Contextual index orientation

[erlend-sh]

How to get new and old users oriented on the app index page.

To use Zulip as an example — coming into a community and getting oriented is easy as long as it’s such a new community that the number of threads to be aware of can be skimmed through in a matter of minutes:

But once a community has built up years worth of content, where do you even begin?

A smart index shows a different selection of content depending on who the user is.

New users are presented with a small, ideally human-curated (aided by automated prompts for mod-access content gardeners) selection of What You Need to Know.

Regular users get the full feed, curated by their own personalizations.

[erlend-sh]

Here’s a minimal mock-up of what a better index could look like:

‘Commune’ is a room/category. The first two titles listed below it are threads, which you’d always be encouraged to read first. “Other” is a placeholder name for whatever we wanna call the general chat of a room, I.e. posts that haven’t been added to any thread.

It’s based on similar ideas as Google Inbox:

The main idea here is that the top priority isn’t chronology, but rather context. I just wanna know what’s new since I last checked in, I don’t care whether something was posted 16hrs or 30mins ago, it’s all outside the window of synchronicity anyhow.

I’d much rather tackle one category/room of new posts at a time. Regular chat flow does work like this, as it has the user checking out one room after the other. But this is also inadequate as it fails to..

1. order rooms according to their priority to me
2. requires constant shifting between reading mode and room-picking mode
3. is prone to the doorway effect (memory loss by context-switching).

We don’t actually need any chat-type sidebars to be active by default when the user is in a reading-focused catch-up mode. The more linear the better. Just a continuous downward scroll, seamlessly hopping from one room to the other as if it’s an open-space office without doors.

Discourse functions like this thanks to its Suggested Reading widget at the bottom of every topic: