Zenon.network website overhaul

@0x3639 is this something you could try and take a lead on?
(of course, everyone will support)

i stated in my newsletter that the website right now, while pretty of course, does not play into our strengths
it’s not bad, it’s just not discernible from any other project

i’m not sure who would look at the website and say one of the following:

  • yes i should buy ZNN
  • wow there’s a lot of opportunity if i work on this
  • I am compelled to work on this for the betterment of the world

we need to emphasize what actually is represented by our developer community right now
the reasons why, despite these conditions, they persevere
it will likely be the same reasons we will be able to attract others

maybe quotes from pillars and devs
AZ highlights and payouts

the current aesthetics are fine but we we need some storytelling elements

i know you are messing with creating websites with chat-gpt :wink:

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Yes, maybe @mehowz could join in to help?

yup, and some people in the wider community may be able to contribute content/copy

Adding @coinselor as a twitter maintainer, do you think there is good overlap with website maintenance?

Questions:

  1. Do you want the zenon.network to educate on a deep level like the zenon.org website or do you want it to be focused on HyperCore initiatives / attracting devs?
  2. Are you looking to just change the messaging and add elements (quotes, highlights, payouts), or a complete aesthetic overhaul?
  3. Has the community decided how dev documentation will be organized?

The community should invest in developing a framework that’ll encompass components which’ll be useful to communicate to developers. Defining those components, developing a framework i.e like we did with NuxtJs on zenon.org, then tying that into the onboarding flow for developers. I do agree that a dev-focused website could be beneficial, but you need a plan for a journey path.

For better or worse, zenon.network is the “official site”
So we should make it attractive to the audience we need.

I get George’s points about messaging and the users we’re targeting. But think about it: most ppl don’t hang around on main portals. Take solana.com – I’ve only ever spend like 1 minute on that site, yet I’ve used solana a lot. People get their news from Twitter, use the Phantom wallet, and check Discord for validator info. I feel zenon.network is on point with its straightforward design, giving a quick overview and then pointing to where the real action is.

So, why not keep it simple? Let’s create a clear landing page for each specific purpose, and link to it from our main site. I kinda like the idea of a less polished look. It feels fresh, like there is “opportunity” for speculators, it reminds me when I first visited the Bitland site.

Promoting Zenon’s mission isn’t just about our main landing page. It’s a multidisciplinary team effort – communication hubs, dev info/tooling, community memes, and everything in between.

Lastly, addressing George’s mention: I’m proficient with HTML, reasonably skilled in CSS, and can tackle JavaScript or any task with ChatGPT’s help. While I haven’t built websites from scratch, I’ve worked on several over the years, can setup a local dev environment with ease, etc.

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The current content of our website does not focus on our actual strengths or existing accomplishments.

That doesn’t answer any of my questions tho.

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Good point in terms of time spent on actual websites.
Overall goal is more in terms of overall narrative and that wherever people land it needs to represent that narrative. Doesn’t have to be the website.

People know solana because of price action and relation to FTX.
So I don’t know if it’s a good comparison.

I think there are 3 possible hooks:

  1. Financial gain
  2. Being part of a community
  3. Vision alignment

For 1. our chart is terrible and will counter this narrative until we get upward momentum.
So I think we have to focus more on 2 and 3

  1. I don’t think zenon.network needs to educate too deeply. Nor does it need to be focused on hypercore or devs. It should appeal to a wide audience.
  2. More so just adding elements and changing the messaging.
  3. No, I don’t think so.

So you need a copywriter to rework the messaging, ui/graphic designer for any new elements, developer to code them. A good GPT web-dev can maybe pull it off. It’s definitely not my style of building products, I look at them as frameworks instead. But zenon.network can keep building 1-off sites and keep changing them every year. It’s on its 3-4th now? I’m sure it’s the problem for ZNN price action and lack of engagement from new devs. Not the lack of dev documentation, funnelling, ux and greater utility into the outbound.

Don’t forget that in its current shape, zenon.network still doesn’t have any tech embedded to prove the value it drives for growth of the network, nor does it sound like a performance approach is what interests you. But hey because it’s hosted in the official repo and open source is what truly matters here. Not engineering systems to prove its eventual growth contribution to the network :v:

Yeah I agree with @mehowz sentiment. Our current landing page for zenon.network should be the least of our concerns, although starting the conversation about eventual modifications that will be needed to take place on a regular basis is a good step forward.

Perhaps I was not clear enough, since I was the one who suggested ‘1-off pages’. Let me clarify:

I think @georgezgeorgez original points are still valid, and can and should be addressed as a by product of building the ecosystem. If someone builds an ‘entertainment’ zApp on the extension chain, it should have it’s own lading page featuring information on how it’s leveraging L2’s smart contract rewards to earn ZNN, effectively filling the “wow there’s a lot of opportunity if i work on this”. It will be a lot easier to adjust our messaging around a real world testimony.

I wasn’t referring to your point for the 1-off site comment, but rather the approach to develop a product without a clear framework in-mind. It’s why I had proposed a systematic method for development, just like zenon.org has with its revamped NuxtJs framework, rather than plain HTML/CSS/JS as we’ve seen year-to-year.

I am hopefully not overstating the importance of the website
It’s just that now it is community owned, and one of the easiest things for the community (nondevelopers) to maintain and be involved in.
We should start building those muscles in terms of updates and success stories being put into our messaging which includes the website, and twitter, and etc.

In terms of getting started, I don’t think we need to A/B test a card on the website that says “This community member contributed X, they got paid Y. That could be you”

I’m not advocating for large spend on this right now. The website is something we need to start including in our maintenance plan regardless, and I’m sharing my ideas on how I think it could be more effective.

I disagree, to build something sustainable is much more than some HTML/CSS/JS generated by GPT. It can get quite complex for non-developers.

How do you plan to track its effectiveness?

This is a static site. Not a webapp. As I said, the aesthetics are fine, needs storytelling elements. Maybe “overhaul” was a poor word. I’m not advocating to start from scratch. My chat-gpt comment towards 0x was tongue-in-cheek encouraging him to take it on.

We have the “built by the aliens” section. Expand it. Emphasize ownership.

Well intuition has to count for something. Especially at this stage in the game.
I’m saying personally, as someone who is dedicating a significant amount of their time/life to this project, the website doesn’t show me any of the reasons that would make people like me want to participate. I don’t need data to know that.

Nothing against performance tracking. More of a feasibility issue right now.
And we aren’t exactly tracking the effectiveness of all the technical work that we are doing. It’s unrealistic to only make data driven decisions right now.

And zenon.network doesn’t exist in isolation. If what zenon.network does is ineffective, then hopefully other sites like org will fill the gap and maintainers of zenon.network will learn and do better.

I just pop in to beg you not to quote people on the website. Kinda meh

Is there anything you think we could do to make the website better?

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Big appreciation for having the zenon.org site to use as go to for reliable NoM info/onboarding but hard to get away from zenon.network being a popular landing page for the near future. If thats the case then really deserves to stay up to date at least.

Nothing major but the road map being a key feature, and some important messaging that’s being displayed front and center on the page could be a good exercise for discussion while getting a few updates pushed thru.

Does seems to go hand in hand with some community social media.