Enhanced search & Navigation: The new Pulumi Docs experience

susan evans — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Engineers spend a lot of their valuable time searching documentation for answers. At Pulumi, we believe in exceptional documentation experiences that help people using Pulumi find what they need quickly and use it successfully. Today, we are announcing a set of improved Pulumi documentation experiences that collectively make it easier than ever to discover, learn and build cloud infrastructure with Pulumi.

The improvements we’ve introduced to the Pulumi documentation experience focus on three areas - search, navigation and discoverability. Together, they help every user of the Pulumi documentation find the answers they are looking for quickly, so they can solve their infrastructure as code use case and leverage Pulumi effectively in their projects. These changes also introduce new design patterns and user experience elements across previously independent parts of the Pulumi documentation experience, creating a more cohesive developer experience.

Search

As of today, you can quickly and easily search for documentation across all of these types, and we will lead you to the documentation you are looking for to solve your problem. The new search clearly groups documentation by Docs and Packages with clear breadcrumbs to quickly get you to the right place.

We have unified navigation across both docs and packages and expect to add more content types to Pulumi Docs over the rest of the year. Enjoy easily switching between documentation types while having your left navigation and table of contents navigation remain consistent.

Discoverability

In addition to search and navigation, folks must be able to discover new content that will help them even if they don’t know that content exists. To that end, let’s showcase a few types of Pulumi documentation:

Quickstart experience

The Pulumi quickstart experience is for people new to Pulumi to get up and running quickly.

Cloud get started tutorials

The Pulumi cloud get started tutorials are for people who want a more detailed walkthrough when using Pulumi for the first time.

Concept docs

The Pulumi concept docs are where you can dive into Pulumi concepts. Learn how they work together and how to effectively use them to ship infrastructure.

Packages

The package documentation is where to find configuration and API documentation for Pulumi supported clouds, version control systems, databases, infrastructure monitoring, and networking tools. We support 119 providers today, and we add new providers every week!

Head to Pulumi docs, learn something new, and send us your feedback!

Get to Know Pulumi's UX Team

Anita Trimbur — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 12:06:33 -0400

What is user experience, or UX? There are plenty of answers depending on who you ask. At the core, UX is about asking questions and solving problems.

Who we are

Here at Pulumi, our UX team asks questions for and about developers. Our purpose is to understand the Pulumi user and do right by them. We come into conversations as user advocates on the lookout for stumbling blocks.

We are a cross-disciplinary UX team. Our designers define and imagine new experiences. Our dedicated UX engineer brings them to life. Collaboration affords us a dual-perspective on every problem. It also empowers us to make the changes we want to see. Together, our team adds value across Pulumi’s CLI, Service, marketing website, Docs, and Registry.

Some of the principles that matter most to us:

Community nurture
There are infinite ideas and not always a “right” answer
People are more important than tech

What we do

Sometimes our UX projects are as small as clarifying navigation options. Other times, they’re as large as exploring the future vision of the Pulumi Service Console. No matter what we’re working on, we’re always thinking about who we’re designing for. We optimize how users flow through our product. We reduce friction anywhere we can. In the end, our users can feel more confident using Pulumi.

Since the new year, our team has grown from one to four. Recently, we opened a new role for a second UX engineer! Our team expects to scale alongside Pulumi and continue to put people first.

Where you’ve seen us

You’ll find the UX team’s work everywhere. Maybe you noticed the revamped pricing page following our Business Critical launch.

Or maybe you clicked into our improved sign-in experience in Pulumi Service.

In truth, some of the best UX improvements are invisible. We aim to build experiences that feel so natural, they never break your stride. But should you have trouble, we’re here to help.

You can check out our public GitHub repo if you ever have a UX issue to report. There, you can also read more about our team members and our quarterly plans. If GitHub isn’t your style, we also frequent Pulumi’s community Slack channel.

Pulumi’s UX team is always ready to make an impact, and we hope you’ll stick around to, quite literally, experience it. Look out for more blog posts from our team moving forward!

Pulumi Blog: Anita Trimbur