Hello! Unsolicited armchair expert here! I initially came here to say that I also prefer the new design but would appreciate something non-fixed. I realize the

Hello! Unsolicited armchair expert here! I initially came here to say that I also prefer the new design but would appreciate something non-fixed. I realize there's a setting for it but that means I have to login just to get rid of it. Like most people I only read the site. Then I sort of got stuck on the sentence in the article that suggested I might be missing out on some of the things that Stackoverflow has to offer. I believe I have fairly common workflow. I Google, read the question and all the responses, then open all the referenced questions in new tabs and recursively work my way through them until I have exhausted all the material on the topic. You seem to be very familiar with that type of workflow. It's even mentioned in the article. But it's also a bit odd when I think about it. I can't recall that I have ever visited Stackoverflow directly. For some reason I always come from Google. Heck, I even type "stackoverflow" into the Google search bar so that your results will come up on top. That's very different from my normal browsing pattern. Usually I go to a site directly. So why am I doing this and what am I missing out on? I decided to take a tour of your site! 1. The front page isn't very useful to me. I believe you could make an argument that it's not very useful to most people. It displays the new top navigation bar, a large sign inviting me to sign up, lots of low quality questions in wildly different areas less than a minute old. Maybe this is useful to someone else. To me it's about as useful as if Google would show the 10 most recently indexed sites on their landing page. 2. The top navigation bar didn't really seem to have anything interesting until it struck me that I always search your site with Google. But there is a search feature somewhere... Why is the search bar so small? Why isn't it more prominent? Oh, and it's possible to browse for more interesting topics using tags. I do that sometimes. Why don't I do that more often? Also I should contribute more to Stackoverflow. Why don't I do that? ... So if you want to change my behavior to be someone who goes to your landing page, searches using your search feature, browses by categories, and monitors familiar topics - then I suggest you try some of the following things: 1. Make searching and browsing topics the focus of the landing page. (The Google search bar isn't "hidden" in the top navigation) 2. Remember which topics I'm interested in without requiring me to login. 3. Change the font on Windows to Segoe UI. ;-) 4. Change the header to be non-fixed without requiring me to login. Currently you're just a place where the search results are stored. But I have a hunch that if I'm actively coming to your site and using your services, then I would be more likely to register, login and participate. It would perhaps strengthen my impression of a community. I make no guarantee that my suggestions will work but you could A/B test it using the method described in the article. :) Thank you for Stackoverflow and keep up the good work!