Ruby's official documentation just got a new look

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Overall reception

  • Many commenters dislike the redesign; a few see it as a modest improvement over a very dated look.
  • Several say it “feels unfinished” and question how it passed review, especially for mobile and accessibility.
  • Some are puzzled by the design choices but assume it was done with limited resources.

Color scheme & branding

  • The dominant green theme is widely criticized as off-brand for “Ruby,” which people strongly associate with red.
  • Some find the specific shade “vomit-like” rather than a calm or tasteful green.
  • A minority notes that the docs have actually been green for years; people may be conflating them with other Ruby/Rails sites that use red.

Typography, readability & accessibility

  • Main text is described as too light, too thin, and low-contrast, making it hard to read, especially for users with astigmatism or older eyes.
  • Overuse of bold and large amounts of whitespace make scanning harder.
  • Firefox reader mode reportedly breaks badly on the new pages.
  • Several call out accessibility regressions and poor font rendering on some platforms.

Mobile & responsiveness

  • Many report the site is borderline unusable on phones: horizontal scrolling, sidebar covering content when zoomed, and hamburger menu issues.
  • Others argue mobile docs aren’t a high priority; counterarguments insist mobile doc use is common and basic responsiveness is trivial to implement.
  • A small CSS tweak is suggested (and explained) as a near one-line fix; a linked PR shows active work to improve mobile.

Navigation, search & UX

  • Search results prioritize obscure items over core classes like File and String, a long-standing problem.
  • Some miss “next/prev” navigation between pages and complain it’s easy to get lost.
  • Cursor behavior is inconsistent (text cursor on hamburger icon, pointer in odd places).

Code blocks, performance & alternatives

  • Opinions on code blocks differ: some like the calmer, more standard syntax highlighting; others think comment contrast is now too low.
  • A few note increased CPU/rendering overhead vs. the old site.
  • Many recommend alternatives like rubyapi.org, ruby-doc.org, DevDocs, or Rails-style docs, which are seen as more modern and mobile-friendly.