💡 Suggestion - Homepage Improvements for Better User Engagement

CC: @bradystroud @JimmyChenSSW

Description

The SSW Rules homepage can be confusing for first-time users due to its current design, which displays only categories on the left and the latest edits on the right. A suggestion has been made to improve user engagement and make rules easier to navigate and more memorable by incorporating a popularity metric such as a heat index or view count. This would surface popular rules, making them more visible and accessible to users.

The recommendation includes two options:

• Option A: Display view counts for each rule.
• Option B (recommended): Implement a heat index that assigns points for visits, edits, and shares, and replace the "Latest Rules" section with "Popular Rules."

Acceptance Criteria

• Evaluate the current design of the SSW Rules homepage.
• Decide on the preferred approach (Option A or Option B) for surfacing popular rules.
• Implement the selected solution, ensuring it meets both functional and design requirements.
• Test the solution to confirm improved user engagement and accessibility.

Note: The following is a direct copy of an email from which this issue was derived.

Original Email

I am doing the CTF released on 6 Dec 2024, and I quite enjoyed the video this time. 5 stars.

When I open https://www.ssw.com.au/rules/

Most of the time, I lost.

Because there are just categories on the left and the most recent edit to the right.

Think about any first-time user, they may stop here without looking into any of the rules.

Figure: SSW Rule homepage as of 7 Dec 2024

In the CTF I was asked - What makes a Rule memorable or easy to follow?

I would suggest that we need to include the “heats” for each rule and make the popular rules more visible – e.g., top of the list.

In order to do that, we can

Option A:

• Add the view counts to each rule, display with or under the title.
• Replace the latest rules with “Popular Rules”
• ✅Pro: Simple and direct
• ❌Con: It makes people feel bad when the views are low.

Option B (recommended):

• Add a so-called “heat index”, e.g., each visit gives 3 points and each edit gives 10
• Add an icon called “Share” that gives a copy of the URL, each share may be worth 25
• Replace the latest rules with “Popular Rules”
• ✅Pro: A higher number simply looks better and it encourages people to share the rules.
• ❌Con: I believe it takes more effort

🤖

Start at the SSW Rules homepage, https://www.ssw.com.au/rules/, and evaluate how its category and latest-edit layout supports first-time users. Compare the view-count and heat-index options, then define and test the selected approach; done means popular rules are surfaced while the functional, design, engagement, and accessibility goals are met.