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POWhat should a main page of a web application be?
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  1. POWhat should a main page of a web application be?
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    copied!<p>Designing a web application, how do you design the <em>main page</em>? By this I mean the page that is displayed to a user after entering the base url, like <code>http://www.foo.com</code>.</p> <p>It would probably depend on a website, but...</p> <ul> <li>stackoverflow welcomes us with list of questions, no silly <em>what is stackoverflow</em> landing page,</li> <li>last.fm prestens a kind of <em>dashboard</em>, being very popular lately, kind of personalized landing page for registered users</li> <li>google welcomes us with a search box, but <em>iGoogle</em> i completly diffrent story - looks diffrent for everyone (well, and that's the point actually).</li> </ul> <p>The other thing is, if the user is logged in (provided the website supports logging in), should we present him a diffrent content there then some new, random incomer? And I don't mean some personalized content, but something completly diffrent, like his user profile instead of main page?</p> <p>From one perspective it could be good - registered users usually know our site, and get a kind of special greeting as soon as they come back. On the other hand, this could cause problems - when I show a website to a friend, then he goes there from his computer and sees something totally diffrent.<br> And other thing is, when I show a <code>http://www.foo.com</code> to a friend, and it takes me directly to my user profile / dashboard - this isn't sometimes what I'd like to show everyone, as this might show some of my personal data, <em>etc</em>.</p> <p>What do you do when you design your web applications? What's, in your opinion, best from user's point of view, do my concerns about the website looking diffrent for registered and unregistered users do or don't make any sense? (Again, I don't mean <em>small</em> diffrences, like hiding huge <strong>register now</strong> link - but showing completly diffrent view then).</p>
 

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