StackStorm.com: Jamstack Revamp to Increase Visibility, Vitality & Engagement

[dalesmith]

Dear Community members,

This proposal is a complete rework and restart of StackStorm/community Issue #123, wherein historical challenges of migrating the StackStorm Community website from WordPress to a composable “Jamstack” architecture are well documented. Restated in simple terms, this project aims to rebuild stackstorm.com. This effort is motivated by the urgent need to streamline site content contribution and thereby foster a more vibrant Community whose enhanced online presence increases awareness of and interest in StackStorm. This project aims to achieve its goals through seamless integration of component-based design with agile development & deployment workflows that prioritize the content contributor experience.

Proposed Tech Stack & Approach

1. Design Excellence with Figma and Flowbite
Rationale: The choice to utilize Figma in conjunction with Flowbite for UI/UX design marks the beginning of this revamp journey. This combination ensures a consistent, professional and mobile-responsive design aesthetic through Flowbite’s extensive library of Tailwind CSS components. By hosting design assets in the Community’s GitHub repo, a collaborative workflow emerges that blurs the line between design vision (e.g. design assets) and development reality (e.g. component code). This approach anticipates the StackStorm website evolving over time and ensures that (going forward) designers and developers will each have very clear workflow insertion points as prospective Community contributors.

Benefits:
- Streamlined Collaboration: Enables seamless interaction between designers and developers, fostering a culture of cooperation and innovation.
- Unified Visual Language: Ensures the website has a cohesive look and feel and remains visually appealing and functionally robust across all devices for enhanced user experience.
- Design As Contribution: Opens up opportunities for community members with design skills to contribute, enriching the website's aesthetic vitality.

2. Performance-Driven Development with Astro and Svelte
Rationale: In the development phase, it is Astro and Svelte. Astro serves as the meta framework of choice, offering an exceptional blend of static site generation with the capability to scale to full-stack while minimizing client-side JavaScript. Svelte brings lightweight interactivity and unique features such as built-in animations and transitions while its Astro integration enables server-side rendering and client-side hydration for Svelte UI components. Flowbite’s native support for both Astro and Svelte means that dynamic, highly interactive features come to life in a unified designer/developer workflow. These choices promise a website that can be increasingly engaging and visually appealing while remaining fast, accessible and SEO-performant.

Benefits:
- Optimized Performance: Ensures a blazing-fast website that enhances user experience while boosting search visibility and SEO rankings.
- Enhanced User Engagement: Accommodates captivating animations and interactive elements that encourage longer and more frequent site visits with deeper engagement.
- Future-Proof Architecture: Establishes a robust, scalable and flexible foundation for future growth and evolution while minimizing technical debt.

3. Robust Deployment with GitHub and Netlify
Rationale: For deployment, it’s the powerful duo of GitHub and Netlify. This combo provides a robust, secure, scalable and reliable deployment and hosting solution. GitHub's native CI/CD pipeline automation coupled with Netlify’s performance-oriented hosting and serverless functions creates a solid foundation for content-rich web experiences. This infrastructure approach efficiently accommodates CDN-hosted statically generated sites as well as dynamic server-side rendering for the interactive features that give brochure sites some effective marketing muscle.

Benefits:
- Efficient Deployment Workflows: Streamlines the deployment process, enabling rapid updates and continuous integration, keeping the site current with the latest features and security patches.
- Security and Performance: Provides a secure hosting environment with optimized performance essential for maintaining user trust and engagement.
- Flexibility for the Future: A uniquely versatile platform that can adapt to the Community's evolving needs, from scaling up for new functionality to integrating additional service offerings.

4. Reimagined Content Lifecycle with GitHub and Netlify
Rationale: The challenge of content-rich visitor experiences is addressed through the combination of GitHub and the “Netlify Create” offering that derives from Netlify’s StackBit acquisition. GitHub is used as a “headless CMS” so that site content remains strictly within Community control. Netlify Create is the key to delivering superior content contributor experiences through a visual editor with live preview. Netlify’s GitHub integration greatly simplifies the content lifecycle by automatically writing changes from the “Create” visual editor to the backend content management system, i.e. GitHub. By eliminating friction in the content lifecycle, the dynamism and vibrancy of the StackStorm Community becomes visible through content contributions that enhance the visitor experience.

Benefits:
- Empowering Content Contributors: Simplifies the content creation and management process, enabling community members to contribute easily, regardless of their technical expertise.
- Dynamic Content Ecosystem: Facilitates a more lively and engaging content strategy with more frequent updates and contributions from the community, attracting new members as a result.
- Increased Community Involvement: Encourages a broader spectrum of the community to contribute, fostering a sense of ownership and participation.

Closing Thoughts:
This strategic overhaul of stackstorm.com is less about a facelift and more about adopting a forward-thinking architecture that is well-suited for content-rich visitor experiences. Embracing modern component-based design with seamless integration of development & deployment workflows yields a future-ready web presence that can effectively leverage quality content contributions to raise visibility, vitality and engagement.

Feedback and suggestions are certainly welcomed.