March 2018 Summaries

Vojtech Ruzicka describes his decision to migrate his blog from WordPress to a static JAM Stack site using GatsbyJS, primarily due to issues with WordPress such as performance, security vulnerabilities, and costs associated with hosted solutions. He highlights that the JAM Stack approach, which stands for JavaScript, APIs, and Markup, offers a more efficient and secure architecture by serving static HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files through a Content Delivery Network (CDN), thereby improving site speed and scalability. Ruzicka emphasizes GatsbyJS's advantages, including its modern technologies like React and GraphQL, which allow flexible data handling and integration from various sources. He also notes the improved performance, ease of version control with GitHub, and the convenience of writing content in Markdown. Despite some initial challenges with maturity and features, Ruzicka finds Gatsby to be a robust solution that enhances the blogging experience by eliminating the concerns associated with WordPress, ultimately resulting in faster site performance and better SEO rankings.

Gatsby launched a Plugin Library to address user pain points identified through UX research, focusing on improving plugin discoverability and authoring. Conducted between October 2017 and February 2018, over 60 interviews revealed that users struggled with finding, understanding, and creating plugins. An empathy map helped visualize these challenges, highlighting the need for a user-friendly platform that allows users to find relevant plugins, learn plugin creation, preview functionalities, and share plugins with others. By analyzing popular plugin libraries like those of VIM and WordPress, Gatsby incorporated features like browsing without excessive clicks, refined search capabilities, and plugin ranking based on metrics, while avoiding issues such as poor information hierarchy and limited filters. The Gatsby Plugin Library aims to accelerate the ecosystem's growth by encouraging users to contribute to and create new plugins, with future plans to develop a Gatsby site showcase as part of ongoing UX projects.

Ecliptic, a small development team from Broomfield, Colorado, undertook the project of building a new online platform for Colorado gubernatorial candidate Mike Johnston, aiming to engage constituents and facilitate policy-making. Utilizing a combination of React, Headless WordPress, GraphQL, and Gatsby, the team sought to create a scalable, secure, and maintainable platform that could evolve into a comprehensive organizing and fundraising tool. The initial phase focused on establishing a robust architecture using a headless WordPress setup to manage dynamic content, while employing Gatsby for static site generation, ensuring efficient resource use and improved performance. Despite challenges with WordPress's API and the build process, the approach provides resilience and security by separating static content from the WordPress backend. Future development includes integrating an Apollo GraphQL server to enhance interactivity and support user-generated content, with ongoing considerations for security and performance as the platform expands.