Why I Put a "Start Here" Table on the Content Site Top Page: Designing the Reader Entry Point
Introduction
When building a learning site or documentation site, the more content grows, the more links accumulate in the sidebar. From the perspective of someone managing the site, the content may feel organized, but for a first-time reader, the result is often: “I don’t know where to start.” To solve this problem, I added a “Start Here” table to the top page.
Why Readers Were Leaving
The early version of this site’s top page had a list of links organized by category — “Astro,” “Claude,” “Harness Design,” and so on, each containing links to individual articles.
This structure works well for a reader who already knows the site and is looking for a specific article. But for someone who came because “this was introduced as an AI learning site,” the volume of category names and links is too much to process, and they end up in a state of “I don’t know where to start.”
When presented with multiple choices without a clear goal, readers tend to defer the decision and leave the page.
What the “Start Here” Table Is
The “Start Here” table is a table that shows first-time readers a recommended reading order.
The table I set up on this site is organized by reader level — people who have not yet used AI tools, people who have just started using them, and people who want to go deeper into design — with two to three recommended starting articles selected for each level. Each row includes the article title, a link, and an approximate time estimate.
The purpose of the table is to reduce the time it takes for a reader to decide what to read first. The design aims to let a first-time reader go through the process: “Check my level, look at the corresponding row, read the articles listed there.”
How I Designed the Table with AI
The table design followed these steps.
Step 1: Define reader personas
I identified who comes to this site. I established three personas: “an engineer who has heard of AI tools but has not used them personally,” “someone who has started using Claude and wants to learn more systematically,” and “someone interested in the mechanisms behind AI-assisted content management.”
Step 2: Select the first articles for each persona
I selected the articles that would serve as the starting point for each persona — the content they “need to know first.” The selection criterion was dependency: “Is there a prerequisite understanding needed before reading the next article?”
Step 3: Organize into a table
I organized the selected articles into a table by persona. At this stage, I asked AI to “organize this into a form that reads clearly as a table,” and adjusted the column structure and phrasing accordingly.
Step 4: Review periodically
When new articles are added, I review whether the articles in the table should be updated. If only older articles appear in the table, the guidance no longer reflects the current state of the site.
What Changed After Adding the Table
After adding the table, the rate of readers navigating from the top page to articles increased. Inquiries asking “which article should I read first?” also decreased.
The table itself is a simple grid, but it effectively serves the design goal of “letting a first-time reader decide their next action within the first ten seconds.”
Summary
The “Start Here” table is a table that shows recommended starting articles by reader persona, so that first-time readers can decide what to read in a short amount of time. The more content grows and the more complex the sidebar becomes, the more important it is to design a clear entry point. Defining reader personas first and then selecting articles from that basis makes the selection criteria for the table explicit.