Wikimedia Apps/Team/Wikipedia Year in Review
Why a Year in Review?
Year-end reports with insights on user's habits and achievements have become standard in many apps. They have the potential to pique user's curiosity to learn more about their own habits, compare themselves to others, and inspire a deeper connection with the platform.
We've seen indications that providing either a collective or personalized wrap up of Wikipedia insights is something that would be received well. The Mobile Apps team has seen social media posts where users share screenshots of their open tabs, or reading histories, to illustrate their wide and varied Wikipedia reading habits. Each year, the communications team posts a blog about the top 10 read articles on English Wikipedia, which garners positive engagement from readers. Volunteers have also developed a personalized prototype of a year in review for editing, and it was received well, and improved at the Hackathon in 2024.
The Readers' teams at the foundation are focused on developing and testing features that encourage readers to engage with Wikipedia content again and again on our platforms. The promise of an interesting end of year review could motivate readers to continue using the app throughout the year.
Why the apps?
The apps have the unique capability to provide personalized insights while respecting privacy, due to the app's ability to store information locally on the user's device. Data including what articles users have read, or saved, is all stored locally on the users device, and reading history can be cleared by the user at any time. We can process this data for display within their Wikipedia Year in Review without sending pageview data to our servers.
User stories
User stories are simple statements that product teams use to focus on what we're trying to accomplish. These are some that we're thinking about for this feature:
- As a Wikipedia reader, I want to be visually struck and leave the experience remembering how cool and useful Wikipedia is —inspired and in awe at the breadth and depth of human knowledge that can happen over the course of a year, and ready to give back with a donation.
- As a Wikipedia reader, I want to see a breakdown of my reading habits in the App, so I can share my quirky Wikipedia reading habits with friends on social media.
- As a donor to the Wikimedia Foundation, I want to see a record of my contributions over the last year, so I can feel recognized and thanked.
- As an editor on Wikipedia, I want to see insights about my editing contributions to Wikipedia, so I can understand my overall impact this year and share with friends.
Current status
In our first iteration of this feature, Wikipedia Year in Review on the iOS App in 2024, we learned that sharing insights about a user's reading history, editing history, and donation history was engaging for App users, and inspired them to make a donation to the Wikimedia Foundation. Continuing on the positive results we saw in 2024, we are making changes and improvements to the Year in Review before releasing the 2025 edition to both Android and iOS. Check out the 2025 edition, and follow our updates.