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dw_suggestions2011-08-28 07:31 pm
Rearrange the logged-in homepage
Title:
Rearrange the logged-in homepage
Area:
homepage
Summary:
Make the logged-in homepage more appealing by modernising the UI, showing more relevant and dynamic content near the top of the page, adding pointers to help new users, and grouping notifications in the right sidebar.
Description:
Today I looked at the Dreamwidth homepage and thought about what it might look like to a new user who's recently signed up, especially those who might be coming from non-LJ-like sites. (In this case, I was thinking of Google+, but it probably holds for other sites as well.) It occurred to me that the page looks a little lifeless and doesn't really point people at the stuff they are most likely to need. At the same time, I know that I (and some friends I asked, also long time LJ/DW users) don't really use the homepage, but head straight for our reading pages or the update page. I'd like to see actual stats on this, but I suspect this is a common pattern. So, what I'm going to suggest is mostly intended to be useful to newer users, but I hope it won't horribly bother older users who regularly use the homepage.
Currently the page shows:
MAIN COLUMN:
<user name="dw_news"> update
Quick update form
Inbox
RIGHT COLUMN:
Search DW
Reading list
Account stats
Tag cloud (your own tags)
Community management (required actions)
Your current theme
Here's what I'd like to suggest:
MAIN COLUMN:
Quick update form
Reading list (see notes below)
People/content discovery (see notes below)
Themes (see notes below)
RIGHT COLUMN:
Search DW
DW news (link only)
Birthdays
Inbox
Community management
Here's my justification.
1. READING LIST
Firstly, most other modern social network stream-like sites, these days, have your "stream" on the front page when you login: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. New people, especially, are going to expect to see some action on the front page. A lot of new DW people I talk to don't really understand about the "reading" page and how awesome it is. So I'd like to put some of that stream of posts right in front of them, and explain why they want to go to the reading page for the full experience.
Here's what I think it should show:
* ~5 recent posts, in short form (userpic, user name, date, subject, first couple of lines of the body, comment count)
* "See more on your reading page. Your reading page lets you see all your friends' posts, etc etc..." (i.e. a short blurb about why the reading page is where the action's really at)
2. PEOPLE/CONTENT DISCOVERY
New users often seem to wonder how they can find stuff on DW. It would be good to have a bit of information with some pointers here, including eg. "latest things", searching the directory, promo communities, stuff like that.
3. THEMES
We currently show your current theme on the front page. Yawn. People generally know what their current theme is! But why not combine this with promoting new themes? Widen the "theme" box and stick it at the bottom of the main content column, and say "You're currently using theme X. Did you know DW has hundreds of themes to choose from, that you can use to customise your own journal and reading page? Check out themes Y and Z!"
4. NOTIFICATIONS
I'm going to collapse "DW news", "Birthdays", "Inbox", and "Community management actions" into "Notifications" here. These are all things that are like "Hey, this is a timely new thing you might want to pay attention to." Grouping them would be a good idea.
I think that the "DW news" thing should be reduced to a smaller link. People get the news notifications by email anyway (by default), and many have them on their reading lists. A notification that says "hey, there's a newish one" might be helpful but it doesn't need to sit there taking up prime real estate for weeks.
The rest should be obvious -- birthdays, inbox, community management, etc. All things you probably want to know about as they happen. Putting them all near each other just seems like a sensible UI choice to me.
5. ACCOUNT STATS AND TAG CLOUD
These just seem to be taking up real estate without serving much purpose, IMHO. The account stats are duplicated on your own profile page, and the tag cloud is duplicated on most people's themes (in the sidebar or wherever). Lose 'em.
I'm sure people will want to pull all this apart and put it back together differently, and I have to say, I'm not deeply committed to any particular part of this proposal, but I do want to reiterate the main point: the logged in homepage should be rearranged to be more dynamic and appealling, and to point new DW users at DW's best features and help them find their way around.
Potential drawbacks: I'm sure there are some people who are very fond of the current layout, who'd be disappointed with this. I can't really think of any other drawbacks.
Implementation: This is mostly a UI rearrangement and shouldn't require a lot of new functionality under the hood. I think it should be relatively straightforward, though it would require a few design iterations to make it really good. (I know it's not as complex as the new posting form's redesign, but it might be nice to do the iterations in a similarly public manner.)
This suggestion:
Should be implemented as-is.
35 (57.4%)
Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
5 (8.2%)
Shouldn't be implemented.
1 (1.6%)
(I have no opinion)
20 (32.8%)
(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)
no subject
I definitely would want to see the theme module promoted and expanded with a couple of different themes. I honestly didn't even know it was there, because it's off the bottom of my screen!
It also occurs to me that it might be possible to allow users to select and rearrange the homepage modules the same way we can select and rearrange modules in our styles. As
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However, I'm looking back tot he old LJ portal page that never really got off the ground but was a good plan-movable modules that you just dragged and dropped, with the option to add or remove stuff at whim. bit like, say, the iGoogle pages or similar.
I suspect that'd be a good approach, nice and easy UI, and allows those of use that know what we're doing to adjust it, but ensures newer users get the stuff they need.
Definitely agree it needs to be a lot more new-user friendly. And also volunteer to help test/design it, although the backend coding will be beyond me.
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The change I'd most like to see is modularising it so we can move things around, and hide what we don't want to see. We can't make one design that'll suit everybody - apart from different usage patterns, people have different size screens so we don't know how much will be above the fold.
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Modular homepages for me really isn't that much of a draw? But content discovery is a nifty and useful thing in general. I also agree with
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My usage case is actually that I normally go to the home page first. That's where my bookmark is set, and since I have as a minimum of four pages that auto open and my Reading page can get kind of heavy, I like having it staggered. Plus some mornings I'll update before reading, so where I go is subject to chance.
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That addresses the fact that yeah, most "modern" sites use the LIH for what we use the reading page for, while at the same time keeping existing behavior.
Stick a few content discovery modules over top of the rp and bam. We could even combine that with http://dw-suggestions.dreamwidth.org/586557.html and wherever the suggestion for continual-scrolling AJAX: the LIH version of the reading page demonstrates all the fancy-AJAX bells-and-whistles, the username.dreamwidth.org/read keeps the old behavior.
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ooo. Now I'm seeing a three-line update form on top of the reading page, for people composing thinky-thoughts while not having to pull away from whatever they were reading, which can then be shunted into a draft for polishing after the basic sketching-out is done. Hmmmmmmmmm.
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I would hate this.
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What does the current LIH give you that this proposal wouldn't?
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Secondary point to my particular version of the suggestion would be to be able to revise and modernize the reading page in ways that many other suggestions have asked for that have been evenly split between "I want this so much!" and "I hate this so much!" -- the existing reading page could keep the existing function, and the new LIH could get the bells and whistles.
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For me, the main functions of the site are posting content on my journal and reading content on the reading pages. I would also love to see a prominent way to find my way to new content that I would find interesting. So, for me, the LIH would be most useful if the three most prominent features were a way to update my journal, a way to my reading page, and a way to find new content.
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Yes, maybe I would.