Field Notes

Public Launch Readiness

Updated: 2026-03-15

Current recommendation

Soft-launch publicly first, then promote more broadly after one focused pass on:

  • homepage and chooser share previews
  • live performance after the lighter hero assets deploy
  • one final post-deploy visual pass on the mobile menu overlay

Implemented in this pass

  • Native jekyll-seo-tag image metadata for homepage, chooser, and site-wide fallbacks
  • Better page-level descriptions for the homepage and Choose Your Monster
  • Lighter WebP hero delivery for the homepage and chooser, while keeping PNG share images
  • A public Feedback & Privacy page with contact path, privacy note, and support boundary
  • Footer link to the new public feedback/privacy page
  • Hero image width and height metadata for the homepage and chooser to reduce layout instability
  • A more robust mobile menu overlay that fills the viewport and scrolls safely on small screens

Findings that still matter before active promotion

Mobile UX

  • A browser smoke test on a 390px wide viewport confirmed:
    • the low-stim toggle is visible
    • the menu button is visible
    • the menu opens, closes, and responds to Escape
    • the four primary nav links remain reachable
  • The original overlay geometry was a little brittle, so the local CSS now pins the mobile nav to the full viewport and allows internal scrolling.
  • Before ads or active outreach, do one final live phone pass after this CSS deploy.

Performance

  • Before optimization, the live homepage hero PNG was about 2.72 MB.
  • Before optimization, the chooser banner PNG was about 2.19 MB.
  • New WebP assets reduce those to roughly:
    • homepage hero: 215 KB
    • chooser hero: 191 KB
  • A direct PageSpeed API call was rate-limited during this review, so this still needs a manual rerun on the live site.
  • After deployment, rerun PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse on:
    • homepage
    • /choose-your-monster/

Social sharing

  • The live site previously emitted og:title and og:description, but was missing og:image, twitter:description, and twitter:image.
  • The site config also had a logo path that included the base URL segment twice in structured data output; this pass corrects that source path.
  • After deployment, verify the homepage preview in:
    • Discord or Slack
    • Twitter/X card validator equivalent if needed

Funnel readiness

  • Choose Your Monster is a viable public entry page.
  • Use it as a promotional destination if testing shows it converts better than the homepage hero.

Public-facing basics

  • There is now a public Feedback & Privacy page with a contact path, privacy note, and support boundary.
  • Before paid promotion, decide whether you want lightweight analytics in week one.
  • If analytics are added later, update the privacy note at the same time.

Shipped fixes log

For concrete UX, accessibility, and tooling changes after reviews, see CHANGELOG.md.

Week-one checks

  • Watch which pages people actually enter from.
  • Note whether people bounce from homepage or continue to Choose Your Monster.
  • Track confusion around:
    • monster selection
    • low-stim mode
    • printable page expectations
  • Keep a short launch log with:
    • confusing pages
    • broken links
    • repeated feedback themes
    • ideas that should wait until after launch week
Back to top