14 replies to this topic

[cre8pc]

Ok, please grab a seat and bear with me a moment...I need your feedback on forums usability.

1. We know you need to scroll in forums communities.

Do you hate this?

Can you deal with it?

What browser/resolution/monitor type do you use the most when you visit here?

2. Which would you like to see?

White space and breathing room in forums, like between sections and right and left margins?

Tightly connected lists of forum topics with either brief or no description?

Everything squished on the page so you can see most of the forums at once?

Color combos, such as blues and teals or greens and blue or beige and black or (suggest a palette).

3. What forum elements do you want fast access to? Can be things like forums search, latest posts, your profile, links to social network sites, etc etc etc.

4. Do you like forums broken up into categories/sections (like we have now)? (Does this make it easier to scan?)

5. Please list any and all user interface and/or fun in general features from the other forums you visit that you'd love to see us do here.



Thanks! Your input is really important.

[tam]

1. Scroll is fine, just don't waste space eg sticking the profile data above each post instead of the side.

I'm sure you can get the browser/screen from your stats... I use a netbook but I doubt that is typical.

2. Some description is fine, it helps you decide where to put a post but it is OTT atm and things are duplicated with the same keywords in multiple topics (five sections mention they cover usability).

You don't often see forums with sidebars - I'm not sure if I'd like it or not - depends what was on it

3. I go straight to new posts and read that. I don't bother with reading by section. I might if the forum was busier but with a dozen or so posts a day, you'd never find them in the great big long list of sections.

Not too fussed on colour, if you change it I'm sure it will be weird initially but we'll get used to it

4. From an admins perspective, I'd rec reducing the sections, combining the archive stuff into one section (hidden sub sections are fine), making the front page less intimidatingly long is good for newbies. It also means you aren't showing sections which haven't had new posts for weeks which always makes a forum look dead and puts off registrations. It also makes it easier to decide where to put a post, is deciding how to layout your menu 'Web Design & Holistic Development' or 'Usability, Accessibility & Mobile'?

• Planning
• Designing (look & feel/layout/usability etc.)
• Coding (php/css/etc.)
• Problem Solving (web hospital)
• Search engines
• Social media/marketing
• News

Would cover most things.

[cre8pc]

Wow! This is awesome Tam. You offered a lot of excellent feedback and suggestions. One of the items on the giant Task List is revising the information architecture and forums structure. Your suggested approach is logical. Thanks a ton.

Maybe we can start handing out Ninja T-shirts to those whose ideas we end up using

[tam]

Lol, that should definitely go on the ideas list!

I'm really excited to see how things develop

Edited by tam, 06 October 2012 - 06:17 PM.

[Grumpus]

There are two things that are thorns in the paw for me on here - and they're both related.

1) Forums Home, Blog, Forums <--- Home and Forums go to the same place (but a different URL). Kill one.

For some reason (and maybe it's just from the old days where there was the front page that gave a snapshot of what was going on in here and cre8asite.net and the news feed stuff) I always end up clicking the "blog" one by mistake. Which leads me to...

2) Unify the positioning of primary navigation. Once I switch to the blog site, I often realize that I really wanted to just come back to the forum - but the link to do that is in a totally different place on the page - up at the very top and in the center of the screenspace rather than below the header, left side of screenspace.

Even though they may look different as far as color scheme and whatnot, I always feel like the headers on sites like this need to be unified mechanically. The key links in the header should be placed consistently across the entire site, both blog and forum. Anything up there is something I typically expect to be able to access from any page no matter what. It's at the next level below the header where the section based sub navigation kicks in.

[cre8pc]

Stock, already on the list in my head, but will get it on the official To Do lists and tasks now.

The big culprit is that the UI and software for the forums is not the same as the blog. The present blog is Wordpress. Our forums software comes with a blog to match the UI. Not free, but it's on the list of add-on's we can invest in thanks to our new owner, Jim Boykin.

The end result will be a more unified and consistent flow...and not a navigation roller coaster

[cre8pc]

I think i got everything on this list, including using Tam's IA order for the forums. I added the new ones that were suggested and hoped for, and cleaned up some descriptions (like we still referred to Digg and Sphinn as the cool social networking sites).

navigation fixed

New homepage is designed and approved by Jim, me and Ann. Waiting for the new /dev and staging setup for our new server and once tech passes everything, the new homepage will be installed.

[glyn]

You should run some kind of post league.

The most posted this week is by....

I know that this kind of gamification works well in some places.

[TheAlex]

You should run some kind of post league.

The most posted this week is by....

I know that this kind of gamification works well in some places.

