Quote:
Nothing is hidden... in fact we promote all this stuff like crazy! Huge links to the FAQ's all over the place, a required reading section (which is linked to from the welcome email), and tons of more places. People just need to take the time to read through stuff.
Honestly, if every single member spend 10 mins skimming the 4 items in the "Required Reading " they would know about 90% of what they need, or at least where to find the info on where to find what they need.
Imagine if every new member spend just 30 minutes reading through all the links in this post. .. in the grand scheme of things... 30 minutes isn't that much time, but could end up saving you hours and hours in the future.
And you and I both know that no one ever reads the "required reading" in welcome mails. I don't even remember seeing it when I joined. I'm sure it was in a page somewhere...
As far as finding the FAQ: given that the important stuff like "my subscribed posts" is at the bottom of the page (which requires me to do a ton of scrolling and back and forthing between recent pages in order to see my subscribed posts), while the navigation for the forum is above the posts and below an ad - given all that: I have never seen the FAQ link - even when I was looking for it - the "Forum FAQs" link at the VERY top of the page and wouldn't have seen it now except that I spent time specifically looking to find it. I know it seems to you that there are "huge links all over the place". Because you are very close to the programming of the site. But there aren't huge links all over - there's one link hidden at the top of the page above a blinking ad (many folks avoid the tops of pages specifically to avoid blinking ads). (If there are other links to the forum FAQ outside the forum, that's irrelevant to when I'm looking for info FROM the forum.) Why would the link to the *forum* FAQ be up by the stuff for the non-forum site stuff? I would only go up there if I'm looking for non-forum stuff like the Learning Center and Breeds and such. It would never occur to me that a Forum thing would be up there.
Again - I love the BYC site. I just think that it's hard to find information sometimes about how to do forum stuff. How many times have people had to ask "how do I link an image"? How many times do people have to ask "how do I" before you link the FAQ to those questions down below the ad in the forum area of the page so people notice it?
I'm not trying to be critical - you guys have an awesome, helpful site here. I am trying to be helpful and I do hope it's coming across that way. There are just things that could be better laid out for usability purposes. Simple stuff that doesn't require a re-write of the whole site.
I'll be glad to take this offline to email if you'd rather. Up to you. Just email me.
Anna
--
FYI - I graduated in '10 from Stanford with several HCI courses, and lots of background in usability.
Nothing is hidden... in fact we promote all this stuff like crazy! Huge links to the FAQ's all over the place, a required reading section (which is linked to from the welcome email), and tons of more places. People just need to take the time to read through stuff.
Honestly, if every single member spend 10 mins skimming the 4 items in the "Required Reading " they would know about 90% of what they need, or at least where to find the info on where to find what they need.
Imagine if every new member spend just 30 minutes reading through all the links in this post. .. in the grand scheme of things... 30 minutes isn't that much time, but could end up saving you hours and hours in the future.
And you and I both know that no one ever reads the "required reading" in welcome mails. I don't even remember seeing it when I joined. I'm sure it was in a page somewhere...
As far as finding the FAQ: given that the important stuff like "my subscribed posts" is at the bottom of the page (which requires me to do a ton of scrolling and back and forthing between recent pages in order to see my subscribed posts), while the navigation for the forum is above the posts and below an ad - given all that: I have never seen the FAQ link - even when I was looking for it - the "Forum FAQs" link at the VERY top of the page and wouldn't have seen it now except that I spent time specifically looking to find it. I know it seems to you that there are "huge links all over the place". Because you are very close to the programming of the site. But there aren't huge links all over - there's one link hidden at the top of the page above a blinking ad (many folks avoid the tops of pages specifically to avoid blinking ads). (If there are other links to the forum FAQ outside the forum, that's irrelevant to when I'm looking for info FROM the forum.) Why would the link to the *forum* FAQ be up by the stuff for the non-forum site stuff? I would only go up there if I'm looking for non-forum stuff like the Learning Center and Breeds and such. It would never occur to me that a Forum thing would be up there.
Again - I love the BYC site. I just think that it's hard to find information sometimes about how to do forum stuff. How many times have people had to ask "how do I link an image"? How many times do people have to ask "how do I" before you link the FAQ to those questions down below the ad in the forum area of the page so people notice it?
I'm not trying to be critical - you guys have an awesome, helpful site here. I am trying to be helpful and I do hope it's coming across that way. There are just things that could be better laid out for usability purposes. Simple stuff that doesn't require a re-write of the whole site.
I'll be glad to take this offline to email if you'd rather. Up to you. Just email me.
Anna
--
FYI - I graduated in '10 from Stanford with several HCI courses, and lots of background in usability.
