Suggestions

[nsxguy]

I've offered these suggestions to management and they asked me to post them here,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

 

I have a couple of suggestions for both the members and the site's benefit. Pics attached.

 

You'll recall the previous board had ever present links at the top of every screen for "Recent Discussions", "Posts Participated In" and "My Discussions", the 3 most obvious places a user wanted to go.

 

We don't have that here (yet ?).

 

Pic 1 is of the "Activity" Tab and its sub-menu. If you notice, when the Activity Tab is "active" there are links already present in the My Activity Streams sub-menu for the old ones mentioned above, EXCEPT for the "Posts Participated In", or in THIS board's verbiage "Content I posted In".

 

If you look at the sub-menu under "My Activity Streams" you will SEE "Content I posted In" IN the sub-menu - and it works fine. That should be added to the right of "Unread Content" in the Activity Tab so that the user need not click on "My Activity Stream" to find it.

 

You may also want to add "Home Page" under "Activity" as well.

 

Now the 2nd pic. That shows a page within a thread. You will notice the "Browse" tab is "active". IMO, the "Activity" tab should be active on ALL pages as, except for the "back" button browser navigation, everywhere else a user is likely to go next is either under "Activity" (IF you make the first change suggested above) OR has its own Link (as "Forums" does).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[nsxguy]

The "Activity" menu has changed, apparently due to a few "complaints" in the Vokey "giveaway" thread where 3 or 4 members expressed interest about not wanting BST items in their UNREAD CONTENT and being able to see ALL BST content by itself.

 

Rather than make some sort of Tutorial about how to set up CUSTOM "Activity Streams" so a user can get to what he/she wants to see right away, management customized these 2 items themselves and put them under the "My Activity Streams" menu. I didn't see where anyone wanted "19th Hole" to be excluded but, whatever. So, nice to see such a quick response.

 

However, at the same time, they took "Content I started", Content I Follow" and "Content I Posted In" OUT of the "Activity" "header" and replaced them with "Unread - No BST/19th hole" and "BST/Deal Activity".

 

Now I understand that management may have used tools to verify that, in fact, the "new" activities are used far more than the older ones but if that's the case they haven't "announced" it anywhere that I've seen.

 

So my suggestion vis-a-vis the :"Activity" tab is to please put it back the way it was. Users who WANT the newer BST tabs/searches can find them under "My Activity Streams".

 

OLD Headers

 

 

 

NEW Headers

 

[Gxgolfer]

Still one click but moved and in context to menu. 

 

[nsxguy]

3 hours ago, Gxgolfer said:

Still one click but moved and in context to menu. 

 

 

What is "still one click" ? The old activities ? I know where they are.

 

I guess I didn't explain myself clearly enough.

 

My suggestion is that the OLD activity searches were FAR more convenient for the MOST board member than the NEW ones which ANYBODY could have made on their own.

 

After all, the easiest navigation for the most members IS the most desirable way to set things up, no ?

[Gxgolfer]

The new board has been live for like 2 weeks. 
 

The biggest complaint is searching.

By moving “My Activity” out of Activity and making it more prominent and relative to the term “My”, it makes the relative search criteria relevant. 
 

“Activity” sub menus are now global in nature. 
 

Creating tutorials helps but the new search realigns with how the old searches worked in 1.0 and 2.0. 

In summary,  all the options are now there and relevant to their titles. 

[nsxguy]

9 hours ago, Gxgolfer said:

The new board has been live for like 2 weeks. 
 

The biggest complaint is searching.

By moving “My Activity” out of Activity and making it more prominent and relative to the term “My”, it makes the relative search criteria relevant. 
 

“Activity” sub menus are now global in nature. 
 

Creating tutorials helps but the new search realigns with how the old searches worked in 1.0 and 2.0. 

In summary,  all the options are now there and relevant to their titles. 

 

Yes, the biggest complain is searching and I addressed that in another thread.

 

Yes, all the options ARE there but the options (I believe) that MOST users use MOST often are not grouped together.

 

Your first attempt (my 2nd post) was, IMO, correct. Those "sub" headings (the "Content "I"" ones) were the ones MOST used. There's a reason the board software had all those "Content I" pre-loaded into their software. Most members are most interested in what "I" (they) have been looking at, participating in, and following (along with "Unread" of course). Other boards I've seen with this same software all have those sub headers prominent. The board software has been around a looooong time. They know what people look for.

 

Anything/everything else is secondary. Users'll find it if they want to.

 

But since you apparently wanted to very quickly accommodate the "Unread-NO BST/19th hole" and "BST/Deal" supporters you changed the "Activity" MAIN header around to reflect THOSE instead of the "OLD" (post 2) Headers. Only a handful of posters complained about "No BST" and "ONLY BST".

 

What I believe you SHOULD have done is make the "My Activity Streams", just as you did, a MAIN header BUT put the 2 new sub headers "Unread NO BST" and "BST/DEAL" under IT (MAS) and leave the original "Activity" MAIN header as it was.

