Solo Site Design

A gif of the scene from the original Tron movie, where the programs say 'That's Tron. He fights for the Users'

'That's Tron. He fights for the Users.'

Solo Challenges

Successful design principles for a sole developer requires a LOT of different disciples -- business, marketing, web design, engineering, and operations, to name a few. While as a solo developer I get to avoid the inevitable team meetings when you have multiple contributors, each arguing and turf guarding, I can't avoid the cacophony of discipline voices in my head and try not to let my native 'engineering voice' shout everyone else down.

With that in mind, I've created a metaphor, The Flower Garden, to model the current content social world and what are the big differences between social networks and independent content sites like mine.

The Flower Garden

a flower garden

If we compare the online world to a flower garden, the social network giants like Facebook, X/twitter, Instagram, Discord, and Reddit are flower bushes, and you, dear readers, are the honey bees seeking pollen. With social network effects and AI augmentation, the bushes are getting bushier, which creates shallower and denser flowers, allowing the bees to sip quicker and flit to the next flower faster. In turn, their algorithms and AI follow your flight path intensely, harvesting your glances and clicks, in order to create an advertising golem of you, in which they can grow new A/B tested branches with flowers matched to your for-sale profile. This leads to doom-scrolling late-night purchasing capture of you.

Independent long-tail topic-focused content site/apps, like sites I create, are more like a single rose than a flowering bush. In order to attract the bees from the bushes, the rose should have a stronger scent, more pollen and deeper flowers to attract. You must make it worthwhile to leave the plethora and it has to be a less frenetic and more thoughtful experience.

Solo Design Principles

With The Flower Garden in mind, here are the overall design principles that will differentiate my solo sites from the sea of shorts:

  1. Deep Roots Deep Focus
  2. Uncluttered and Unfettered
  3. SEO bullseye
  4. Social Sustaining
  5. Honor Box

Deep Roots Deep Focus

My content topics should be specific, cover the topic in detail and provide a deeper understanding than normal.

Uncluttered and Unfettered

The user interface (UI) needs to be uncluttered, spacious, and clean. When a user does find my site they won't think it is click-bait that got them there as there will be no ads, cookies, or star field of links to click. Using readable typographic styles, generous gutters, and simple and clear interactions.

SEO Bullseye

As the search crawlers scour our content we want each page to have all the proper SEO. A content author should be able automatically have good SEO with minimal tagging. The search algorithms will note our precision, accuracy, and the opposite of click bait.

Social Sustaining

While the site itself needs a deep focus, spacious and clean, and accurate SEO, we also need to a viral 'word-of-click' when any of our links are shared on social media. It should scale to proper aspect ratio, look attractive and professional. That way if someone who is interested in our deep stories may decide to investigate and glance away from topic skimming.

Honor Box

Farm stand honor box

I plan to cover expenses and potential long-term growth with an honor system of monetization. Where the monetization is directly related to the content.

  1. Content Merch
  2. Content specific ads and affiliate links
  3. Content Newsletter subscription/ads
  4. Appeal to the Nobel - Buy me a hot chocolate
  5. Content Affiliation - Attractive to Acquire/Franchisee/Contract

Engineered Design

Pennock Project Logo

For this blog site, pennockprojects.com, using the design principles outlined, the main areas of interaction are:

  1. Home - Should have an intro with engagement to my other interactions (blog, cheats, about, newsletter) but highlight the projects.
  2. Projects - Should have a list of current working projects
  3. About - A area describing me, the site, and the honor box
  4. Cheat Sheets - Some cheat sheets and checklists for those who want just the facts without the fluff
  5. Blog - my stream of blog content
  6. Newsletter* - helping create my mailing list, paid followers and longer monthly articles

*TBD

Home/Projects

  • Quick welcome - link to about and cheats
  • Project List
  • Recent blog articles
  • Call to Action TBD to join my newsletter mailing list

About

About me, portfolio, about the site, honor system, store (TBD)

Solo Conclusion

In examining the garden my sites will live in, I've developed design principles that lead to a direction for developing my site. The 'big picture' is always how I design and then block the design and engineer the minutia. Zoom In, Zoom Out, Danielson