๐จ๐ปโ๐ป Condenser: Documenting Steemit.com Sitemap
This update documents the sitemap of steemit.com (and then rambles for a while).
The sitemap below shares more information than a traditional sitemap would as I wanted to break down the structure of each page into its core components -
- The Header (or Masthead)
- Left Menu
- Main (Body) Content
- Right Menu
I wanted to do this to see/demonstrate the limited "contextuality" in the Left and Right Menus - I've got no doubt that I'll speak about these areas more extensively in a future post. (Having now completed this post, I probably have little more that I'd want to say ๐)
Sitemap
๐ Key
| Colour | Description |
|---|---|
| Grey | Indicates a sub-menu or page group |
| White | Indicates a page or overlay |
| Yellow | Indicates content displayed within a Steemit post |
| Cyan | Indicates links which are only available to logged in users |
| Green | Indicates links to Steem Wallet |
| Magenta | Indicates links to Steem content outside of Condenser |
| Red | Indicates links to External Websites |
| Greyed out text | Accessible via an unadvertised URL |
๐ค Thoughts
1. Lack of Contextuality
I originally started by writing points 2 and 3 below but they started to feel like a rant (and perhaps off-topic). Hopefully, this won't become a rant too!
The Left and Right Menus appear on all content discovery pages. These additional Menus/information account for anything between a third to half of the page real estate.
The Left Menu partially acts as a route to navigation - Friends and Communities perhaps providing the most utility as they appear to be the only routes to this information. But why the inconsistent "navigation" style when the Profile page has helpful, space saving tabs across the top?
The Announcements and Useful Links are also areas of question for me. I know what the dip.team are, but surely their updates are more appropriate in Announcements? TRX Integration is somewhat meaningless now that TRX rewards are no longer being paid.
In the Right Menu, we see Trending Communities and I would love to hear in the comments - Who cares?
The only time that either of these menus are used appropriately (in my opinion) is the contextual use of community information.
These areas definitely need to be reconsidered and reconfigured in my opinion. To lose up to half of your screen to this just seems mad ๐คช
This became a rant didn't it?
2. New Users
I was initially going to produce a separate sitemap for logged out and logged in users but after producing the logged out version, I realised that almost all of the functionality is visible, you just can't use it until you log in.
One thing that jumped out to me for the New User mindset was quite how badly the site is designed for new users. The "Welcome Guide" in the Right Menu suggests some kind of guide or tutorial to help you get started...
The first thing to do when you come to Steemit
Can you guess what it is?
Post your first comment? Read the top paid posts to learn how to earn rewards? Upload your profile photo? The answer is, none of the above!
What do you think?
The very first thing is: write down your master/owner keys on a piece of paper, and keep the paper in a safe, secure place.
But I don't have an account.
Maybe the Useful Link in the Left Menu, "Newcomers Guide", will be more helpful.
No, it links to the same place.
How about "Welcome" in the Burger Menu?
No, it once again assumes that I have an account already.
3 welcoming links, no actual welcome.
So what's the sales pitch? Where's the "Brochureware"? Is that what steem.com is for? (I hope not.)
Compared to a site like medium.com, we're seriously letting ourselves down.
Is this beyond the score of #proposal-86? Maybe.
3. Outdated / Irrelevant Content
If you look through the Burger menu in the header, links such as Advertise and Jobs at Steemit either don't work or are probably no longer applicable. Other functionality is only relevant to registered users who are logged in, so why overcomplicate things for all users (linked to point 2 above)?
๐ Do we need a new Information Architecture (IA)?
One of the early stages of website design (before writing any code or making anything look pretty) is the relatively dry process of creating an Information Architecture, and/or Wireframes.
This encompasses deciding what content is required, what pages this content should sit within and the importance of that content within each page. To use an analogy, you're planning your book before starting Chapter 1.
Steemit.com clearly hasn't done this. We've got content discovery here... we've added communities... I made some graphs, let's add some graphs... that's a good welcome guide... Oooh, Engagement challenges... there's a gap here, a gap there... that'll do. It looks ok. Individual user stuff can go up there, behind that avatar in the corner. Everybody knows that the avatar will hold the key to your activity. What about all this other crap? Just chuck it in a Burger Menu, why not eh?
I'm ranting again.
How much of the IA actually needs changing? Do we need to think about a more consistent navigation? Some primary navigation so that we're not relying upon our existing knowledge of where things are?
- All Posts
- My Feed (aka My Friends) [logged in only]
- Community Feed (aka My Communities (logged in only)
- Announcements (links to a single blog post which steemitblog maintains, containing latest SEC news, contests, etc.)
These 4 simple links across the top, styled like the Profile navigation will free up approximately 260px of usable space, removing the need for the Left Menu.
- Profile or Feeds
- Wallet
- Settings
Floating to the right, again reflecting the Profile styling.
This is thinking as I type - surely this consistency of navigation will simplify the usage of the site - give it a clear and obvious structure and remove the assumption that people know to:
a) click the logo to get to feeds
b) click the avatar to view your profile.
โ This completes part 1(b) of Stage 1.
I've perhaps over-stepped the purpose of this post - producing and sharing a sitemap - but in doing so, I've explored a can of worms which I feel that I've rationalised without too much difficulty.
I'll park these thoughts here for now - I'd love to get your feedback, especially with the suggestion of "formalising" the site structure. Should this be the first step before making things look prettier?
Part 1(c) is perhaps the biggest chunk of work in Stage 1 which will come next.
