Phase 1: Visual Redesign

During Phase 1, the team will apply the learnings from usability testing, research and discussion with communities to identify and test a new visual design for the Explore feed. Should the redesign validate our hypothesis, we will scale the redesign and move on to Phase 2 which is new content types for the explore feed.

Background

Before designing, we ran two studies to understand what readers actually need from the feed. Findings are summarized below, or you can learn more in the Phase 0 tab.

In-app survey · December 2025 · 1,184 respondents

Current app users universally want more personalization and more interactive content — games, quizzes, and content tied to their interests and reading history. A significant share weren't aware the feed could be customized at all, despite it being the first tab they see on every app open. Games was the least-used feature in the feed and simultaneously one of the most requested improvements, signaling a major discoverability gap.

Qualitative interviews · December 2025 · New and non-app users

Participants brought strong expectations from other feed-based apps. When the Explore feed lacked familiar relevance cues — recency, popularity, personal connection — it felt hard to evaluate and easy to leave. Low-effort, remixed content performed best: features like On This Day resonated because they feel approachable and finite. Participants wanted personalization without algorithmic entrapment.

Prototype testing · Early 2026 · 14 participants

We tested two feed directions with new and casual readers: Focus (full-screen immersive) and Streams (scrollable card feed). The split was exactly 50/50 on preference — but for complementary reasons. Focus felt modern and conducive for daily use; Streams felt organized and credible. That finding directly shaped the final design: the Community tab uses the Streams approach, and the For You tab uses the Focus approach.
"It gives you that swiping gesture which is really addicting... this is a good way to do it because people are so used to this swiping gesture." — Participant, prototype study
"I would probably open it again just because I like to read something in the mornings before going into social media... just a little bit more substantial or meaningful." — Participant, prototype study

Timeline

The Android team is currently developing the changes to the Explore Feed, and a first phase of changes is expected to release in May 2026. The redesign will come to iOS in July 2026. The redesign can be followed on this Phabricator Epic T407990.

Design Principles

Retention before depth: reasons to come back matter more than any single deep read
Discovery through remixing: snippets and previews lead into articles, never replace them
Transparent personalization: "Because of your interst..." not a black box
Calm, trustworthy browsing: productive and credible

Core Requirements

The feed must

Be immediately useful on app open
Surface a mix of fresh content (what's new), familiar content (topics the reader cares about), and community content (Main Page)
Clearly signal freshness — timestamps, "trending", "new this week" language where appropriate
Allow readers to save, share, dismiss, and hide content — all actions reversible
Support the full range of Wikipedia's languages as configured by the reader

The feed must not

Summarize content using LLMs — all content comes from Wikipedia articles
Function as a social feed with likes, comments, or follower counts
Require account creation
Feel unstructured or like a catch-all for unrelated feature

Onboarding must

Offer popular and trending topic suggestions
Allow search by topic or seed article
Be lightweight and skippable — no forced setup
Let readers set their default landing tab

Redesigned Experience

Two Tabs, Two Experiences

The redesigned feed has two tabs accessible from the top of the Explore screen: Community & For You.

While the design is more modern, the mechanisms that we are using to recommend content are not the same mechanisms that are being utilized by Social Media platforms and there is NO AI being used in the product.

Community

A scrollable feed of content that exposes curation and information about the broader community and movement. Modules that will be included:

In the News
Featured Article
On This Day
Top Read
Picture of the Day (Commons)
Did You Know
Today's Featured Picture (from the language)
Media of the day (Commons)

For You

A full-screen, swipeable experience built around you. Each module is a vertical stop in your feed; within each module, you swipe horizontally through a stack of cards. Modules include:

Article Recommendations based on your interests
Because You Read — articles related to what you last read
Continue Reading — your most recent article and your reading list
Places of Interest — Wikipedia articles about places near you
Discover Recommendations — the latest recommendations based on your reading list
Random Article — one surprising article, shake to shuffle
Games — a teaser question from today's game with a path to play more

Onboarding

On first meaningful use, readers are invited to select topics they care about. The flow reuses elements of the Android reading list onboarding pattern — clear visual tiles, and search by topic or article. It's lightweight and skippable. Readers also choose their default landing tab (Community or For You), so they arrive at the content most relevant to them from the first session.

Personalization

Personalization in the For You feed is transparent and user-directed. Every card tells you why you're seeing it: "Because you of your interest: Arts", "Based on your reading history", "Places of interest". Readers can dismiss content, save it, hide modules, and update their interests at any time from Settings → Explore Feed → What's driving your feed. No black-box profiling. No algorithmic entrapment.

How we'll know its working

Key Result 3.10 of the annual plan

This work falls under Wiki Experiences Key result 3.10: By the end of Q4, perform at least one experiment per platform (web and apps) that shows a practically significant improvement in logged-out casual reader retention or another indicator metric over control. Casual reader retention is defined as 21-day cumulative retention for web, and 14-day cumulative retention for apps. Indicator metrics include session length and task completion satisfaction rate.

Target Reader

Someone who installs or opens the Wikipedia app with intent to read a specific article but has no established habit of returning — a new reader building their first relationship with Wikipedia.

Primary Hypothesis

If we redesign the mobile apps Explore Feed, we'll see a 10% practically significant increase in Explore Feed engagement over multiple days per unique logged-out reader within 14 days of release.

Metrics

Key Metric: 10% practically significant higher multi-day unique logged-out retained users in experiment vs control
Indicator 2: 15% higher unique users engaging with explore than baseline
Indicator 3: Statistically significant improvement in reader progression (new-> casual->active)

Guardrails

Majority of survey respondents report feeling neutral or satisfied with redesigned feed
No increase in uninstalls
No more than 3% of users turn off all modules and leave them off over multiple days

Curiosities

Did this feature have an impact on DAU (check at 90 days)
How may users personalize their feed (onboarding interest selection counts)
Do we see a difference in scroll depth from users who configured interests vs those that skipped
Do we see an increase in click throughs originating from Explore
Do we see a difference in customization numbers
Does satisfaction differ based on if a feed is personalized or not and reader type (new vs casual vs active)
Which modules drive the most engagement

Results

Results will be added here after initial release & analysis.