I’m sure you could use them on your blog even if you don’t want to start an online magazine. For example, an ideal place to use the Live Wire themes would be on a blogs network. We all know branding is important and having the same elements present is a must for blog networks.

I had the chance to see all of the themes in action and I really liked what I saw. Functionality is great but kept simple with a clean layout and sweet features.

One of my friends bought the developer’s package for his network of blogs and told me that his RSS subscribers increased by 20-percent and readers started to make more and more comments on his articles. This sounds like a great deal so if you want yours, go ahead and buy it now.

Ladies and gents if you remember our Springleap coverage last month you probably know that if you submit your t-shirt design and people like it, you may win some prizes.

The guys did it again, this time with a marketing solution to get blogs/Internet exposure and came up with a SEO contest. So they needed designers the first time to have what to sell and all they need now is people talking about them.

But let me tell you more about the contest. It’s starting today and ends on April 1st. This is when a number of judges will open up google.com and will search for – springleap – and will award points to the first three URLs (obviously 3pts for #1, 2pts for #2 and 1pt for #3). The total votes will be counted and the winners will get R500 for number three, R1000 for number two and a “whopping” R2500 for number one.

As you can see their marketing strategy is great and believe me there’s going to be a lot of buzz on this SEO contest mainly because it’s money involved. What I would enjoy the most is to get some numbers from them, that tell us how many new buyers they got from this campaign.

Right now, for – springleap – BandwidthBlog is #2 and we plan to either stay there or climb one step further. I wish everyone luck and let the games begin.

We’ve published quite a few scoops over the last few months namely the release of Laaik and Play from 24, the Nudjit launch and now leaked screen shots of the much anticipated and documented M&G redesign.

OK, so maybe the screens weren’t leaked but actually graciously sent to me by the head strategist of M&G and Amatomu co-founder Vincent Maher. I caught up with him on Skype and he gave me the low down on their latest project -

The screen shots below is straight after their first internal review attended by Vince Maher, Matthew Buckland, Riaan (M&G editor) and Matthew (the news editor). The goal was to bed down the style and the grid of the homepage which is about 50% done. The way they setup their homepage mock up is exactly what it would look like online with real content, the exact type size, face and line height. The next step was to print and review as a team (team mentioned above). Then they navigated the same mock up in a browser to check the vertical units have their own visual logic in the loading view.

Vincent Maher: Ideally we want people to stop scrolling at logical points and what they see is something that makes sense on its own. Or, if they don’t, there must be enough visual markers to understand that they have stopped between blocks..

Some of the other notable changes are -

• Horizontal navigation
• Wide format 96opx wide, centered
• Essentially four columns decreasing in width towards the right
• Colour – we’re dropping the red and black links because its hard to read
• Blurbs shortened from 5o to about 17 words

Tomorrow is the second round of meetings and then Vince and his team start work on the sections and story pages. Screen shots below -

Pics of the M&G brains trust working on the design

Remember you saw it here first!