Mockups, Schema and restart from scratch
Past few days I was silent on my #BuildInPublic challenge building http://validate.page.
But I wasn’t slacking around. I was working on the mockups of the UI and the user journey through the landing page creator & DB Schema.
Here are the mockups & details:
Some UX decisions:
I want the user to begin creating the landing page even without registering – as an anonymous user.
Instead of a sign-in/sign-up page, there is a big “Build Landing Page” CTA button in the centre of the hero section.
Once you go to the landing page creator, you are shown a list of templates that you can choose from.
There are multiple layouts or templates of landing pages. When you choose a template, you will be able to see a real-time preview in the right side pane.
Once you have selected the template, you can now edit the content of the page – copy, button text, images, videos, etc.
Each page has multiple sections like the hero, social proof, features, subscribe, etc. And each section has multiple components and fields.
The way I envision the product, you just have to fill in the content only once.
Then you can create multiple clones of the page with different templates/colours/copy. This allows you to quickly set up A/B test variants.
After you fill in all the content, you can theme the layout with different colours and fonts.
At every stage, the preview page keeps updating. And on each stage, you can save the page and finally publish it.
If you’re an anonymous user, now you can register to save & publish it.
Now that I have explained the mockups, let’s also look at the DB schema. This schema is just for the layout, pages, content, etc. There are other fields related to analytics & a/b tests not covered here.
It’s complex to explain here, but DMs are open on my Twitter; ping me.
When I initially thought of building this, I wanted to finish this by end of Dec. But this is a side project and I get maybe a couple of hours every day to work on this.
To build all this and also add analytics to this, would take me a few months.
So to finish in the remaining ~60 hours I have in December, I have to reduce the scope a lot.
I have decided to simplify it a lot – having only 1 template, only a hero section with a subscribe form in it.
All the other sections can be added later.
So while this is the future of the product, I will have to redo the mockups & DB schema completely, to fit in 4 weeks.
But one feature I definitely want to have is native analytics (so no need for Google Analytics, GDPR banners, etc.)
So this week I will be concentrating on the new design and begin working on a new Django Project.
If you want to discuss in detail about this project, I’m open to having a chat. DM me on Twitter (@cnu) and let’s talk.