Account creation is the first step toward participation on Wikimedia projects, but for many people on our mobile website, that first step is surprisingly hard to find.
Starting July 2, logged-out mobile web readers will see a new account button directly in the site header. This change comes out of the Account Creation Experiments project, a focused effort to make registration clearer, easier, and more discoverable, particularly for the mobile readers who now make up the majority of Wikipedia’s traffic.
Why this matters
Account registrations have declined significantly since 2019, contributing to fewer new active editors. Because today’s newcomers become tomorrow’s experienced contributors, this trend threatens the long-term sustainability of the wikis by reducing the pool of editors available to take on more advanced community responsibilities.
On mobile, a big part of the problem is simply that account creation is buried: Users must open the hamburger menu, find “Log in,” dismiss an auto-focused keyboard, scroll to the bottom of the login page, and only then discover the link to the account creation form. That’s a lot of steps for something that should be obvious.
A comparative look at the top 20 most-visited websites found that nearly all of them surface a clear account creation entry point directly from the mobile header or homepage. Wikipedia has been an outlier.
What we tested
We ran an experiment adding a user account button to the mobile web header, giving logged-out users a direct, visible path into account creation.
The two experiences are shown below. In the control, there’s no visible indication that user accounts exist at all; a reader would have to know to look inside the menu. In the treatment, a simple user icon in the header makes it immediately clear that accounts are a thing, and tapping it leads directly into registration.
The results were encouraging: the treatment group saw approximately 20% more account creations on mobile than the control group, a result that reached statistical significance (p = 0.043). Importantly, downstream quality metrics held up: There was no statistically significant difference in constructive edit rates between the two groups, meaning the increase in registrations didn’t come with a wave of lower-quality (reverted) edits.
A better welcome for first-time editors
Of course, the header isn’t the only way people find their way into account creation. One of the most natural entry points is editing itself, when a reader encounters something they want to fix and taps edit.
That moment has historically not been handled well. When a logged-out mobile user attempts an edit, they’re met with a warning message that leads with temporary account editing as the primary call to action. The framing is abrupt, the design is dated, and for someone who might have been ready to commit to a full account, it nudges them in the wrong direction.
We redesigned that interface to better surface account creation as the clear and suggested path forward. The two experiences are shown below, the current warning on the left, the updated design on the right.
The experiment launched on 16 March 2026 across ten Wikipedias: Arabic, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, Persian, and Polish. It reached statistical significance on 26 April 2026 (p < 0.05). Approximately 387,000 participants were included in the experiment, with half assigned to the control group (existing design) and half assigned to the treatment group (new design).
The results were substantial. Users who saw the updated message were 27% more likely to create a permanent account, and temporary account creation fell by 16% among the same group, a meaningful shift in where new users land. As with the header button experiment, constructive edit rates held steady, confirming that the increase in permanent registrations didn’t come at the cost of edit quality.
What’s next
The work continues. We have additional experiments in progress, including improvements to the account creation form itself and a test of a small change in the Temp Accounts funnel designed to convert more temporary account holders into permanent ones.
Not every experiment we considered made it to launch. One area we explored was autogenerated username suggestions, a way to reduce friction at the point of choosing a username. Community members raised meaningful concerns about this approach, including worries about username quality and the experience it would create for new accounts on the wikis. We listened, and the autogenerated username experiment was not prioritized. We’re grateful to the community members who engaged with the proposal and shared their perspective.
Getting more people to create accounts is only the beginning. Across the Foundation, multiple teams are working to ensure that growth in registrations translates into genuine community capacity. The Growth and Moderator Tools teams are building better pathways for newer editors to develop skills and take on more responsibility. The Product Safety and Integrity team is developing tools to help experienced users and functionaries manage the additional demands that come with a larger influx of new accounts. The Editing team is improving the experience of contributing itself, with includes work on Suggestion Mode and expanding Edit Check. One concrete example is Paste Check, a feature designed to help detect text copied and pasted into Visual Editor, which helps flag potential AI-generated content before it reaches the wikis.
Account creation also connects to a broader set of efforts to deepen reader engagement and grow the contributor base. The mobile app’s 25th Birthday Reading Challenge brought in new audiences and motivated them to create accounts. Reading Lists gives readers a reason to return. Future Audiences is thinking about who Wikipedia’s next generation of contributors will be. And Social Media and External Communications work is expanding how people discover and connect with Wikimedia projects in the first place.
The through-line across all of it is the same: building a reader and contributor pipeline that’s healthy enough to carry the project forward for future generations.
There’s real reason for optimism. May 2026 brought the highest number of new account registrations Wikimedia has seen in years, a 19.8% year-over-year increase. Much of that lift came from excitement surrounding the mobile app’s 25th Birthday Reading Challenge, but mobile web registrations are climbing too. It’s early, and the trends will need to hold, but after years of decline, it’s encouraging to see the numbers finally moving in the right direction.
Learn more about Account Creation Experiments, or subscribe to the Contributor Growth newsletter.
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