Github, please make this.
Adding Recommendations on Github
Github is a staple of any good development process. You don’t need to tell many developers that. As time has gone on Github has added a myriad of awesome features. Things such as trending repositories, starring, and even an explore section. The explore part is interesting. It has become (what feels like) an unintended side effect of Github. But can’t we enhance it?
Recommendations & Similarity
When I’m working on a new piece of technology, often times my search process goes something like this:
- Google “Swift slide out menu” [or any other query]
- Go to the first Github project that looks interesting
- Return to google
- Repeat
The status quo is all fine and well for the most part. But nothing would be better than being able to stay on Github once I got there. That’s why Github should implement a recommendation and/or similar repository feature.
Current repo layout
This is fine, but I’m limited to one repo. And search is strictly sorted by title/name. Not everything has “Swift menu” in the title. So what if we could just add a simple little menu to improve our experience dramatically? Sounds pretty good to me.
Modified Sidebar
As we see here, we’ve added a much more compelling experience to the sidebar. Many times while searching a repo we find ourselves wishing we could see similar ones. This layout solves that provides an answer to that.
Individual components
Integrated in the explore page
It makes sense
In this model Github’s enormous library unleashes itself like never before. Now users can discover relevant content within the context of things they’re already looking for. No longer would you have to leave to find new content. Github would have their own ‘rabbit hole’ to keep us hooked.
TL;DR — Github should implement a recommendation and similar repository feature to keep users on the platform instead of leaving to google things.
Read the article on my blog: http://hartigan.me/blog/github-recommendation/