 

What's happening now,,,,,,,,,,,

 

Right now, when "My Activity Streams" is active the are NO sub headers. You have to click on "MAS" (See FIRST pic below).

 

And, as per the 2nd pic below, whichever sub-header one clicks on, whether the "Activity" OR "MAS" MAIN header is active, works fine AND, after the results are shown, the SAME "MAIN" header is active. Same goes for the MAS drop down. I believe that is as it should be. That also happens when one has created their own custom stream and clicks on IT.

 

Bottom line, I believe the "ACTIVITY" MAIN header should be the way you made it originally, with the items most users want to access most of the time, as in Post 2 in this thread, and "My Activity Streams" MAIN header should accommodate the others.

 

Thanks for your time and patience. ?

 

 

 

===========================================================================================================

 

 

 

[Gxgolfer]

My Activity Streams have been updated to include crumb line and drop down.

[nsxguy]

14 hours ago, Gxgolfer said:

My Activity Streams have been updated to include crumb line and drop down.

 

Thanks. I believe that's much better. At least when I'm clicking on "Content I,,,,," the "My Activity Streams", that same MAIN header is still the "active" main tab. That allows me to go back and forth amongst the 2 "Content I,,,,". Terrific.

 

However, when I click on "Unread Content", which is in BOTH "MAS" and "Activity" MAIN headers, I'm back with the "Activity" MAIN header as the active main tab. IMO, one should be back in the "MAS" main header as that is where most users will want to (still ?) be. "Content I,,,,,,," is still of the most interest to most users.

 

So, to facilitate the most convenient navigation for the most members, I would further suggest 1 of 2 things.

 

EITHER (pics below)

 

a) simply take "Unread Content" OUT of "Activity" and leave it in "MAS" - that way I assume the default of clicking on "Unread Content" will be an active "MAS" since Unread would then be under "MAS".

 

OR

 

b) make "My Activity Streams" the active MAIN header when one is within "Unread Content".

 

I would think "b" would be preferable as having multiple places to access the same info, in this case "Unread Content", is never a bad thing - then again, EVERY page has the "Unread Content" link right below the search box in the upper right hand corner, no ?

 

 

 

 

OR

 

 

 

Edited September 10, 2020 by nsxguy

[nsxguy]

OK, Mr Gxgolfer, navigation is looking really good right now. Almost  A few fairly minor(?) mods to go IMO. See below

 

 

 

Ideally, whatever MAIN tier is "above" the sub-tier clicked on - that MAIN tier should be the highlighted/active tier AND the sub-tiers should show below the MAIN tier line. Same thing if the MAIN tier itself is clicked on. As you can see in the pic, I clicked on Forums, then clicked on WRX CLUB TECHS and nothing is highlighted/active and no sub tiers are showing.

 

i.e. Wherever you are/however you got there, the MAIN tier above it should be highlighted/active and its sub tiers shown below. EXCEPT* (?)

 

Also ideally, in the path (in the pic) the "Forum" main tier should be shown as well but I'm not sure this is (easily) done nor do I think it's very important as most users won't be clicking within the path to get anywhere.

 

* WITHIN ANY THREAD - If you recall in earlier versions and my pics, while reading posts within ANY thread the now gone "BROWSE" MAIN tier heading was highlighted/active. Always. BROWSE is now gone and while reading posts within a thread, there is NO MAIN tier highlighted/active.

 

Ideally, whatever MAIN tier the user came from is what should be highlighted/active and again, its "subs" should be visible. This allows the user to either use his "back button" OR click immediately on something else in the same MAIN tier, where he's most likely to want to go next/again.

 

e.g. I click on "My Activity Streams" and then "Content I Follow". As I'm reading those results I can either hit the "back" button OR click on the next sub tier I want, very likely to be either "Content I follow" again OR "Content I Started" OR "Content I Posted In" OR "Unread Content".

 

Same thing for the "ACTIVITY" MAIN. Any sub clicked on and "ACTIVITY" should be highlighted/active as the most likely place to go is again under "ACTIVITY".

 

Great job so far in reorganizing the navigation !!!

 

 

 

 

 

[nsxguy]

An added thought about highlighted/active MAIN tier.

 

UNREAD CONTENT is under 2 MAIN tiers so the highlighted/active MAIN tier, while anywhere within (those) Unread Content results should be BE the SAME ONE in which the SUB tier was clicked on.

 

If that is overly difficult to keep track of I guess "My Activity Streams" would be my first choice to highlight while in UNREAD CONTENT.

[Greg_B]

Hopefully those responsible will keep in mind the importance of documenting both the way all these changes were supposed to work (i.e. why they made the change) and then also document the technical details of what they had to customize to make it so and how they did it. This software is obviously large and complex in terms of what it offers to allow personalization and then it sounds like customization is being layered on top of it to address some arcane issues that a few users want. That is a recipe for building a house of cards.