MDN/Archives/Development/Redesign/Testing

MDN is undergoing a major redesign with improved design, layout, page customization options and navigation. To ensure that the redesign is the best it can be, we have made the design available to anyone who would like to help with beta testing. Remember that this is a beta. You can expect some bumps in the road, which we will work to correct them over time.

We would love for you to go around the site and take a look at everything. Try reading documentation, editing pages and making other site contributions. Remember that even though you will see our new design, you will be working with the same documentation everyone else sees. Any changes you make will be seen by all users, whether they are testing the beta or not.

Overview of changes

• The main difference you'll notice is that the new theme. It is aimed at being more easily red and to look more professional. Among the differences you'll notice:
  • The consistent usage of the same font (Open Sans) instead of the mix of fonts we had before. Only code, and therefore interfaces, methods, and properties, are using a fixed-width font.
  • Numerous pages have now a quick links columns aimed at simplifying the navigation.
• Certain pages have been converted into Zones, which are basically landing pages for specific focus topics like projects or tasks (Firefox, Firefox OS, Building Apps.) These have a distinct look and feel, and an integrated zone menu that persists between all the pages that under the zone in the document hierarchy. Examples:
  • https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox_OS
  • https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Apps
• We have a new internal search engine:
  • It should be more precise than the previous one.
  • It allows to filter the search on specific subject.

Testing suggestions

Looking for some ideas? Try testing out the following.

• Documentation: Read our documentation just as you normally would. Pay attention to code samples, images and videos.
  • Some documentation, especially lesser-known documentation, still needs to be updated to fit with the new site design and layout. Let us know if you come across anything that looks off.
• Homepage: Is the homepage content valuable to you? How about the positioning, size and style of this content?
• Navigation: Try getting around using only major site navigation. Can you find the information you need?
• Search: Try out the improved search. Consider both the experience of searching and the quality of search results.
• Performance: Is performance better or worse than it was in the old design?
• Editing: How is the experience of editing? (Remember, your edits will be seen by everyone, whether they are testing the beta or not.)
• Template editing: Assuming you have the account privilege, how is the experience of editing templates? (Again, remember that your edits will be seen by everyone.)
• Responsive Design: The new design supports many different form factors. How is the experience of using MDN on a tablet, phone, or other device?

Sharing feedback

Let us know what you think! Bug reports, change requests and general feedback are all welcome. There are many ways to get in touch with us. The more feedback we get, the better the design will be.

• Before anything else, please file one bug for each piece of feedback you want to share. We would love to hear from you on IRC and through our mailing lists, but if a bug is not already filed we will probably ask you to do so. Remember to use this form for all redesign feedback, as it will group feedback appropriately and ensure that the team sees it.
• Join the conversation in IRC. You can meet us in #mdn for general discussion, #devmo for discussion about documentation and #mdndev for discussion about development progress.
• Join our mailing lists. Staff documentation writers can be reached on dev-mdc@mozilla.org and platform developers can be reached on dev-mdn@mozilla.org. When contacting the team through these mailing lists, please be specific and group your feedback into paragraphs or numbered lists.

Thanks!

We are very excited to be launching the beta of this new design, and are even more excited to be working with you to make it better. Thank you for all of your feedback.