Since trending communities are calculated in the same way as trending posts, I would say that not many users are interested... and it certainly shouldn't be the first thing that catches the eye of new users.
By the way, there are hardcoded "recommended communities" in Hivemind that are displayed first in the trending communities...
These two, for example: "SteemitCryptoAcademy" and "Newcomers' Community". "Steemit Feedback" was also there, but has obviously already been removed. ;-)
This is not easy to answer. Both design and usability are required here. Personally, I mainly access my feed and my subscribed communities. The feed can appear for me on the profile page, with the number of new notifications (divided by category) and my subscribed communities in the sidebar (now I'm getting ahead of myself).
Then I can access everything from my account starting page.
I can also imagine the subscribed communities in the avatar menu as a submenu, so that I can jump from one subscribed community to another.
In other words: I don't really need the side menus at all. They should mainly focus on the posts and present them in an appropriate way. Also with promoted posts in a sidebar...
... with one exception: The community information should be immediately visible, preferably elsewhere, but on the community page - and also in the mobile version.
To come back to your question: I think that when it comes to modernising the site, the "formalisation" and the rough layout should really come first before you start on the actual design. Otherwise, it will just be a patchwork that looks different in the feed than in the communities and doesn't really fit together....
Ah, sneaky... Well... I suppose that doesn't matter if I remove the column ๐
Including "My Friends" and "My communities" feeds within the profile page is an interesting idea which I hadn't considered. Your idea makes a lot of sense as the "Avatar" area is very much "Mine".
Getting the navigation structure correct before changing any of the design elements definitely feels like the correct approach to me. It's how I'd approach a new project but it's never as straightforward when inheriting an existing site with an experienced user base.
Once I've got the documentation finished, I'll see how easy a change like this will be. It'll definitely be on the JavaScript side of the fence that I was initially hoping to avoid.
I think so. :-D
At this point, I'm just thinking about how far Stinc. would go with the change. Have you ever thought about this? Of course, it would be best if the team would get in touch here, but nothing seems to be happening...
Of course you can still work on it, but there is a risk that Steemit will not put the result on its servers. The only option would be to host the site yourself, but that wouldn't be the ideal situation, would it?
Absolutely!
Javascript is now also responsible for some creative "gimmicks". CSS or SCSS alone is usually no longer enough. You'll see what happens. Sometimes it's also good to let something like this come to you.
I think they're too busy checking to see if the moderators that have booming support are validating posts quickly enough!
I don't know what the consequence of that is... my understanding (could be wrong) is that if the majority of the witness nodes are updated to reflect the changes, then the changes will be displayed... otherwise, there's no decentralisation...?
Unfortunately, this does not apply to Steemit - i.e. the Condenser. This is only the case for the blockchain. The site is only hosted and maintained by Stinc. The witnesses have no access to their servers, unless they are employed by Stinc. This is probably one of the reasons why the current difficulties are not being resolved...
Of course, as a witness I can also host the site, but that would just be a (customised) copy on a different domain. Like I did for a while on steemit.moecki.online, for example. But not directly on steemit.com.
Unfortunately, only the Steem is decentralised...
Oh, ok. That's interesting. I suppose that if Steemit don't want it, then it becomes its own front-end like SteemPeakd was - although I'm not sure I want the responsibility of hosting something like that myself!
I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we come to it ๐
TEAM 1
Congratulations! This comment has been upvoted through steemcurator04. We support quality posts , good comments anywhere and any tags. TEAM 1
Congratulations! This comment has been upvoted through steemcurator04. We support quality posts , good comments anywhere and any tags.We have already discussed this in many places: there is a lot of superfluous information on the homepage (e.g. even wrong information about the TRX!) and a serious lack of really important input.
That's exactly what I meant: You are working on the design of the site and not on functionalities, but design is much more than background colours and funny popping up windows.
I was already an avowed fan of yours, but if you approach the project like this, I'll be over the moon...!
Question by the way: I notice that the values in the DAO proposals are still changing, in both directions. What happens if you are deprived of voting shares during the ongoing work and you fall below the value of the return proposal...? Do you have any idea? Anyone?
I think that I've got to... The proposal talks a lot about the interface and a key part of this is where things are positioned on the page... I didn't really want to do much with "functionality" (i.e. the JavaScript side of things) but this might be an ok one to touch without too much risk. I'll have to have a play and see where things land.
If the voting falls below the Return Proposal then the DAO funding will instantly stop until they swap back. It's then a personal decision whether to continue in the hope that funding returns or to put it on the shelf. It would be a shame to start and then stop again having only provided documentation but I also believe that the larger stakeholders are more patient than that so it hopefully won't happen ๐
TEAM 1
Congratulations! This comment has been upvoted through steemcurator04. We support quality posts , good comments anywhere and any tags.Oh, that really feels like work, I don't envy you this job.
No, I don't need it.
This was the case when I started out and it is still the case today, the amount of information provided is a huge, not unmanageable text jungle for newcomers.
We need a short, simple text with some of the most important points to start with. A text that motivates and is aimed at attracting new users and not scaring them off.
But I think that's beyond the scope of the propostal. Perhaps a few experienced users will take the opportunity to come up with such a text?
Unfortunately, there is also a lot of it. I don't even notice it anymore, but it certainly doesn't make a good impression on someone who wants to find their way around.
Yes, I think that makes perfect sense. The question is whether you can still fit it into the project.
TEAM 1
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