I don't like the 'most posted' idea. It encourages some to post quanity instead of quality.

[cre8pc]

Jim has some ideas for active members he's rolling around and testing out elsewhere. I agree with Alex on the fear that people would post for the sake of numbers and not quality.

Nothing wrong with competition however. And prizes to win

[tam]

I noticed you've done some reorganising, but then you snuck some more sections in! I think the forum homepage is massively too long Imagine you're a first time visitor, this is what you see...



The sections are like a menu, but you wouldn't dream of presenting a menu that long to visitors - it's completely overwhelming.

I'd take a red pen to it e.g. planning. Keep 'Site Planning, Preparation & Running a Business' and 'Monetizing Your Website & Increasing Revenue Conversions' and lose everything else. Affiliate marketing is just another way of monetizing and doesn't need it's own section - we don't get nearly enough questions about it to warrant having it separate. Fav tools - 8 topics in 5 months again not enough to warrant a section, turn it into a sticky in one of the other sections. Blog & CMS are just aspects of planning or coding depending on the questions and again don't need a separate section - we already have an archived blog section.

The archived area could be reduced too, bulk move all the posts from individual SEs like msn/aol etc. to the 'Other Search Engine Discussion' section. If you absolutely want to keep them separate, only display the archive section on the homepage and then the subcategories on click through.

My very generalised rule is that if a section gets more than one page of new topics per day, then it's time to think about splitting a section for easier locating of topics. Less than that and you're turning 30 seconds scanning down a single list of post into a couple of minutes navigating in and out of sections reading multiple lists with just a few posts each, which is makes things less usable not more so.

[cre8pc]

Hi Tam, you're awesome as always

I agree. There were some reasons and stuff, so here goes.

There is a new homepage that was designed and I'm waiting for the Tech team to finish setting up the new Dev area on the server to test it and then we get it. It will replace the hideous one that exists now and will be similar to the new one made for SEO Chat Ours will point to new content and jump to specific threads, plus have a blog section. It will also point to each category. In our case there are only 5 of them and 6 if you count the Pub section.

Of the forums in Jim's pile, our's is the smallest but also the most unique, with the exception of Webmasterworld. We're being afforded a lot of freedom to retain our independence so I'm not saying I want to be like the other DevShed forums he has. Just that we're the runt of the litter.

The addition of the new forums were in response to the Community Wish List I gathered from the moderators and community. The Local Search was high on the list. Affiliates is on Jim's list but for now, I deleted it and combined it with monetizing like you suggested. We can always break out a sub-category later if needed.

Mobile and Responsive Design is my pick, based on my client work and what I'm seeing as a HUGE area of neglect and confusion by designers and site owners. I want to ramp that up.

The new Blog and CMS is a test to see if we can attract new people who are bloggers and CMS developers. That's also my idea. It may not need its own forum but I'm hoping by pulling it out of general design stuff it may get more specialized activity.

Tools - will have a future purpose or tied to something Jim is working on, so I let it be.

Social marketing was new and looked lonely by itself so I moved that forum into the Engines and SEO area. The new Small and Local biz marketing is in the marketing section too. It was a long awaited addition so it will be interesting to see where it goes.

Everything else was moved into the Community category. It made sense to condense all the extra stuff into one spot and not split up news and resources from the other community support forums.

I revised most of the descriptions too and edited here and there for clarity.

Eventually the right sidebar is going to be used for revenue generation and share, so the length will be good for Jim's plans on that (which are designed to benefit the community as well, revenue-wise.)

I hope this helps explain better the situation. As you can see, I'm totally loving your recommendations

[cre8pc]

Oh, and the archived section...your idea might work. Not too sure what to do with them. They're all indexed and bring in traffic so i don't want to bury them. They take up a ton of room so I always "X" that section to close it up.

I need to get with Ann and Jim on how they want the archives handled

[tam]

Thanks for explaining, it makes more sense if you've got other bits coming to tie in I'm not knocking the topics at all, they are all interesting & I wouldn't mind discussing several of them more - mobile is definitely something I want to think on because the proportion of users is creeping up very fast but there doesn't seem to be a proportionate amount of interest in designing/building for them.

For the archive, could you make the links through to the categories smaller. I don't know if it works on this software but on vb you can make sub cats a list within the cat description rather than giving them their own row. I'm not explaining it well but I do it on a couple of cats here: http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk That would give you the same number of clicks for SE but less space for people. Or can you set it x'd as the default?

[Ken Fisher]

Mail. I can't figure out if I have any.

...until today. Maybe a pop up notice? I have that on a phpbb board I maintain.

Maybe an interactive icon? Green light, red light