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Logged-Out Warning Message: first iteration design changes for mobile
Open, HighPublic4 Estimated Story Points

Description

User Story:

As a logged-out user who tries to edit an article, I want to be gently guided toward account creation, with clear benefits and a friendlier message that makes editing feel approachable and rewarding.

User Problem

When users attempt to edit while logged out, they encounter a jarring warning message that emphasizes editing as an IP or temporary account. This interface can feel abrupt and discouraging, and it frames logged-out editing as the primary path rather than encouraging users to create an account.

Current "Logged Out Warning":

Screenshot 2025-12-05 at 9.10.49 AM.png (782×998 px, 101 KB)

Opportunity

There is an opportunity to soften the logged-out warning message and guide users toward account creation in a more supportive, motivating way. By improving the tone and visual hierarchy, we can better communicate the benefits of creating an account and make the overall experience less intimidating.

Design

Scope: this task is scoped to Mobile only, but includes VisualEditor and Source Editor.

Figma designs.

Codepen designs.

NEW "Logged Out Warning":

Arc 2026-01-29 12.28.15.png (1×754 px, 200 KB)

Acceptance Criteria:

There will be a separate task to outline experiment set-up. For this task, the new feature should be disabled behind a feature flag.

Given I'm logged out and on a mobile device (on Minerva),
AND my last used editor is VisualEditor
When I navigate to edit,
Then I see the NEW "Logged Out Warning"

Given I'm logged out and on a mobile device (on Minerva),
AND my last used editor is Source Editor
When I navigate to edit,
Then I see the NEW "Logged Out Warning"

Event Timeline

KStoller-WMF triaged this task as High priority.
KStoller-WMF moved this task from Inbox to needs estimation on the Growth-Team board.
Michael changed the subtype of this task from "Spike" to "Task".Jan 26 2026, 4:34 PM
KStoller-WMF renamed this task from Logged-Out Warning Message UX - V1 test to Logged-Out Warning Message: first iteration design changes.Jan 26 2026, 4:36 PM
KStoller-WMF updated the task description. (Show Details)
KStoller-WMF renamed this task from Logged-Out Warning Message: first iteration design changes to Logged-Out Warning Message: first iteration design changes for mobile.Jan 26 2026, 4:42 PM
KStoller-WMF added a project: MobileFrontend.
KStoller-WMF set the point value for this task to 4.

Change #1233232 had a related patch set uploaded (by Sergio Gimeno; author: Sergio Gimeno):

[mediawiki/extensions/MobileFrontend@master] [DNM] PoC: new logged out warning

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1233232

Test wiki created on Patch demo by SGimeno (WMF) using patch(es) linked to this task:
https://aabdcb171d.catalyst.wmcloud.org/w/

Change #1234955 had a related patch set uploaded (by Sergio Gimeno; author: Sergio Gimeno):

[mediawiki/extensions/MobileFrontend@master] metrics(EditorOverlay): temporary kpi metrics for anonwarning experiment

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1234955

@Sgs after chatting with kirsten, and nico/peter from the editing team, we decided to remove the "Learn more"[1] link, and include that as part of the message itself.

BeforeAfter
Arc 2026-01-29 12.27.00.png (1×754 px, 202 KB)
image.png (1×754 px, 200 KB)

i'm going to update the phab description too!

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Temporary_accounts

@Sgs after chatting with kirsten, and nico/peter from the editing team, we decided to remove the "Learn more"[1] link, and include that as part of the message itself.

BeforeAfter
Arc 2026-01-29 12.27.00.png (1×754 px, 202 KB)
image.png (1×754 px, 200 KB)

i'm going to update the phab description too!

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Temporary_accounts

Ack. Related to this I found an edge case for wikis which do not enable temporary user account creation on anon edits ($wgAutoCreateTempUser['enabled'] = false;). This is not the case for any WMF wiki afaik but it can be an issue for 3rd party and external wiki farms. The message is in that case different because it warns you about your IP being logged publicly which is probably a good thing. See:

Screenshot 2026-01-29 at 15.57.49.png (1×764 px, 96 KB)

Should I reuse that warning text for a disclaimer under the Edit without logging cta? Or an alternative copy that you'd propose. Just to not break what's already there.

A second non-blocking edge case is what's described in T415899.

A note for code reviewers and QA testers: in order to test the new UI design you'll need to override the enrollment for your anon users using the HTTP header mechanism described in Conduct_an_experiment#HTTP_header.

