Products · Product
MDN Web Docs
Raised as a usability problem by 47 people on Hacker News over 16 years (2010–2025), in 27 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
- 1MDN pages are hard to scan and readUnreviewed
Every issue, all time, most people first
MDN pages are hard to scan and readUnreviewed
20102026- MDN pages feel ugly and hard to read, harder to scan than alternatives2017-02-14
- MDN entries often miss the specific detail the reader needed2013-09-21
- Single MDN pages often take over 10 seconds to open2012-03-20
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 47 complaints
- Mouse wheel and touchpad scrolling stutter, ignore input, or jump backward2025-10-11
- Global attributes not linked; attributes split onto separate pages, hard to find2025-07-25
- MDN section on modal dialogs and inert is confusing to read2025-01-14
- Course is overwhelming for beginners and lacks a clear step-by-step path2024-12-26
- Shows when JSON.parse was added, not whether the context parameter is supported, so it's confusing2024-04-02
- Diagram is confusing: labels edges rather than the margin and border boxes themselves2023-10-11
- Contributors must edit raw HTML source all the time after the WYSIWYG editor was removed2022-11-05
- Search box stays collapsed and shows no text cursor until clicked2022-10-28
- Reasoning for properties buried in Guides, which search doesn't index2022-09-14
- Couldn't find the link to MDN Plus after looking repeatedly2022-03-24
- Code blocks are narrower so lines wrap and confuse readers; paragraphs are hard to pick out2022-03-06
- Content feels mushy and hard to skim; category colours are confusing2022-03-02
- Low-contrast orange makes JavaScript pages hard to read, especially inline code2022-03-01
- Error color used as primary color, so icons and sections can't be told apart as errors2022-03-01
- Content uses only about a quarter of wide monitor, forcing excessive vertical scrolling2022-03-01
- Redesigned documentation pages are harder to scan than before2022-03-01
- Can't see browser version numbers at a glance, requiring many clicks2022-03-01
- Compatibility table is near useless, and text is too small, thin and low-contrast to read2022-03-01
- Sections blend into the page, so users miss polyfills and compat charts and must rescroll2022-03-01
- Landing page adds an extra click before reaching reference and guides2022-03-01
- Left column jumps when reaching page bottom, which is distracting2022-03-01
- Redesigned pages are harder to read, with elements looking alike and less contrast2022-03-01
- Scrolling is sluggish in Vivaldi, so the user disabled JavaScript on the site2022-03-01
- Sidebar scrolls oddly and custom scrollbars ignore the user's hidden-scrollbar setting2022-03-01
- Search is hidden behind a small button, so user thought search was removed2022-03-01
- New redesign is hard to read2022-03-01
- New GitHub-based editing is less frictionless; small quick fixes harder to make2020-12-15
- The new platform's name and lance icon are confusing to the reader2020-12-15
- No good UI for reviewing changes or discussing edits granularly, so large edits take many reversion cycles2020-10-29
- Site search is slow and its results page is not nice to use2020-05-25
- Examples are buried; user must scroll and click to find a usable example2019-03-01
- Downloaded HTML/CSS/DOM docs were unusable offline despite being saved in preferences2018-10-21
- Less experienced developers find MDN less approachable than W3Schools for learning implementations2017-10-18
- Documentation is long, detailed, sometimes confusing and contradictory2017-09-13
- Documentation is confusing and some pages contradict each other2017-09-13
- Irrelevant banner and thin gray-on-gray text make the page hard to read2017-08-03
- Headline is oversized and placed outside the text column2017-07-11
- Low contrast text is hard to read in sunlight and for low-vision users2017-07-11
- Edit button leads to a page telling users to file a Bugzilla ticket instead2017-06-09
- MDN pages feel ugly and hard to read, harder to scan than alternatives2017-02-14
- MDN entries often miss the specific detail the reader needed2013-09-21
- Top navigation and table of contents are unhelpful for jumping between HTML element reference pages2013-09-21
- Other docs are confusing for newcomers to learn from2012-03-23
- Site is badly structured, cluttered, confusing, and slow, so user constantly fights it2012-03-20
- Single MDN pages often take over 10 seconds to open2012-03-20
- Can't find beginner tutorials on the site2011-01-16
- Links break after content is merged, and code samples show errors instead of code2010-10-07