Redesign

[imadmali]

I have some suggestions for the existing Stan website from my experience of using the site and introducing new users to Stan via the site.

Discoverability

While the current site does a decent job of establishing Stan's presence online, I think it's limited in the ability for new user's to discover information/interfaces/case studies/etc. regarding Stan. I'm not a huge fan of having long sidebars on sites, but it might help with discoverability (e.g. see the JTD jekyll theme).

I've lightly surveyed some popular open source libraries and it looks like they mix the documentation-like sidebar theme with a aesthetically pleasing landing page:

• Pyro
• Pytorch
• TensorFlow

I'm not saying that we should emulate these sites. They have a lot more bells-and-whistles than we need. But their exposition of information might be worth considering.

One limiting factor for Stan (that is also a huge feature of the language) is how many interfaces we have. This makes it a little challenging to make the site a one-stop-shop for all users (the way the sites mentioned above are, more or less).

Flow for New Users

Another thing to note is that the purpose of the site is not clear for new users to Stan. One example of flow for new users could be,

1. Landing page
2. Interface/Installation
3. Quick Start
   • For popular interfaces RStan/PyStan/etc
   • Using a super basic example
4. Documentation
   • For users who are ready to go beyond the basic example presented in Quick Start

I'm not saying that these should be the only buttons on the nav bar, but rather that the site should be setup in a way that once a new(ish) user arrives at the landing page, there should be a clear path for them to get their hands dirty and get more information if they're interested.

I've suggested an example layout below,

• Landing Page
• Installation
  • Stan Interfaces
  • Higher-Level Interfaces
  • Lower-Level Interfaces
• Quick Start
  • RStan
  • PyStan
  • Others?
• Documentation
  • Stan User’s Guide
  • Stan Language Reference Manual
  • Stan Language Functions Reference
• Tools
  • Useful Tools
  • Syntax Aware Editors
• Forum (goes straight to Discourse)
• Case Studies
• Develop
  • Contribute to Stan
  • Submit an Issue
• About Us
  • Stan Development Team
  • Stan Governing Body
  • Support Stan
  • Stan Swag
• Search

[jgabry]

Thanks for working on this. I think this "flow" would be a big improvement!

[mitzimorris]

I wholeheartedly support this proposal.
note that we really do need to accomodate mobile viewers, where all top nav bars become lists, etc.

e.g. see the JTD jekyll theme

the choice of jekyll theme is always the most difficult question. the current theme is a nightmare to work with. can we formulate criteria for the type and number of page elements?

• for the nav elements - nested lists?
• for the main page - web browser version - column or grid layout?

[mitzimorris]

here's a site of Jekyll themes - hardly exhaustive - http://jekyllthemes.org
worked through all 20 pages of examples - still haven't found what I'm looking for...

in the beginning of the year, I tried this one - no longer remember why - https://chrisanthropic.github.io/slim-pickins-jekyll-theme/

for the landing page:
https://jekyllthemes.io/jekyll-landing-page-themes

this one? https://jekyllthemes.io/theme/feeling-responsive