Wikipedia’s makeover: The journey to a new desktop identity

After three years of development, English Wikipedia has a new desktop experience for the first time since 2010. Here’s how it happened.

Over the last thirteen years, our world has changed in ways that have surpassed imaginations. But until this month, English Wikipedia’s default user experience on desktop had seen only small changes. 

That changes now. Starting this month, English Wikipedia’s desktop experience is being updated to bring the world’s largest knowledge base into the modern era. Unusually for a major tech platform, Wikipedia’s new interface was built in collaboration with volunteer community members from across the encyclopedia’s nearly 300 languages.

The update is now live on English Wikipedia and 94% of the 318 active language versions of Wikipedia for all users.

You can navigate to the site now to try the changes for yourself. To see the differences and learn about why we made these changes, see the blog posts below and the project page on MediaWiki.

Learn more about the project

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