Vector 2022

Screenshot of the Main Page in Vector 2022 on the day of its implementation.
Project pages	Desktop Improvements FAQ
Contact points	OVasileva (WMF) SGrabarczuk (WMF)
Current work	Phabricator board

Vector 2022 is a desktop skin developed between 2019 and 2023 by the Wikimedia Foundation Web team with the goal of making the interface more welcoming and usable for readers and maintaining utility for existing editors.

It introduced changes to the navigation and layout of the site, added persistent elements such as a sticky header and table of contents, and made changes to the overall styling of the page. As of early January 2023, the skin was the default on more than 300 projects of various sizes, accounting for about 1.5 billion page views per month. Before the deployment on English Wikipedia, it was the most popular non-default skin, with more active editors using it than any other non-default skin (e.g., Monobook, Timeless).

In a 2022 request for comment, the skin was met with mixed reactions from commenters. The skin was updated in response to some of the comments. On January 18, 2023, the skin was turned on as the default on the desktop site. Users of non-default skins did not see any changes.

You can turn off the Vector 2022 skin in two ways, but an account is required for both:

1. From the left menu (sidebar), select the link "Switch to old look", then select your preferred alternate skin (Note: the previous default skin was Vector legacy (2010)). After that, click on the save button at the bottom of the page.
2. Open the user menu from the button at the top right corner of the page, then select preferences. Go to the appearance tab on the preferences page and scroll to the Skin section on the preferences page. Then, click on the checkbox next to your preferred alternate skin (Note: the previous default skin was Vector legacy (2010)). After that, click on the save button at the bottom of the page.

Creating an account is quick, easy, and has multiple benefits for both readers and contributors. Click here to learn why and how you can create an account.

Readers who are not logged in can view a single page in Vector 2010 by adding ?useskin=vector to its URL. There are several browser add-ons to do this automatically:

• For Chrome:
  • Old Wiki.
  • Revert Wikipedia Layout.
• For Firefox:
  • Classic Mode for Wikipedia.
  • Wikipedia Vector Skin.

You can expand and contract the width of the new skin in two ways:

1. Go to the Appearance menu on the right side of the page and select the options in the Width section. If the menu is hidden, you can click the glasses icon at the top of the page to expand the menu again.
2. Open your Preferences. Uncheck the checkbox Preferences → Appearance → Skin preferences → Enable limited width mode. Note that, if needed, you can also set this as a global preference.

For more information on customizations, please check out our FAQ.

It is possible to configure and personalize this skin. The Web team are happy to work with community members with technical skills who would like to create new gadgets and user scripts. So far, many gadgets and user scripts have been built by community developers. These aspects include making the skin full width, turning off sticky elements, bringing back the old table of contents, and more. Check out the Desktop Improvements repository for a list of currently available customizations and changes, or add your own.

To report a bug, go to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical), and join an existing discussion or create a new section.

To request a feature, or for general questions and feedback about the project, please reach out to us on MediaWiki.org.

Thanks to the work of many community developers, the new skin is compatible with the most-frequently used gadgets and user scripts. That said, 100% compatibility cannot be guaranteed. If your gadget and script is experiencing issues, check out the repository for an alternate solution. If none is available, contact the Web team on MediaWiki.org.

The objective of the skin is to make the interface more welcoming and comfortable for readers, and useful for advanced users, on desktop. To do this, the skin introduces changes to the navigation and layout of the site, adds persistent elements such as a sticky header and table of contents to make frequently used actions easier to access, and makes some changes to the overall styling of the page.

The analysis of the data collected concluded that these changes improve readability and usability, and save time spent in scrolling, searching, and navigating – all of which can be interpreted as creating an easier reading experience. With a few minor exceptions, Vector 2022 does not remove any functionality available on the Vector legacy skin.

Discussions on the new skin began in 2020 with initial research and interviews with different communities, including English Wikipedians. This community was also involved over the five prototype feedback rounds for the individual features of the skin, as well as in conversations on the Village Pump, the project talk page, live office hours, and off-wiki groups on Discord and Telegram.

In mid-2022, most of the discussions focused on improving the skin and preparing it for deployment. The decision to adopt the skin was made through a Request for Comment. The outcome of this process was to create a control for customizing page width before proceeding with deployment. In November 2022, this control was enabled. From November 2022 to January 2023, the community and the Web team worked on other improvements suggested in the RfC and prepared for the deployment itself.

See also:

• Signpost, 24 April 2022: Desktop Improvements project nearing an end
• Signpost, 31 August 2022: English Wikipedia community discussing the deployment of the Vector (2022) skin

As of January 2024, there have been at least eleven community consultations, requests for comment, or other centralised discussions regarding the deployment of Vector 2022 on the English Wikipedia:

1. First request for feedback on the prototype (March 2020)
2. Second request for feedback on the prototype (July 2021)
3. Third request for feedback on the prototype (November 2021)
4. Fourth request for feedback on the prototype (March 2022)
5. Fifth request for feedback on the prototype (June 2022)
6. Pre-deployment discussion at the WP:VPP (July 2022)
7. Pre-deployment RfC (September 2022)
8. Post-deployment RfC (January 2023)
9. Close review of the post-deployment RfC (March 2023)
10. Post-close discussion of the fixed width issue (March 2023)
11. Evaluation RfC (January 2024)

• 2019 – Project kickoff at Wikimania Stockholm.
• 2020 – Skin launch on first set of pilot wikis, including French, Farsi, and Hebrew Wikipedias.
• 2020–2022 – Development and scaling in continued collaboration with communities.
• May 2022 – January 2023 – Banners introducing logged-in users to the skin are run.
• July 2022 – Discussion on process for the adoption of the skin on English Wikipedia. During this time, blockers for deployment and feature requests were identified and agreed upon by English Wikipedians. It was also decided that a Request for Comment must be held.
• August–September 2022 – Collaborative drafting of the RfC for the adoption of the skin on English Wikipedia.
• September–October 2022 – RfC on the adoption of the skin on English Wikipedia. The RfC concluded that the skin may be adopted provided that a way to configure the page width is available for logged-in and logged-out users.
• November 2022 – A toggle that allows for the configuration of the page width was made available for logged-in and logged-out users using browser windows that are 1,600 pixels wide or more. For logged-out users, the toggle state is not persistent from page to page and must be clicked on each page.
• December 2022 – The deployment date was set and discussed.
• January 18, 2023 – Deployment of the skin as the default.
• January 19 – March 16, 2023 – RfC regarding the default use of the skin on English Wikipedia. It concluded there was no consensus to roll back the default skin to Vector 2010, and rough consensus to make unlimited width the default width.
• Week of January 23, 2023 – Deployment of the page tools feature for logged-in users.
• April–August 2023 – Engineering work on building preference-like architecture for logged-out users
• July 2023 – onward – work on Accessibility for reading

The Web team is committed to continuing work on the desktop experience. This includes developing features on the Vector 2022 skin and maintaining the Vector legacy skin.

Having built Vector 2022, the team focused on making the site more accessible while reading and easier to customize. Web started to work on:

1. Providing more options for font size and typography and improving the default typography
2. Building out a dark mode

Both of these are meant to be available on desktop and mobile, and customizable for all logged-out and logged-in users.

The full documentation and FAQ for Vector 2022 have more in-depth information on the skin, the design process, research and quantitative and qualitative data, and more.