Background: I've got no real formal training with UX, although I've done a lot self-learning and understand most of the concepts and terminology. We've got a major upgrade coming under the radar and I'm looking at potentially better ways to handle the home screen (it's a desktop app).
I realize that a question as vague and open-ended as "What should I put on a home screen?" is, frankly, crap, and if at all possible would like to ask a better question (or perhaps a few separate questions) that actually give experts the chance to share practical knowledge and experiences. So I'm coming to the meta community for help here.
How should I go about fleshing out this question so that it's (a) answerable, (b) interesting, and (c) of some use to future readers?
Can I break it down into concepts? Is there any "homework" I can do to populate the question with useful contextual information? Perhaps there is a pre-existing tag that might have good questions I can use as templates, or at least starting points?
Bottom line is, I have a genuine desire to to create a better user experience or at least gather some ideas about how to approach that goal. But I honestly don't know how to ask the question. By no means do I want to add more pollution in the form of an opinion poll.
Any suggestions or advice on how I could climb down the abstraction ladder from this mile-high view to something that represents a useful semi-objective question?
