Review and update meta page

[akeller]

https://docs.camunda.io/meta/ is out of date. This should be the page devoted to how our users experience our docs today.

A few notable things:

• Move metadata to docs-on-docs directly in the repo (howtos)
• Self-Managed barely looks different anymore (no blue icon in the nav)
  • We could probably even consider removing the different hover highlight at this point - > ✅
  • Remove SM top-nav CSS #4122
• Some labels are missing or unused

[akeller]

@mesellings @conceptualshark as our newest documentarians, you can help us identify what info should go on this meta page! Or maybe tell us if you even found it in the footer at all!

We know its out of date, and it looks like some styling broke at the top, but what would you add? Or maybe the better question is, do you see the value in a page like this?

[mesellings]

I think a "How to use our docs" page can be really useful, and although it might not get much traffic, like a privacy policy page it's something that should be there for the rare occasions it is needed.

I tried looking at analytics, and if this is the correct page in GA, it does still get some traffic?

In terms of content, one obvious thing is a 'how to use search' piece of content which is typically on this kind of page - this becomes more important if we add search to the landing page as well, as we might link to it, and see more traffic to this page by default.

Also, it's hard to figure out who it is aimed at - it mixes page editing and reader content quite a lot, so I'm not sure it hits either target audience that well?

I guess we need to go back to basics:

• Page goal/purpose
• Audience
• What content

There's an awful lot I think we could do to overhaul this page and get some value from it, it's hard to identify it all without a proper investigation, but looks like an interesting project - shall I take it on?

[conceptualshark]

^ Most interesting to me above is the whopping 39 seconds of engagement time. Considering the lack of valuable usage data (are we getting clicks just because it's in the footer? Who is staying here for an average of 39 seconds??), I don't see any harm in a low-effort revamping of this page to align it more with the suggested Reader focus, but I'd like to understand some examples of this sort of page working elsewhere to really be convinced of its value.

Much like product, I'd want the docs to be as easy-to-use as possible, and so not require this level of (non-developer) meta usage information - but we could always leave an updated doc in the footer, and evaluate if the usage time goes up as the content improves.

However, I'm also interested in revamping this page to fit somewhere in the docs-on-docs pages/the contributor overview. For example, we include an "Edit this page" option, but links to this repo and the guidelines are pretty buried. It could be nice to elevate that while addressing this issue.

[mesellings]

I think if we keep it in the footer, it becomes more important to curate into something better, and keeping an eye on future enhancements (e.g. bringing search front and centre, dark mode etc) it is a natural home for assistance docs for these kinds of features, so think it would be a shame to lose it, as long as it stays low-priority/effort. 39s could indicate an issue, where people are trying to find something here (perhaps search help? e.g wildcard chars etc) and then leaving in frustration?

I totally agree on the contributor docs, I struggle to locate them, but not sure if that is by design?

[akeller]

Who is staying here for an average of 39 seconds??
No clue. If it's one person, it's me on accident 😆

Re: contributor docs: This is likely just a relic of the past. We initially wanted to really welcome PRs to the docs, then we wanted to streamline contributions across all Camunda (see Contribute link in footer).

We also continue to move toward feature parity between SaaS and SM, so explaining why I separated the docs the way I did at launch is less relevant these days.

I'm open to ideas, but I'm also looking for a quick win we can iterate on. So far, I see:

• Split content - move docs-on-docs content (front-matter values) to /howtos
• Meta page
  • Add more content for readers (with a nod to accessibility)
  • Add guidance for feedback options
    • Edit this page
    • 👍 👎
  • Explain Ask AI

@mesellings you have the green light from me to move with this