The Beta platform is now on the main domain! 🎉
Last October, the Frontend Mentor site was launched using the Wordpress API and a React front-end. There wasn’t any way for people to sign up, submit solutions, receive feedback, etc on the site. This was just the first trial to make sure that the concept of offering designs for developers to practice on was filling a need.
It quickly became clear that it was, so I started planning to build an actual platform where people could sign up, submit solutions and engage with each other. This platform was launched in April using the beta subdomain.
So if anyone went to www.frontendmentor.io they would see the static Wordpress-based site and if they went to beta.frontendmentor.io they would see the platform.
This way, we could get some early sign-ups from the community and start fixing bugs and issues that occurred on the initial version. Keeping a steady flow of sign-ups was critical, as it meant that bugs and errors came at a much more manageable rate.
I also wanted to fill any major gaps in the overall experience on the platform.
One was a lack of instant feedback after someone submits a solution. This is why we built out the reporting system that now runs an accessibility audit and HTML validation check on every submitted solution. This is something that we intend to build out much more over time and turn into a comprehensive reporting tool to help you analyse your code.
Now that the platform is running well and is at least on the right track as far as refining the features and rounding out the overall offering, we decided to put the platform on the main domain.
So, as of Sunday, October 13th, the Beta platform is now at https://www.frontendmentor.io!
Since the switch, there haven’t been any major hiccups and daily sign-ups have jumped 7x already.
Plans for taking the platform out of Beta
Even though the platform is now on the main domain, there are a few more changes I would like to make before removing the Beta status, including:
- A dashboard for logged-in users. Instead of the homepage, it would be more useful for logged-in users to see important information from the community and about their own solutions.
- Re-work the scoring. Having “Solution Score” and “Feedback Score” doesn’t mean much at the moment. I’m going to re-work the scoring system and feed it into a single “Mentor Score”. This will be built up through various actions on the platform and will grow your front-end reputation in the community.
- Adding badges. Everyone loves badges and they help give direction to people’s actions on the platform.
- Highlighting the “Mentors” within the community who consistently give valuable feedback to others and generally lift the community up. Frontend Mentor is about a strong community helping each other to grow and improve as front-end developers. I want to make it so that these people stand out on the platform.
Feedback welcome
Please feel free to respond with any comments or feedback. I love hearing people’s thoughts on Frontend Mentor.
If you’re not following the Frontend Mentor Twitter account yet, you can check it out here @frontendmentor.
