People
Team members
Mission
Humanize our products, our brand, and our people
Values
1. Don't follow the crowd
There are hundreds of Linear-style websites out there. We are intentionally not one of them. Becoming the inspiration never started by copying what already existed. It's better to be copied than to copy.
2. To do it right, we have to do it ourselves
Plenty of services exist to make building websites easier, but they're limited by someone else's creativity. No off-the-shelf solution solves 100% of every problem. In order for us to execute our vision to 100%, we need complete control of the entire experience.
3. Treat our website as a product
"Death by a thousand cuts, but a thousand tiny improvements add up"
Our website isn't a marketing site. It's our primary channel for sales, recruitment, and communicating our company culture and values. Since these are always evolving, we are constantly evolving how we communicate them.
4. Spark joy, and continually push back against mediocrity
Doing unique things that unexpectedly delight visitors will pay off dividends over adding more signup CTAs to a page. Building for the long-term pays dividends over optimizing for the short term boost in conversion rate.
5. Treat the root cause, not the symptom
Sometimes users (even internal users) don't typically think past the immediate challenge they're facing. Take the time to step back and decide if a bit more thought and effort can make things 10x better.
Responsibilities
- Ensure PostHog.com is the best resource for learning how to use PostHog
- Support small teams in meeting their goals by providing design and copywriting support
- Hold the line on quality and consistency across all of PostHog's digital experiences
Goals for late 2023
Nail product pages
Our product pages are good, but not great. We want to improve them, especially by adding video, screenshots, and animations.
Grow community engagement
In conjunction with the Marketing team, we'll focus on evolving our Posts section. The ultimate goal is to create a hub that is a destination for people to learn about product engineering and running a startup.
Get website to 95%
PostHog.com is currently around 80% of its potential. Animation and video are two ways to help get this closer to making the site as awesome as we can make it. Other areas need some refreshes (like the product pages listed above, and updating things like auto-generated open graph image templates).
Nail the merch store
The merch store experience should be as awesome as the rest of the website. This includes higher quality products and a shopping experience that is more on par with the rest of our brand. This may include going headless with our Shopify store, or switching to another platform that can work with a fulfillment partner.
Support other small teams with design + front end
Since the Website & Docs team is specialized in design and front end, we can help other teams with projects that are particularly front end-focused, especially with widgets that appear on customer websites.
Output metrics
- Primary: Quality signups
- Tangential: Social mentions and other compliments
How we work
Our team works in weekly sprints. We run joint sprint planning sessions with the Marketing team, since we often have projects that overlap. You can find what we're working on in the company-internal repo (private).
Designs for website & docs typically start in Balsamiq wireframes, then progress into hi-fi designs in Figma. Read more about this process.
Blog artwork and marketing assets
Because of the volume of content we publish, blog artwork has its own dedicated Artwork project board managed by Lottie.
When authoring a blog post, add the Artwork project board so we can create visuals and make sure the post is listed on our content calendar with a publish date. Learn more about our process.
Providing feedback
When we share a design, we do our best to explain the type of feedback we're looking for. (Ex: Overall visual aesthetic, flow, if a design communicates to our developer-focused audience, etc.)
If a screenshot is posted directly to a Github issue, that's a great place for feedback. (If a comment already covers your feedback, we encourage the use of an emoji response over additional comments like "+1".)
Some of the design tools we use, like Balsamiq and Figma, both have built-in commenting, which is useful for prototypes with multiple pages. If we provide a link to a prototype in one of these tools, please leave a comment using the app's comment system. This helps us review and take action on comments later, and creates a single place for discussion around a particular topic.
Important: We prioritize feedback based on alignment with business goals. Everyone has feedback about design. (If feedback is more of a personal opinion than a business-related perspective, we’ll note it, but don't be offended if your feedback isn't specifically addressed!)