Redesign of tiddlywiki.com - TAKE 1

[Maurycy]

I wasn’t aware of this thread! I feel obligated to also say something here now that I’ve written this monstrosity.

@jeremyruston

tiddlywiki.com serves the needs of several distinct but overlapping groups of users:

• It is the landing page first encountered by prospective users
• It is the online demo for prospective users to explore
• It is the online documentation reference for current users
• It is the community test bed for quick tests and proof-of-concepts

And perhaps there are more. The point here is that any redesign should not unknowingly make tiddlywiki.com less useful for any of these groups of users.

As I alluded in my analysis, I think this is a primary problem with the current form of the front page. All of those groups have needs that oppose each other:

1. A potential new user needs to be hooked to want to invest their time into a new product.
2. A hooked user who wants to better understand the capabilities of the product wants to see all the bells and whistles and how awesome they are.
3. A seasoned user just wants the docs and to know what’s new, they don’t care about being sold on the product again.

You can’t overwhelm #1 with all the options #2 is interested and neither #1 and #2 are still interested in the nitty-gritty details of running subfilters in a widget-transcluded macro in an overwritten shadow-tiddler .

A seasoned user is unlikely to mind switching from tiddlywiki.com to tiddlywiki.com/docs as their source of knowledge, but a potential new user will just close the tab if they see something and their first thought is “meh”.

@jeremyruston

I suspect that we should lean into the problem: make a virtue of the fact that TiddlyWiki is super-flexible, be unapologetic about the fact that it needs an intellectual investment to make the most of it.

I think it is possible to achieve that. Look at Notion.so, Nimbus Note or the new Tana.inc - none of them have qualms about claiming they can do everything and more, even if they’re not even half as flexible as TW is (though what they lose in flexibility they provide in built-in functionalities). It’s a matter of putting it into right words but that’s for someone who’s a much better wordsmith than I am.

As a side note, I think the Landing Page layout that was linked earlier is a huge improvement in terms of new-user friendliness.

[TiddlyTweeter]

@Maurycy

A potential new user needs to be hooked to want to invest their time into a new product.

Your recent posts are challenging and think right on the mark.

I would say that potential end users want mostly to DO things, not have to programme how to do them.

IMO TW is already that effortless tool.

Yet we do little to promote editions by market need.

Why? Is it simply work someone would need to do. Dunno???

Just a query
TT

[Scribs]

@jeremyruston

I suspect that we should lean into the problem: make a virtue of the fact that TiddlyWiki is super-flexible, be unapologetic about the fact that it needs an intellectual investment to make the most of it.

Reading back, there seem to be two parallel trains of thought in this thread: some people who wish to appeal to the average user (comparing TW with more easy-to-use, streamlined note-taking/second brain applications and their advertising) and other people who wish to appeal to the power users like you mention here, that want to be able to set everything as they want to create a super-powerful application that fits their needs like a glove.

It’s definitely worth deciding which group should be the primary target audience in my opinion, as I think they have different expectations and thresholds of initial investment.

I agree that TW fits more into that second category. There may not be as many people using it, but those who do greatly appreciate its potential to fit their needs and would be more receptive to advertising that showcases that (I think).