Make blog design and main page more visually integrated?

[GaelVaroquaux]

I was wondering if we shouldn't work a little bit our blog design so that it has some common visual elements?

For instance, I had in mind making the top of the scikit-learn blog similar to the main page:

vs

This is jekyll + web design work that does not require specific scikit-learn / datascience expertise. Probably something that we can ask help with.

What do people think?

[laurburke]

Since this is built using the Minimal Mistakes theme, the header bar can only be customized to a certain degree. We could try using a different theme or we might be able to add custom HTML/CSS to add a header element but that would require additional setup.

[laurburke]

@GaelVaroquaux We could update the header links to mimic the main website, but I'm not sure we could completely duplicate the design.

[GaelVaroquaux]

We could update the header links to mimic the main website, but I'm not sure we could completely duplicate the design.

Sure! My suggestion was just to move a bit more towards to the main website. It's always a question of hitting the right tradeoff in terms of return over investment. Also, this is typically something where I would do a call for volunteer rather than burden the comms team, because it is work that can well be delegated (as opposed to work that requires inside knowledge of editorial choices)

[laurburke]

@GaelVaroquaux Updated the menu: https://scikit-learn.org/blog/

[reshamas]

@GaelVaroquaux @laurburke
I don't agree with the header items of the blog matching the main scikit-learn website.
I preferred the other way.
that's why we put a link to "scikit-learn.org" at the top, so folks could get directly to the website.

It's more important to have the calendar at the top and very accessible.

The goal of the blog is to provide community-friendly resources, not more of the same of the website where often items are buried, in my opinion.

[adrinjalali]

I would also agree with @reshama here. We should be in general more open towards developing new UI especially when we start from scratch. To me it would be completely fine to have a very different UI/UX experience on the blog, and we may take some components back to the website.

We're very conservative about changes on the website, I think we should let the blog be a bit more free from those constraints.

[laurburke]

In that case, I have a couple of questions about everyone's preference for the menus.

• Are there any pages that you absolutely want to be linked and are there any pages that we feel okay about leaving off?
• Do we prefer the nav menu to be left- or right-centered? (search will always remain on the far right)

_

This is my current planned layout:

• Nav Bar (top/header menu)

  • scikit-learn.org, Calendar, (anything else?)

• Sidebar

  • ARCHIVES
    • Category, Tag, Year
  • SCIKIT-LEARN
    • About Us
    • Mailing List Archive (could also go under ARCHIVES, unless we think it would be confusing)
    • Code of Conduct

[reshamas]

@laurburke Your planned layout above looks good.

Currently, the headers ("Install", "User Guide", "API") look a bit out of place for the blog.

This blog is "community-driven." So, it would be empowering to give the "community" some flexibility on the design to keep them engaged.