Should I reuse that warning text for a disclaimer under the Edit without logging cta? Or an alternative copy that you'd propose. Just to not break what's already there.

I suggest keeping it simple (especially if that helps preserve translations), AKA let's just reuse the warning text that exists.

But others are welcome to suggest changes, I just want to keep things simple and move fast.

@KStoller-WMF is this what you're suggesting? @Sgs do we have control over the bolden words like "Warning" "log in" "create an account"? i support keeping things simple - i'm only afraid that the current combination is subpar.

image.png (1×754 px, 219 KB)

@Sgs this is also why i was initially suggesting to change the button label from "Sign up" to "Create account" because in all the messaging that we use across the website we refer to registration as "create account".

CleanShot 2026-01-30 at 11.16.56.png (1×754 px, 222 KB)

@KStoller-WMF is this what you're suggesting? @Sgs do we have control over the bolden words like "Warning" "log in" "create an account"? i support keeping things simple - i'm only afraid that the current combination is subpar.

Not sure what you mean by control here. I'm assuming the subpar is the highlighted text with bold font. I opted for overriding the styles with CSS and re-use the same message for both groups in the spirit of keeping things simple and not adding additional messages that would require translation but are identical to existing ones. I we finally rollout the treatment group status quo, we should update the message and strip the bold markup from there after the experiment ends.

@Sgs this is also why i was initially suggesting to change the button label from "Sign up" to "Create account" because in all the messaging that we use across the website we refer to registration as "create account".

Gotcha, not strong objections, I added a new "Create account" message to align with the warning language and have control. This is how each group looks>

Treatment no temp account autocreateTreatment temp account autocreate
Screenshot 2026-01-30 at 16.56.27.png (1×762 px, 105 KB)
Screenshot 2026-01-30 at 16.56.06.png (1×756 px, 78 KB)

re T415899, no warning will show for any of the groups when they navigate to auth pages because we won't fix the regression.

@KStoller-WMF is this what you're suggesting? @Sgs do we have control over the bolden words like "Warning" "log in" "create an account"? i support keeping things simple - i'm only afraid that the current combination is subpar.

Not sure what you mean by control here. I'm assuming the subpar is the highlighted text with bold font. I opted for overriding the styles with CSS and re-use the same message for both groups in the spirit of keeping things simple and not adding additional messages that would require translation but are identical to existing ones. I we finally rollout the treatment group status quo, we should update the message and strip the bold markup from there after the experiment ends.

yeah, sorry i should have been more specific. with subpar i meant that the button says "Edit without logging in" but then the text right under it says "You're not logged in" which is somewhat contradicting. again, given that this is a relative edge case, happy to keep things as is if @KStoller-WMF agrees.

@Sgs this is also why i was initially suggesting to change the button label from "Sign up" to "Create account" because in all the messaging that we use across the website we refer to registration as "create account".

Gotcha, not strong objections, I added a new "Create account" message to align with the warning language and have control. This is how each group looks>

Treatment no temp account autocreateTreatment temp account autocreate
Screenshot 2026-01-30 at 16.56.27.png (1×762 px, 105 KB)
Screenshot 2026-01-30 at 16.56.06.png (1×756 px, 78 KB)

re T415899, no warning will show for any of the groups when they navigate to auth pages because we won't fix the regression.

thanks thanks!

@Sgs two small details:

  • from your screenshots i can see that they styling is all codex (which is great!) but i've noticed that the button are missing the 2px rounded corners / border-radius-base, is that an easy fix?
  • would it be possible to align the content of the page to the center?

CleanShot 2026-01-30 at 18.08.34.jpeg (1×750 px, 101 KB)

Yeah, sorry i should have been more specific. with subpar i meant that the button says "Edit without logging in" but then the text right under it says "You're not logged in" which is somewhat contradicting. again, given that this is a relative edge case, happy to keep things as is if @KStoller-WMF agrees.

Agreed!
It's not perfect, but it's good enough. I would prefer we don't slow down to perfect edge cases at this point when we are just aiming to validate the change in layout and design.

Change #1237217 had a related patch set uploaded (by Sergio Gimeno; author: Sergio Gimeno):

[mediawiki/extensions/MobileFrontend@master] Remove warning param on auth pages links

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1237217

yeah, sorry i should have been more specific. with subpar i meant that the button says "Edit without logging in" but then the text right under it says "You're not logged in" which is somewhat contradicting. again, given that this is a relative edge case, happy to keep things as is if @KStoller-WMF agrees.

Yeah, neither we will be looking at data from this wikis. Leaving as it is.

