This email is to introduce a new MDN project, which to investigate whether
to restructure reference pages in MDN so syntax examples appear at the top
of the page.
*### The problem*
Although MDN is respected for completeness and correctness, it can be
harder for people to get a quick refresher of syntax using MDN than using
alternative sites like w3schools. For example:
http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/pr_background-color.asp - leads with an
example
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/background-color - leads
with some quite technical properties of this item
If all you want is a quick refresh of the syntax, w3schools is more useful
here.
So we're going to experiment with making reference pages start with a
simple example.
*### Some constraints*
* we'll experiment with JS, CSS, and Web API reference pages. Florian's
already started this by moving examples to the top in the JS Array pages:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Array,
and we'll definitely make use of this.
* we'll not experiment with any other changes (e.g. live samples). This is
scoped to be a pretty small change.
* this might be a content-only change, or it might include some front-end
UI changes too, if we can find the resources.
*### The plan*
The basic plan is like this:
1. Prototype some designs: choose a few sample pages. For each sample page,
develop two or more prototype designs which have examples on top.
2. Qualitative tests: test prototype pages with web developers, revise in
response to feedback, and select the most effective designs.
3. A/B testing: apply the winning design to 50 or so pages in each domain
(JS, CSS, Web API) and run an A/B test with them on MDN.
4. Based on A/B tests, if the new page designs are more successful, update
all pages.