What should the main page show?

I think it is also important to remember that returning visitors, whether “old” or “new” may well bookmark or type directly in the URL bar the domain name (e.g., writing.codidact.com ) without any of the parameters that go to Q&A, etc. In other words, while the typical new user will land on the main Q&A category page or a specific question, many returning users will go to the Home page. I suspect that’s why SE has (at least when I tested now) the “Questions” page and the Home page nearly identical - actually I prefer the format on the Home page.

End result: I think the Home page should definitely show a list of recent questions, but, if the site has multiple categories, should show a sampling of others as well. For example, if the typical (just checked one, hard to count the questions quickly) SE Home page shows the 50 most recently updated (ask/answer/edit) questions, instead show something like (in addition to header with Search/Tabs/etc.):

  • Last 10 updated Q&A (title, votes, etc. clickable), with a big button for going straight to all Q&A.
  • Last 3 updated Blog (title, votes, etc. clickable), with a big button for going straight to all Blog.
  • Last 3 updated Canonical (title, votes, etc. clickable), with a big button for going straight to all Canonical.
  • Last 3 updated Meta (title, votes, etc. clickable), with a big button for going straight to all Meta.

Make Q&A first and “most”, but make it “small enough” that with a little scrolling users will see there is a lot more on the site with a “taste” of each.

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I figure content is just one click away from the home page, and/or “content” is where they landed originally (if they came to a topic via s search engine).

A new user shouldn’t have to go searching in the Help and FAQs so I’d like the Home page to be pretty-well-all they need (and community-authored/controlled).

Your wanting to put content on the Home page is itself pure/mere marketing, IMO – you said, “store window” – but either that content is random (whatever the latest stuff du jour is) or it’s curated (“our most popular topics”) in either case it’s not informative (of how to use the site and how the community intends it), nor representative (of the content you’ll see on the site once you know how to look for what you’re interested in).

If you want to advertise the current content I could (instead of a few topics) suggest displaying the Categories and/or tag cloud – that isn’t what SE sites put on their home page.


So that’s where I’d start – “what should a novice user see?” – and then figure how to let a regular user see something different; but optimise the vanilla home page towards the novice.

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It is both:

  • Functional
    Returning users get to head straight into Q&A or another section on the page - and they often (or at least I do) want to see right away what’s new in each category.

and

  • Marketing
    New users get to see a little bit of everything so they can get more than just “we do Q&A” but see some actual questions and “we also do Blogs” and see some actual blogs, etc.
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“What’s new?” sounds like a reasonable and frequently-asked question, so that view of the site should exist for your benefit/use.

Here that URL is https://forum.codidact.org/latest

Not on the home page seen by novices though, IMO – it’s not the most interesting nor useful (nor welcoming) data for readers who are not yet users and not yet invested in the site.

I disagree. I am 99% certain that, in the absence of major media promotion (e.g., a link from the SO home page or a story on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, etc.) that the vast majority (I’d say 90% or more) of users beyond the initial developer group (“us”), will find Codidact communities via search engines. Those search engines will not normally point to the home page (or rather, they may list the domain name/home page for informational purposes, but the actual links will be deep links) but instead point to deep links of specific Questions, Answers, Blog entries. This is no different from the way that 90% (or more) of new users get to StackOverflow, StackExchange, Quora, Pinterest, Reddit, etc. So the home page, unlike the way web sites worked 20+ years ago will actually not be the main initial entry point for the vast majority of users.

So who goes to the Home page?

  • New users who land on a question/answer/etc. and decide “this looks like an interesting site, let me find out more” - Those people should see information about what the site has to offer, not necessarily (but it can be) a list of questions/blogs/etc.
  • Returning users who say “Oh yeah, Writing Codidact is where I want to go” and either go to the bookmarked/favorite page or start typing writing.codidact.com in the URL bar. Those users, who are your “power” users, will want to see a list of questions/etc. to know what’s new.
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It seems we really need two higher-level pages per site. I’ll call them the home page, and the dashboard.

The home page is intended for new users. It’s point is to explain the site, the rules, the process of asking a question, what you are expected to do, what you can expect in return, etc. I personally find web sites frustrating when I have to dig around to get the context to understand how to use the rest. Some people (like me) actually want to RTFM. The rest of them should, but won’t unless we make it really easy.

The dashboard is the main portal to all the content. Here you are assumed to understand the site and want to get to a particular piece of content easily, or to browse, or participate, or whatever. This is the page people would probably bookmark once they understand the site. They’d probably not deliberately visit the home page again except maybe to go back and see how something is supposed to be done.

Both these things are important. Since they are each separate web pages, there is no either/or. We provide both.

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Both of these pages are important. My premise is that:

  • Because the home page by definition is the same as (sub)domain name, it is the page that returning users will go to by default. Consider that it is often inconvenient and/or impractical (for a lot of reasons) to bookmark “exactly the page you want” and instead far easier to just start typing a URL. If you are a “regular”, your browser remembers and gets you there. But depending on a bunch of factors, the destination might be a deep page but might (very often) be the home page. So the home page should, IMHO, have real content.

  • The welcome page is another story. This should:

    • For a truly new user (typically based on lack of a cookie that indicates prior use of the site), show some additional header-like information welcoming the new user. Not a popup. Definitely not a popup - they are annoying and if you have a situation (always browse in “private” mode, so no cookies stick around between sessions, therefore always “new”) where a popup comes up every time you go to the site you will turn people off very quickly.
    • For anyone else, make it EASY TO FIND THE FAQ/TOUR. These pages are not “hidden” on SE, but they are less obvious than they should be and it is sometimes very hard to find a lot of the really useful stuff. So a prominent place in the header (maybe a Tab like another category? Extra “Help” button but not a tiny almost hidden “?”)) and footer is important, as well as additional information (as discussed numerous times) for the first question a newly registered user asks, first answer, etc.
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Agreed. A welcome page is not the same as a home page. A “home” is for everyone. A welcome page is for new users.

As an extreme example, look at https://www.hackerrank.com/, a site for completing programming challenges to polish your skills and build a resume/CV of sorts… except that by going to the base URL I gave, you can’t see any questions/challenges, and you have no idea how to. They make it look like you have to sign up first.

Then, if you do some digging with a search engine or already know it exists, you can go to https://www.hackerrank.com/dashboard, where the challenges actually are. The site is really nice, but their design/structure needs work. They also removed the https://www.hackerrank.com/domains page, which makes it harder to find a specific domain you are looking to practice in.

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