If I've learned anything from running a forum, it's that 100% of big changes will bring out the vocal minority who hate the change, while everyone else stays silent because they either don't care or are in favor of seeing where the change leads.
For example, the most vocal group of people hated it when I…
moved the forum to the homepage
added link posts
removed link posts
added hashtags
replaced hashtags with groups
allowed posts without titles
required posts to have titles again
added milestones to the homepage
featured milestones at the top of the homepage
moved milestones back below the posts
put news in place of the milestones
etc.
This isn't to say I'm not going to listen to people's concerns. Of course I am. Sometimes the vocal minority is right, and sometimes it's not, but it's always worth listening to, so I always listen.
Rather, my point is that I'm not going to make random UX decisions based on popularity contests or protests. And even if I was, the popularity content was already decided against the milestones, as the data clearly shows that literally tens of thousands of visitors every day don't really care about the milestones section. If they did, I obviously wouldn't have made this change. But since they don't, I'm not going to revert the change regardless of what any poll says.
A more productive conversation would be about how to make the news actually good. The top feedback I've heard so far is:
feature indie hackers, not just big tech companies
promote educational long-form pieces and stories, not just event-based news
make the news valuable and useful, not vapid
And that's what I plan to do!
The most helpful thing you all could do is write posts on Indie Hackers that you think are worthy of the news section, and ping me to feature it. Or when you see someone else write it, ping me.
A more productive conversation would be about how to make the news actually useful and valuable.
Right on it.
It could be news from IndieHackers itself, from the site I mean, interviews, podcasts, your very own newsletter. And it could be news from Indie Hackers, the members of the community, milestones/product blogs that you find interesting that we missed.
So basically anything that are really good but missed the homepage since it didn't get enough engagement to stay on it.
Edit: oh can we atleast remove the images for the time being? Or you can consider removing images later on after your split testing or something?
I'll consider removing images. More likely I'll just make them smaller. It just looks very drab and boring without the color the images provide, especially considering the entire rest of the homepage is covered in colorful icons and avatars.
If I've learned anything from running a forum, it's that 100% of big changes will bring out the vocal minority who hate the change, while everyone else stays silent because they either don't care or are in favor of seeing where the change leads.
For example, the most vocal group of people hated it when I…
This isn't to say I'm not going to listen to people's concerns. Of course I am. Sometimes the vocal minority is right, and sometimes it's not, but it's always worth listening to, so I always listen.
Rather, my point is that I'm not going to make random UX decisions based on popularity contests or protests. And even if I was, the popularity content was already decided against the milestones, as the data clearly shows that literally tens of thousands of visitors every day don't really care about the milestones section. If they did, I obviously wouldn't have made this change. But since they don't, I'm not going to revert the change regardless of what any poll says.
A more productive conversation would be about how to make the news actually good. The top feedback I've heard so far is:
And that's what I plan to do!
The most helpful thing you all could do is write posts on Indie Hackers that you think are worthy of the news section, and ping me to feature it. Or when you see someone else write it, ping me.
Right on it.
It could be news from IndieHackers itself, from the site I mean, interviews, podcasts, your very own newsletter. And it could be news from Indie Hackers, the members of the community, milestones/product blogs that you find interesting that we missed.
So basically anything that are really good but missed the homepage since it didn't get enough engagement to stay on it.
Edit: oh can we atleast remove the images for the time being? Or you can consider removing images later on after your split testing or something?
I'll consider removing images. More likely I'll just make them smaller. It just looks very drab and boring without the color the images provide, especially considering the entire rest of the homepage is covered in colorful icons and avatars.
I want to see Milestones too and voted for it. But Allen shared a little of his plans, so I'm up to see what he's bringing as well.