Contribute page updates

[dgkf]

Hi @pharmaR/ws-communications :wave:

Coming out of our exec meeting this week and discussion about the recent Risk Tools developer day, one of the immediate actions we want to take is to establish a much clearer path for new contributors - both for the R Validation Hub as a whole and for the individual software products.

We're blessed to have @terrychr joining us as executive director of the R Consortium because we can tap into her background in marketing to give us some tips.

Doing my best to capture her feedback as we discussed changes to our contribute page

• We should ask ourselves:
  • "what is the action [we] want people to take?"
  • "how do we lower barriers [to getting involved]?"
• Calls to action should be crisp and clear:
  • "If you go here and act like this, this is what will happen"
  • It has to be obvious
• Convert blocks of text to visually clear organizations of actions
  • Bulleted lists, tables, something that can be easily scanned
  • At most 5 calls to action, with indication of expectations after that action

Given that our audience on this page might be more non-technical/leadership focused, or that developers might be earlier in their careers with little open-source experience, we felt that the first stop should be the R Consortium Slack (#wg-r-validation-hub channel) with pinned posts linking to additional resources.

@terrychr offered to take a first pass at the contribute Rmd page to make markdown edits and give feedback as we polish the page.

[jcabercrombie]

@dgkf - love the ideas you discuss here about advancing the contribute page. I agree with making things more clear and accessible to those who wish to scan/skim.

@terrychr - excited to have your input on things and cannot wait to see what your first pass looks like! As I most recently "re-did" the website, let me know if you have any questions since I know juggling its files can get complex at times.

[terrychr]

@dgkf I spoke with our marketing contractor and we will put together a sample page for you and the others to review. Ultimately, what goes up on to the site is your call. Hoping to have this for you before the next WG meeting.