Improve the Getting Started experience

Now that the dust has settled on the initial work to stand up walkthroughs and their contribution to the Get Started page, I think it’s time to take a look at the experience overall with fresh eyes.

A few questions to kick off a discussion:

Do the walkthroughs…

• Meaningfully increase retention for new users?
• Increase productivity by showcasing features like command palette, side-by-side view, etc.?
• Get dismissed immediately/contribute to a negative experience for experienced developers?
• Need to pop up right after install? (vs. an opt-in model)

Some obvious quick wins in the meantime:

• Raise overall UI quality/polish bar for walkthroughs
• Move/add/remove walkthrough steps as needed
• Give walkthrough and individual steps a content pass
• Refresh theme picker thumbnails

Current state

cc @stevencl

[digitarald]

Related:

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/142219 for todo-model + simple heuristics causing piles of unfinished walkthroughs. https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/130417 for an overhauled UI that looks nicer in narrow viewports (maybe even sidebars).

[eamodio]

Need to pop up right after install? (vs. an opt-in model)

Please make that happen for extensions, I’d definitely want control over having that forced upon users.

As for the layout, we (imo) definitely need better ux when narrow, but I still feel the editor area is the right place for these. The sidebars feel too constrained.

Maybe there is a more sliding panel UX for the TODO section when narrow?

While extensions can’t really collect telemetry (which is something else I’d really like) to gather usage/engagement of the walkthroughs I feel like they have helped as our getting started video (though it’s both on our sidebar & walkthroughs so I could be wrong) gets a lot of views.