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docs/blog/2018-06-15-why-we-built-the-site-showcase/index.md

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+---
+title: Why We Created the Site Showcase
+date: 2018-06-15
+author: Shannon Soper
+tags: ["documentation", "launch"]
+---
+
+We recently finished the first phase of the [Site Showcase](https://next.gatsbyjs.org/showcase/), which is a searchable, filterable library of sites built with Gatsby! See a list of ways you can help in [Issue #5927](https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/issues/5927). Feel free to tackle any part of this project and contribute to it or discuss new possibilities!
+
+![Featured Sites](featured-sites.png)
+
+![Filtered Sites](filtered-sites.png)
+
+This is all possible because Cassie (@ThatOtherPerson) and Shawn (@sw-yx) put in a huge effort to get this developed, and Flo (@fk) did an amazing job on design. Many thanks to other people who contributed, including @gillkyle, @LeKoArts, @davidluhr, @daydream05, @m-allanson, @pieh, @calcsam and more (these are all GitHub names).
+
+## Submitting your site
+
+If you’d like to submit a site to the showcase, please follow the [instructions in this document](https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/blob/master/docs/docs/site-showcase-submissions.md).
+
+## Why build a site showcase?
+
+We built the showcase to make it easier for you to (1) find the source code for open source Gatsby sites and (2) show off Gatsby to clients, coworkers ,friends & family.
+
+### Source code
+
+Sometimes, an example is worth 1000 words. That's why we added a GitHub icon next to sites with open source code.
+
+![Site Showcase Source Code Available Icon](site-showcase-source-code.png)
+
+### Showing off what Gatsby can do
+
+The Site Showcase can help you pitch Gatsby to clients and coworkers as the best option for their next project because it shows what developers can accomplish with Gatsby.
+
+## UX research process
+
+Here’s where we discussed and built the site showcase if you'd like to go through the discussion that led to this project:
+
+- [Site Showcase Issue](https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/issues/4392)
+- [Site Showcase WIP PR](https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/pull/5524)
+
+### Empathy map
+
+Here’s a summary of what I learned from over 80 interviews with Gatsby users. This "empathy map" describes what kinds of pain points we're trying to solve with the site showcase.
+
+![Empathy Map Site Showcase](empathy-map-site-showcase.jpg)
+
+### User Flow
+
+The empathy map reflects how it took most people a lot of time browsing through the Awesome Gatsby list to find example sites and how many people share their sites through Twitter and there isn’t enough time or room for everyone to get retweeted by the @Gatsbyjs account.
+
+With the empathy map and the interviews as our guide, we created a list of jobs to be done and imagined the typical flow a user would take through the site showcase. We did this to make sure we planned both a sensible information architecture and the necessary functionality to meet user’s main needs.
+
+![User flow](user-flow-site-showcase.jpg)
+
+### Defining the MVP
+
+Based on the process described above, we thought the following features were important to include:
+
+Users should be able to:
+
+- [x] See screenshots of sites built with Gatsby (Landing page)
+- [x] See source code (Site detail page)
+- [x] Share sites by copying the URL
+- [x] Filter by category
+- [x] Search sites
+- [x] Submit their own site to the showcase through yaml file (Shannon writes the instructions)
+- [x] See featured sites
+
+## Ways you can help
+
+### Future iterations
+
+Here's what's next in [Issue #5927](https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/issues/5927). Feel free to tackle any part of this project and contribute to it or discuss new possibilities!
+
+## Sneak peak into the next UX project
+
+Our next UX project is finishing up the starter showcase, which will look similar to the site showcase and also have a major functional difference: filter by dependency. Please contribute to these issues to help out!
+
+- [Starter Showcase Issue](https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/issues/5334)
+- [Starter Showcase WIP PR](https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/pull/5831)
+  Again, many thanks to all the community members who have contributed to this research and to making Gatsby awesome. Stay tuned for updates on the site showcase and future Gatsby UX research projects!
+- [Contact me](https://twitter.com/shannonb_ux/status/938551014956732418) here if you have feedback that differs from or provides deeper insight into one of the pain points this article mentions.
+- Follow us on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/gatsbyjs).