Wikimedia Blog/Drafts/A More Immersive Mobile Reading Experience

POSTED Jan 15 2015

Title ideas

• A more immersive mobile experience on Android
• A more immersive reading experience on Android devices
• Announcing a more immersive reading experience on Android

Body

The Wikipedia app makes it easier to access knowledge on Android mobile devices.
Strasbourg photo by Jonathan Mart, CC BY-SA 3.0

The Mobile Apps Team is excited to release a new mobile experience for the official Wikipedia app. The update, released today on Android with iOS to follow, helps create a more immersive experience that pulls the reader in and makes it even simpler to find relevant information on Wikipedia.

This release features a more image-centric design, improved search functionality, and suggestions for further reading. It is designed to more effectively engage the user in the reading process, starting with a prominently displayed and contextually-relevant "lead image."

With more than 33.5 million articles in 287 languages on Wikipedia, readers have a vast amount of information at their fingertips via the Wikipedia app. With that in mind, the Wikimedia Foundation strives to ensure that surfacing knowledge on Wikipedia through mobile devices is as accessible as possible.

New features include:

• A prominent, contextually-relevant image at the top of each article (with parallax-scrolling) to engage readers in the topic
• “Read More” feature at the end of each article that includes links to up to three related pages to encourage readers to explore further
• Improved search functionality, including more defined and higher contrast search bar and a list of recently searched topics
• Image viewer that allows users to view a larger version of any image via a pop-up panel (image appears unobscured if tapped on) and swipe left or right to view the previous or next image

These new mobile features were developed by the Wikimedia Foundation’s Mobile Apps Team, in pursuit of the WMF’s mission to deliver free access to the sum of all human knowledge for every single human being. With half a billion monthly readers and more than 20 billion monthly page views, Wikipedia is one of the most popular websites in the world and the largest free knowledge resource. As more and more people around the world access Wikipedia via mobile devices, delivering knowledge in an accessible, easy-to-use way on mobile will continue to be a major priority.

Dan Garry, Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Team, Wikimedia Foundation

Summary

A more immersive reading experience on Android mobile devices: the Wikipedia app makes it easier to access knowledge on the go. This new release features a more image-centric design, improved search functionality, and suggestions for further reading. (...)

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* The Wikipedia app: A more immersive reading experience on Android mobile devices.

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• A more immersive reading experience on Android mobile devices: the Wikipedia app makes it easier to access knowledge on the go. This new release features a more image-centric design, improved search functionality, and suggestions for further reading.
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