what if the audience for this was not only for the end-user, but for the community creators? What if they want to use this to curate and design the presentation of their community?
I think that's definitely the goal here. So imagine this: as an admin, you would be able to "create" the default sidebar that will be visible to logged out users AND people who just don't want to customize anything. You define what widgets you wanna see in the sidebar AND in what order. And these could be anything from "ad widgets", "listings", "posts widgets", "explore" and/or... well.. sky is the limit..
Now as a user, you will, by default, see what Admin wanted you to see. Unless you customize the sidebar for yourself. Regular user customization should be much more limited in my opinion than what admin can do.. I think regular user should be only able to customize "posts widgets" (and only theirs order) - but that's obviously something to verify with more research.
how do people learn to set up these customizable widgets for the first time?
We still don't have ideal patterns for educating users about certain features AND for after_signup onboarding. Many websites do this kind of tooltips wizard (step by step) highlighting and explaining certain UI elements on the page when you first log in. But I guess there are many different approaches to handle that. Although, another thing to remember is to judge what matters most for users - we don't want to overwhelm new user with tons of guides, tooltips and messages when they first log in. And the truth is - I think "customizable sidebar" isn't the most crucial feature that should be introduced for new users. But definitely something we would like to educate user about after some time.
These are great points and questions.
I think that's definitely the goal here. So imagine this: as an admin, you would be able to "create" the default sidebar that will be visible to logged out users AND people who just don't want to customize anything. You define what widgets you wanna see in the sidebar AND in what order. And these could be anything from "ad widgets", "listings", "posts widgets", "explore" and/or... well.. sky is the limit..
Now as a user, you will, by default, see what Admin wanted you to see. Unless you customize the sidebar for yourself. Regular user customization should be much more limited in my opinion than what admin can do.. I think regular user should be only able to customize "posts widgets" (and only theirs order) - but that's obviously something to verify with more research.
We still don't have ideal patterns for educating users about certain features AND for after_signup onboarding. Many websites do this kind of tooltips wizard (step by step) highlighting and explaining certain UI elements on the page when you first log in. But I guess there are many different approaches to handle that. Although, another thing to remember is to judge what matters most for users - we don't want to overwhelm new user with tons of guides, tooltips and messages when they first log in. And the truth is - I think "customizable sidebar" isn't the most crucial feature that should be introduced for new users. But definitely something we would like to educate user about after some time.
I cant wait for this!