The first screen makes a claim
A homepage promises what kind of place the visitor has entered. Every extra module changes that promise, even when the module is beautifully designed. A weather card, recent activity stream, list of projects, and long biography can all be individually good while collectively making the site impossible to explain.
The homepage should explain the site’s shape before it asks for attention. I evaluate a candidate section with four questions:
| Question | Strong answer | Warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Does it identify the author or work? | Immediately | Only after explanation |
| Does it lead somewhere useful? | Clear destination | Decorative dead end |
| Will it remain accurate? | Maintained source | Manual duplicate |
| Does it deserve first-screen space? | Frequent visitor need | Internal enthusiasm |
This produces a small hierarchy:
- Identity: name, a short description, and primary navigation.
- Current signal: recent writing or active work.
- Durable paths: blog, projects, uses, and contact.
- Secondary texture: a status note, experiment, or small live surface. A personal site does not need to imitate a product dashboard. Plain semantic HTML and strong ordering can communicate more than a grid of equal cards.
Usually belongs
- Name and concise identity
- Primary destinations
- A current piece of work
- A stable way to make contact
Usually belongs deeper
- Complete tool inventories
- Every project ever attempted
- Long historical narratives
- Metrics without visitor value
The deletion test
Remove a section for one week and ask:
- Did visitors lose a path they actually use?
- Did the site’s identity become less clear?
- Did another section naturally absorb the job?
- Did maintenance become easier?
- Did the page load or read more calmly? Deletion is useful because design discussions often overestimate the value of visible inventory. A section can contain real work and still be in the wrong place. Moving it one level deeper preserves the material while restoring the homepage hierarchy. The same principle applies to live data. A live module earns its place only when a stale, loading, or unavailable state still leaves the homepage coherent. If the entire first screen depends on a third-party response, the visual design has accidentally become an availability dependency.
A useful exception
A temporary launch, announcement, or urgent notice can occupy unusual space when it has an owner and an expiry date. Without an expiry, temporary modules quietly become permanent architecture. Record the removal condition at the same moment the module is added.
The result should not feel empty. It should feel decided: every visible element knows why it is on the homepage rather than one level deeper.