CDWG May Update & new website homepage

+1 on dark because it doesn’t destroy my eyeballs late at night, but both look great

1 Like

Love the work you are all doing. Look forward to the new site, it looks great!

3 Likes

Thanks @mrvls_brkfst !

These look awesome! I love the overall color choices, brand feel, and that you’ve given users the option to toggle between light and dark modes in the top right corner (if I’m reading correctly). Will that option + the nav remain sticky to the top of the page as the user scrolls?

Would be super cool if there are some micro animations included – like the ticker-style numbers on https://compound.finance/ !

2 Likes

Thanks for the update @0x_Dev and team! It’s been great to see this side of the Coop get up and running really quick these last two months, and we have some real talent in the team which is reflected in the quality of our outward facing content now.

One question for yourself and @mestigoit is now the brand framework is pretty much complete, what are the steps to ensure everyone is aware and using the correct colours/fonts/formats? I’m doing my part by starting to use IBM plex everywhere (:innocent:) but wondered how we best communicate and make available all the relevant assets?

2 Likes

Thanks for the comment @catjam !

Some nav on desktop will persist with scroll but most will not. Mobile is persistent burger menu obviously.

Funny you say that re micro animations: while we haven’t thought of that specifically, we are looking at 3D Cooper (our Owl) and iconography to add more character. Perhaps other ways than micro animations of adding character. We’ll chat this through in CDWG and will generally be looking to add more ambitious elements to the web design after launching this new base.

Hey @DarkForestCapital,

Thanks for the comment and the question about communicating the brand framework effectively is a good one. I’m @'ing @Pepperoni_Joe here to discuss with him in Discord, because he’s so tuned in in the Org and New Joiners stuff.

It feels like we should communicate the brand framework and asset library of template files (G Docs, G Slides, etc), maybe also with a simple explainer/guide, in the new, top-notch onboarding experience and mention it in the updated GitBook, as prominent, high flow areas. We could also pin a comment in #Design (though that will have less reach).

I’ll come back to you on this.

3 Likes

Very cool!

Lobbing some homepage design feedback/questions over the fence:

  1. Great to hear that we’re using Webflow; enabling non-eng. to make quick changes is fantastic
  2. What is the thinking behind since a big homepage? I notice that Yearn, Aave, Compound, and many others have comparatively simple homepages. This is coming from a place of curiosity about the strategy more than anything
  3. Why are # of twitter followers & # discord members important enough to include on the homepage?
1 Like

Cool!! Thanks for the response. Definitely pro microanimations :slight_smile:

Another simple way to add character is with font choices. The chosen font is great for readability in body text and longer-form copy, but maybe you could mix it up a bit by choosing a different header font?

1 Like

@anon10525910 thanks for the comments and questions.

  • Homepage: short vs long scroll is a big debate in design. Some crypto projects do have shorter ones, you’re right, some crypto projects and many more tradfi-ish things have longer scroll (E.g. Bitwise, UMA). We’ve gone with this initially, reflecting the brand survey Martin did and trying to balance all the core values. We also think there’s a lot to communicate and as long as the long scroll works well on mobile (>50% of traffic) we’re serving browsers well. That said, this is a community, if there’s strong feedback to short homepage, we’ll listen to that - we can also try iterations in time too, if data/sentiment drives change.

  • Social proof to include in homepage: another good qu. We’re trying to credentialize as much as we can here and thought these proof points were valuable, below higher order stats such as AuM/TVL. But, if some of these social proof points are try hard or come off as desperate, we want to hear the feedback. You feel they are? Personally, I think our following on Twitter is not only a powerful asset but a strong proof point too - AuM/TVL and addresses are the most powerful proof points in my mind though - if if we reflect this hierarchy in this page, it works. I.e. - don’t put Twitter follower No above the fold! :slight_smile:

Cheers.

1 Like

Hey! @0x_Dev I’ve reached out via discord but love to help with on-going feedback and user testing for the designs here.

5 Likes

Regarding the twitter followers, I see this very close to you Greg, it won’t convince me if i see 10,000 or 20,000 follower. it is the same with TVL and other financial metrics these are dead numbers. And I couldnt imagine what i can do with 1m dollar and what i can do with 100m dollar. We have to find good comparisons.
I am always fighting for this idea to get rid of ‘just numbers’ in any way, we have to tell stories. :slight_smile:

1 Like


One of the public transport systems here in Berlin (BVG) tries to explain 1,5m of distance mean. Maybe for some it’s hard to even imagine what a meter is like. So they make up the comparison.
So they try to see it from a funny perspective, not only for COVID related thing. It is one of the general ways the try to address things. And they have one of the best social media campaign world wide.

3 Likes

It’s in case Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II happens to be travelling through Berlin. She’ll immediately know what to do and no doubt feel very welcome too.

1 Like

Good stuff… especially on the main brand page. Looking forward for this.

Though I’m just curious on whether there is a plan for a multi-language blog (as a subdomain) in the works? Personally i feel theres a need for a central depository for all our articles that we fully own the content of it (i’m aware in Medium, we don’t actually own it; i may be wrong).

Having a ML Blog as a subdomain, would make it easier for other lang contributors to assist in translating articles; while also driving website traffic to IC website. And I’m thinking the set up is relatively easy as we could use WP and copy the design language from the main site.

Just a thought… would welcome feedback on this.

3 Likes

MT and I disagree on this one regarding AuM :slight_smile:

While I understand large numbers do not related to peoples’ personal situation, they are almost always used by financial institutions to show their size and legitimacy. AuM is also the primary metric used most often to judge the success of a fund/product in finance too.

Whenever anyone blogs about index product providers in DeFi, AuM is almost always their primary lens to judge performance, before getting more granular. It matters because it shows many people are trusting their life savings to this product/company, and if they have, maybe I can feel secure doing so too. AuM and holders in my mind is the most powerful signal from the market that the Coop is trusted.

Thanks for the kind comment.

The aim is to host all out content and have multi-language in time too. ML might take a bit longer but it’s a focus of ours for sure!

I read about this via an email notification, and a couldn’t remember what you where referring to. But it was about the corgis :slight_smile:
I think in her life-time the Queen visited Berlin 3times, I think. And the last time isn’t that long ago, and I really thought about going to the city. (But I didn’t). 95 now. hmm. I have to say, that I do not have much for the monarchy, but this Lady, all my respect.

Hi, interesting as I had this topic with another com.member today. with WP you mean wordpress?
I am totally for a solution this way, but dont know what would be the best way to handle that.

Having a subdomain running ML Wordpress Theme can run in parallel with the main site, as long as we follow similar design language with the main site. I personally feel that setting up this is slightly easier than custom build theme. For short-mid term, I would suggest using ML Theme thats out there; though ideally the best is to create our own theme. With the latter will take time.

Yes, apologies, WP means wordpress. too many abbrev… :sweat_smile: as for moving forward, here is my preliminary thoughts/steps of the solution (though will need further refinement) as I do have basic knowledge of building websites via wordpress and limited knowledge in php and html;

  1. creation of subdomain & installation of Wordpress
  2. installation of WP ML theme & relevant plugins (ML, analytics, geofencing, etc)
  3. users/translator/editor creations
  4. consolidation existing articles to blog.indexcoop
  5. porting over / matching existing translation with existing articles
  6. optimising for SEO/SEM
  7. publish/ making the blog live
2 Likes