Redesigning the NuGet Websites

Blog Redesign is LIVE!

What better way to announce upcoming website redesigns than by implementing that redesign on our blog? Earlier today, we deployed changes to http://blog.nuget.org that apply a new visual design that we expect to carry over to the docs and gallery sites too.

Redesign Goals

The goals of the redesign effort are manifold. Here are some of our high-level desires for the websites:

1. Simplified, modern design
2. Fluid layout
3. Emphasize content instead of common elements
4. Seamless transitions between the gallery, documentation, and blog sites
5. Information re-organized for the three primary personas that interact with our sites

Consistency Across Gallery, Documentation, and Blog

With this deployment to the blog, our three sites are now quite inconsistent. The blog has the new look while the documentation and gallery sites still have the old design. This is temporary, as we expect to roll the new design out for http://docs.nuget.org and http://www.nuget.org.

We will apply the new design to the documentation site next, and we have to have that rolled out in a few weeks. Applying the design to the gallery will take some more time and it will be several weeks before we complete that. In the meantime, please feel free to share your feedback about the new design with us!

Consume, Create, Contribute

In addition to the refreshed visuals for the sites, we also plan to reorganize information across the documentation and gallery sites. Through reviewing the information we have across the sites and the interactions our users have with NuGet, we found we can organize our information into three categories:

1. Consume – consuming NuGet packages in your projects
2. Create – creating NuGet packages for yourself or to share
3. Contribute – contributing to the NuGet project through filing bugs, adding documentation, or contributing code

Graphic Designs

We worked with the Microsoft Azure UX team to create the new graphic designs. In addition to what you’re seeing here on the blog, we have other page designs in place for documentation and the gallery. Here’s a sample of them.

Gallery Home Page

Packages List

Package Detail

Docs Home Page

Docs Article

Lots to do…

We have a long list of features we need to build into the gallery to make it more useful. We’ll be starting many of those features after we get this graphic redesign in place and while we make progress on NuGet 3.x. In the meantime, please feel free to share your feedback with us on these new graphic designs.