This topic will house the Discourse Design Team’s current experiments running on Meta. We will document what the current running experiments are here in this topic in a table.
After a test run of an experiment, each one will get a final decision from our team:
- Promote to core, or
- Abandon, or
- Ship in dedicated theme component
Please feel free to let us know what you think of any of the ongoing experiments we are currently working on. As discussion takes place, we will separate the conversation into topics of their own.
| Experiment | Started | Status | End |
|---|---|---|---|
| Details styling | November 13,2023 | Merged into Discourse  |
2023-12-04T22:00:00Z |
| Copy quote to clipboard | November 13,2023 | Merged into Discourse |
2024-01-07T14:00:00Z |
| Full Screen Login | November 21, 2023 | Merged into Discourse |
2023-12-19T06:00:00Z |
| Hide text in text select popup | 2023-12-05T06:00:00Z | Will bring into Core at a later date | 2024-01-29T06:00:00Z |
| Emoji line-height Adjustment | 2023-12-19T06:00:00Z | Paused 2024-01-02T06:00:00Z | |
| Embedded Replies | 2024-01-04T06:00:00Z | Merged | 2024-05-08T05:00:00Z |
| Select colour variable | Jan 22, 2024 | Merged into core for default schemes | Jan 30 2022 |
| Simplified topic map | 2024-05-10T04:00:00Z | Will bring into Core at a later date | 2024-07-02T04:00:00Z |
| Header Shadow Removal | 2024-05-15T05:00:00Z | Merged into Discourse |
2024-07-10T05:00:00Z |
| New sidebar experiment (Sidebar Feng Shui) | 2024-08-06T05:00:00Z | Merged into Discourse |
2024-10-08T05:00:00Z |
| Share your feedback about updated notification menu! | 2024-08-06T04:00:00Z | Core feature, considering default | |
| Improved code block sizing & color scheme | 2024-10-31T14:00:00Z | Merged into Discourse |
2024-11-20T06:00:00Z |
| Enlarged chat avatars in sidebar | 2024-11-26T06:00:00Z | Merged into Discourse | 2025-07-02T22:00:00Z |
| New onebox styling | 2024-12-10T06:00:00Z | Merged into Discourse | 2025-05-30T05:00:00Z |
| New header menu styles | 2025-06-10T05:00:00Z | Experiment | - |
Previous Experiments
Experiment: Simplified topic map
Date enabled: 2024-05-10T04:00:00Z
Preview:
Feedback topic: Feedback on our simplified topic map experiment
Experiment: Embedded reply styling changes
Description: To move toward a “threaded” design to show inline replies in topics on both desktop and mobile. Merging this component idea into core. Custom embedded replies
Date enabled: 2024-01-04T06:00:00Z
Idea by: @Don
Preview:
Feedback: Embedded Replies
Experiment: Full screen login / create account screen
Description: This turns the login/create account modal into a full screen login.
Date Enabled: 2023-11-21T06:00:00Z
Idea by: @jordan-vidrine
Preview:
Feedback topic: Full Screen Login & Create Account
Experiment: Details in topic styling changes
Description: Change the styling of the details aspect of topic posts.
Date Enabled: 2023-11-13T06:00:00Z
Idea By: @chapoi
Preview:
Feedback topic: Details in topic styling changes - Feedback - #2
Experiment: Add a copy button when selecting text in a post
Description: This adds a Copy button to the post quote buttons that copies the quote markdown to the user’s clipboard, so they don’t have to manually do it from the composer:
Date enabled: 2023-11-13T06:00:00Z
Preview:
Feedback topic: Post quote copy to clipboard button -- Feedback - #2
Experiment: Hide text on text select popup menu
Description: This hides text on the text selection popup menu, decreasing the visual noise & leaning into the popup menu styling for icons on the chat message hover.
Date Enabled: 2023-12-05T06:00:00Z
Idea by: @keegan
Preview:
Feedback topic: Hide text in text select popup menu - Feedback