@Sgs two small details:

  • from your screenshots i can see that they styling is all codex (which is great!) but i've noticed that the button are missing the 2px rounded corners / border-radius-base, is that an easy fix?

The border radius of all codex buttons on mobile showing in overlays were set to 0 in T340262 (source mobile.startup/Overlay.less), can't tell why. I've made our buttons have a br of 2 but it would be good to know why Codex buttons can't have border radius in overlays in general, maybe there is/was some icon only button with issues (?) and it is not necessary anymore.

  • would it be possible to align the content of the page to the center?

Sure, done.

Change #1237217 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/MobileFrontend@master] Remove warning param on auth pages links

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1237217

Change #1233232 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/MobileFrontend@master] mobile.editor.overlay: show different logged out warnings for AB test

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1233232

A note for QAs, since this is an edge-unique (anon) traffic experiment, testing needs to be performed by overriding group assignment with query parameter mpo=growthexperiments-editattempt-anonwarning:treatment, eg: https://en.wikipedia.beta.wmcloud.org/wiki/Shelley_Segalov%C3%A1?mpo=growthexperiments-editattempt-anonwarning:treatment#/editor/0, or using the X-Experiments-Enrollments header, see Conduct_an_experiment#HTTP_header.

Change #1238302 had a related patch set uploaded (by Sergio Gimeno; author: Sergio Gimeno):

[mediawiki/extensions/MobileFrontend@master] fix(anon edit screen): render anon screen without ext.testKitchen

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1238302

Change #1238302 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/MobileFrontend@master] fix(anon edit screen): render anon screen without ext.testKitchen

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1238302

Etonkovidova subscribed.

Checked on enwiki beta - works as expected:

IMG_7896.PNG (1×828 px, 158 KB)
IMG_7897.PNG (1×828 px, 94 KB)

Notes: - for @AAlhazwani-WMF to review

  • when anon user starts source editor, the overlay displays the message shifted up:

IMG_7898.PNG (1×828 px, 118 KB)

Checked on enwiki beta - works as expected:

IMG_7896.PNG (1×828 px, 158 KB)
IMG_7897.PNG (1×828 px, 94 KB)

Notes: - for @AAlhazwani-WMF to review

  • when anon user starts source editor, the overlay displays the message shifted up:

IMG_7898.PNG (1×828 px, 118 KB)

thanks @Etonkovidova. @Sgs easy fix?

Checked on wmf.17 - works as expected. Waiting on @Sgs reply to the comment above.

Change #1247120 had a related patch set uploaded (by Sergio Gimeno; author: Sergio Gimeno):

[mediawiki/extensions/MobileFrontend@master] editor overlay: defer editor-loaded until anonwarning is rendered

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1247120

thanks @Etonkovidova. @Sgs easy fix?

Sure, the fix is part of the last change attached to this task, editor overlay: defer editor-loaded until anonwarning is rendered, it will ping you back when it's testable.

Change #1249220 had a related patch set uploaded (by Sergio Gimeno; author: Sergio Gimeno):

[mediawiki/extensions/MobileFrontend@master] fix(EditorOverlayBase): add missing returnto param to signup url

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1249220

I found another issue coming from this task while working on the instrumentation, the create account link was missing the returnto parameter, hence breaking the so called mid edit signup flow. This seems a relevant use-case to take in account for T402719.

Change #1249220 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/MobileFrontend@master] fix(EditorOverlayBase): add missing returnto param to signup url

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1249220

Change #1247120 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/MobileFrontend@master] editor overlay: defer editor-loaded until anonwarning is rendered

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1247120

Test wiki on Patch demo by SGimeno (WMF) using patch(es) linked to this task was deleted:

https://aabdcb171d.catalyst.wmcloud.org/w/

Checked on enwiki wmf.19 with ?mpo=growthexperiments-editattempt-anonwarning:treatment the buttons Create account and Log in redirect users to https://auth.wikimedia.org/enwiki/wiki/?useformat=mobile&usesul3=1&notice=mobile-frontend-generic-login-new&returnto=

Screenshot 2026-03-13 at 1.39.49 PM.png (1×790 px, 143 KB)

@Sgs - could it be some sort of limitations of using ?mpo=growthexperiments-editattempt-anonwarning:treatment? Moving to Needs more work.

By clicking on Log in button in the old version, a user would be redirected to https://auth.wikimedia.org/enwiki/wiki/Special:UserLogin?useformat=mobile&usesul3=1&notice=mobile-frontend-generic-login-new&returnto=