The dreadful moment has arrived. It’s here. I am looking at the Balsamiq window and I feel devoid of energy. All my shiny ideas are gone. All I can do is stare at this blank page:

Do I need a parallax effect? If so, what might be a relevant picture, a relevant text? Or maybe a full-page carousel would be more appropriate. Yes, but they tend to perform poorly on mobile phones, so I need to design two different versions: one for laptops and desktops, and the other for small screens.

Luckily, I am familiar with this state of mind. I have encountered it many times while writing my books. I think it’s called “the blank page syndrome”.

It happens, to me at least, when I lose my focus. When, instead of looking towards “who”, “what”, and “why”, I switch too early to “how”.

It’s going to sound idiotic, but why do I need a home page for my blog? Why not leave it blank?

We live in a very fast-paced world. When addressing someone, we have just a couple of seconds to engage their attention or to lose it. Some studies say ten to fifteen seconds. Based on my browsing habits, I would say it’s more like two to four.

This is why I should have a home page. I have two seconds to engage my reader. How should I do that? “Show them it’s about a journey!” says a little voice inside my head. “People love journeys”.

The muse is back! Suddenly, I can see the whole site, at least it’s very first version. I don’t have a logo yet, but I decide that I can live without it for now:

I like it. When scrolling, it tells a story about the things I do. The excerpts, besides being appetizers, offer an important piece of information: how long it will take to read that article:

That was nice. It took me something like 40 minutes to make the mockup in Balsamiq, the defogging time included. Now, because I can see it, I can feel how it flows from the reader’s perspective. It’s something that, at least in my opinion, every product owner should be able to do. It has nothing to do with “IT” or programming, but with the ability to visualize the product. Using Balsamiq, Draw.io or any other tool of this kind, is no more complicated than making a presentation in PowerPoint.