The new "Events and Meetups" page

[Urigo]

Hi everyone, please find the new design for the new "Events and Meetups" page:
https://www.figma.com/design/aPUvZDSxJfYDJtPd7GF2sB/GraphQL.org--Working-File?node-id=2398-78575&t=yInx3DTdsiME332u-1

We would love your thoughts on the design, missing features you wish to have and general feedback on it and the implementation of it

[Urigo]

First comments I had:

1. I love that there is a distinguish factor between conf, meetup and a working group, together with a filter. I maybe would also prefer to see my differences on the cards themselves? their sizes and general design?
2. Working groups are usually online, maybe we can have a nice icon for it
3. What does the "Find a meetup nearby", "Add a new event", "Start GraphQl Local" buttons do? I think all are good calls to action and I also agree and like their placement, but would love to see what happens when clicked
4. Same filters from upcoming events also for past events
5. Should we make this page more interesting and alive with sections showing random videos and photos from past events?
6. When hovering on a meetup on the map, what do we see? a card with meetup details?
7. Should we give people the option to subscribe to an rss feed or something of new events?

[martinbonnin]

• Overall, I love that the working groups are in there but I'm also a bit wary that they will make it harder to find the IRL events that we all crave for. Maybe filter them out by default? Or add a hero section that highlights the next 2-3 IRL events? Not sure...

• We should settle on a wording for meetups. I would recommend using Locals as it's less tied to a brand and allows locals to use other hosting services like guild.host.

• I think there is already a page for Locals (https://graphql.org/community/foundation/local-initiative/)? How do we see those two interacting? Looks like the "locals" page is more about "starting a local" and the "events & locals" page is more about attending/finding a local. Ideally they cross reference each other.

[eddeee888]

Love the colour and icons of the updated version!

I have a few minor feedback/questions:

• Would be good to see time of meetups & working group in the timezone of the user, not just the date.
  • I'm conscious about this, as I'm in a timezone that is usually +0.5 or +1 day compared to the ones shown 😅
• Conference usually runs for a few days, maybe we could have that as part of the mockup to have a sense of what it'd look like?
• Maybe a button to add an upcoming event to calendar to help the user plan what they want to attend?
• Here are some changes that could help discoverability (but maybe not in the first version if it'd take a lot of time):
  • A search functionality e.g. user can search by country or city name and see relevant results in upcoming and past events
  • Each city on the map section could have the country name e.g. "Sydney, Australia" so users can CMD+F to search for text on the page

[jemgillam]

I have just noticed the new events page go live after trying to check that GraphQL Hyderabad was on the site. I do not agree with the design choice for side scrolling for events / meet ups. There doesn't appear to be any indication that there is this functionality, I didn't realise until I saw the video which was included in the pull request. May I suggest this goes back to a card / tile design? It makes it look like there are only three meet ups world wide, not helped by the map marker not showing.

I think also we should revamp the "Past events" section so that it only shows x events. This list needs proper populating before being live ideally - most events on there are from 2023 and I think it's better to not show this data at all instead of data which is not up to date.

[Urigo]

@jemgillam are you referencing the new design or the current version?

[martahajlasz]

Hello everyone! Here is the latest design for the Events & meetups page, which includes updates in the following areas:

Upcoming Events section

• event cards have different backgrounds and assigned icons
• in addition, there are two alternative versions of the section, one distinguished only by the colour of the top bar and the other with no coloured background, but with a badge and icon
• "Working Group" card has the description "Online". The others have a pin and location name (we'll also add the time)

GraphQL Local banner

• copy has changed from "Start Local Initiatives'" to "Start a Local"

Past events & meetups

• cards also have category filtering and colour differentiation
• added "View event video" button that links to the YouTube channel

Events Gallery

• new section

Submit your meetups banner

• changed the Discord channel name to "#local"

Please share your thoughts on the design and what should be improved!

[jemgillam]

@Urigo Ah I think I got a bit confused yesterday and didn't realise this thread is talking about an as yet unreleased design. I was commenting on the current live design, I don't think side scrolling is a good idea.

I have looked at the design shared today, it's looking nice and fresh, I like the look of the new map.

How useful do we think the "past events" section is? So long as it can be kept up to date (ie easy to maintain) this is OK, but I also think we should limit it to eg the last 15 events

I like that this could be a place to find working groups, but I agree these should be toggled off by default (I think Uri has mentioned it working this way before)

[marcinszczygiel2]

Hey everyone!

I'm sharing another round of design updates to the Events & Meetups page, following your suggestions. Here’s what’s new:

Upcoming Events section:

• introduced different filtering mode
• event cards now show time and timezone
• conferences cards display a date range
• new button to add events directly to your calendar
• RSS feed button to stay updated about new events

Start a Local banner section:

• Updated the banner copy to reference the Local Initiative page, along with the option to start GraphQL Local.

Here is the link to Figma file. Please let us know what you think!

[hasparus]

What does the "Find a meetup nearby", "Add a new event", "Start GraphQl Local" buttons do? I think all are good calls to action and I also agree and like their placement, but would love to see what happens when clicked

For "Add a new event" we'd probably need a GitHub issue template.
Then, "Start a GraphQL Local" can either go to the same template or just straight to Discord #locals channel.

To be fair, I'd drop the hero and "Find a meetup nearby" and show the breadcrumbs and list of upcoming events.

I'm also wondering if it makes sense to add "On this page" sidebar like in the docs and blog, because there's quite a lot big sections here and finding a past event requires a lot of scrolling.

[jemgillam]

"Start a GraphQL Local" needs to do what it currently does - link to https://graphql.org/community/foundation/local-initiative/ which at the bottom has a mailto link to locals@graphql.org