01 BLUF
The Bottom Line:
- Redesigned the official Ruby on Rails documentation guides, replacing a layout unchanged since 2009.
- Delivered IA, UX, visual design, and the full front-end build directly in the Rails repository.
- Part of a larger Rails Foundation initiative; worked with Amanda Perino and core team members including Carlos Antonio Da Silva and DHH.
- Design started January 2024, build mid-February, public PR review by end of March. Launched early 2024.
02 My Role
Information Architecture, UX, Visual Design, Front-End Build
03 The Details
The Problem
The Rails Guides layout dated to 2009. The main rubyonrails.org site had been refreshed recently, but the Guides still ran on outdated markup and styling: no modern semantic HTML or CSS, inconsistent with the updated Rails brand, and with navigation and content issues throughout.
The Approach
I shipped my first Rails project in late 2005, right around the 1.0 release, and have used the framework since. Working with Amanda Perino at the Rails Foundation, I redesigned the Guides from the ground up as part of a larger initiative in which other contractors were rewriting and expanding guide content in parallel.
I handled information architecture, UX, and visual design, then built the front end directly in the Rails repository. Code review came from core team members, including Carlos Antonio Da Silva and DHH, and from community members through pull requests. Designing for developers, in the open, with the framework's own maintainers as reviewers.
Rails Guides before (left) and after (right), in light and dark mode.
- The redesigned Guides launched in early 2024 with improved legibility, modern semantic markup, and visual consistency with the Rails brand.
- Ongoing: I continue to do UX, design, and front-end work on the Guides (learner and API guides) and on rubyonrails.org content build-outs for the Rails Foundation.