topic Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI? in Our Community

Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

Mats Knutsson — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 07:24:32 GMT

Still extremely hard to use the forum because the enormous amounts of white space and lack of structure... I thought the vast amount of comments and good suggestions that followed the UI change would result in something useful. I spend quite a lot of time on various forums and this one is by far the most confusing (in a bad way). Sorry. /Mats

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

hevi — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 07:53:54 GMT

So the time function and coloured scroll bar wasn't enough? Joking aside - I've noticed that there are some work being done in the background but it seem quite ignorant of the major issues that drags down the user experience. There has been a lot of posts with feedback from community members on this and that nothing fundamental has changed since launch tells me that the GSs aim with the community platform is gear more towards marketing (graphical profile) than communication. Has anyone seen a forum powered by Khoros where this isn't the case?

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

DGSketcher — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 08:49:32 GMT

I still see the non-linear nature of the posts to be difficult to follow. If you display by time of post then posts are displayed out of context, with no cross reference they can appear as associated with a different post. Keeping them in context then new posts can be lost a few pages back - and no, the notifications don't always work if someone has added several posts in the same thread. This kind of chaos may be fine for social media, but for professional technical discussion it sucks.

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

Claudius — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 09:45:47 GMT

Hi Mats,

Sorry to hear that the community is still confusing to you. To answer your question from the title: Yes, we are constantly working on the community although recently it has been more "backend" stuff to improve the semantic markup of the pages so they are more accessible and can be indexed more reliably by search crawlers.

The whitespace around messages was a deliberate design choice to create visual separation. I think in the end it also comes down to a question of taste, doesn't it? I did join the team just this October so I might not be aware of all the suggestions shared earlier. Do you remember some of the good suggestions you were referring to and can you point me to them so I can review them together with the team?

Could you also please elaborate a bit on the "lack of structure" part? Is this in regard to individual pages or the community structure with categories and boards within them. I would really like to understand where the confusion comes from so we can work out solutions to reduce that.

And finally: Could you share a community/forum that you really like for it's structure and/or design? That would also help me understand a bit better where you see the differences. Thanks in advance

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

Claudius — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 09:52:47 GMT

@DGSketcher wrote:

I still see the non-linear nature of the posts to be difficult to follow. If you display by time of post then posts are displayed out of context, with no cross reference they can appear as associated with a different post. Keeping them in context then new posts can be lost a few pages back

Do you happen to be using the "threaded layout" option here in your display settings? https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/user/myprofilepage/tab/user-preferences:display

Because currently we've been focussing on the default linear view with the "oldest to newest" display variant. Is that what you are using? I'm having a hard time replicating how you see posts being presented in a "non-linear" fashion as all our threads should show posts in chronological order.

@DGSketcher wrote:

the notifications don't always work if someone has added several posts in the same thread.

I need to clarify, but I think if there were multiple replies to the same thread and you haven't visited the thread after the first notification was sent out then you won't receive a follow up. Why would you prefer to be spammed by additional notifications if you were already told that new replies are waiting for you?

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

Claudius — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 10:00:27 GMT

@hevi wrote:

So the time function and coloured scroll bar wasn't enough?

So you do like them? That's good to hear. It's a work of love by me 😉

@hevi wrote:

it seem quite ignorant of the major issues that drags down the user experience. There has been a lot of posts with feedback from community members on this

My offer is also extended to you: Could you please point me to some feedback and suggestions I should review to improve this community for you?

@hevi wrote:

GSs aim with the community platform is gear more towards marketing (graphical profile) than communication. Has anyone seen a forum powered by Khoros where this isn't the case?

We are not aiming at the marketing profile, but rather we want to provide a modern community experience that is catering for a wide range of users and not only hard core BBS users from the 90s (i'm one of them). And I know of a bunch of Khoros based communities that I think are striking a good balance between text and information heavy display and still being easy to understand for new users. HP Community, Atlassian Community or Dataiku Community come to mind.

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

Xandros — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 10:10:53 GMT

Hi @Claudius

Do you happen to be using the "threaded layout" option here in your display settings? https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/user/myprofilepage/tab/user-preferences:display

an issue I found: my settings do say Use default (Linear format) but it shows the Threaded format layout. So I'll have to switch to Linear format

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

DGSketcher — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 10:52:51 GMT

@Claudius The problem is you are providing threaded and linear options where things look very different. How someone replies is influenced by how they see it on their screen. I note you have made a point of quoting my post which is correct for Linear mode, but not everyone responds that way. So here's the problem and I will try to keep it simple...

A posts: "This doesn't work because..."

B posts: "It works for me if I..."

C replies to A: "I confirm I am seeing the same"

In threaded mode C's post makes sense, in linear mode without quoting A's post who is C agreeing with?

The forum should be one or the other and if the tendency is to linear like old school BBS then please remove the threaded option. Unfortunately you are then left with a forum full of posts that will slip out of context, but you really need to grab hold & fix this.

On the subject of multiple posts in threaded format, all I am saying is that without the individual notifications for each post it is possible to miss an important post if someone replies to different posts in the same thread over multiple pages.

Honestly, after looking at what I have written the Threaded format needs to go. I would then get a notification a post has been made and it would always be at the end of the linear thread. Not much wrong with BBS in my book. 😉

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

DGSketcher — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 10:55:00 GMT

I agree completely with what you say. 🤔😉

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

DGSketcher — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 11:04:35 GMT

@Claudius You've made three posts, so which post is this one associated with?

Hint: You need threaded mode.

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

hevi — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 15:40:33 GMT

I acknowledge that you are new to the team and appreciate your apparent effort to get/keep us involved. The time format was a real improvement and it would be good if we have a constant stream of such small improvements (still waiting on the language cross contamination fix). Unfortunately for you - the community in general and especially its platform doesn't exist in a vacuum but in the context of everything else that GS does or (doesn't) which at the moment isn't to your advantage.

It seems impossible for GS to take feedback at face-value and act on it. Instead everything has to go through an internalisation process with surveys, case reviews, webinars, programs and initiatives where the end result almost always is along the lines of "we hear you BUT it is really hard to do right now because of reason X,Y, and Z". The first thing we were promised was a wish feature to replace the old wish sub forum - more than two years past we are still stuck with nothing more than that but without the polls and with thread locks.

Here is my feedback on the latest "restructure" and here is the original feedback thread from the launch. Regarding your refences - they sure seem rather marketing focused compared to e.g. McNeel or Speckle.

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

Mats Knutsson — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 15:23:40 GMT

Which post do you agree to DG? I can't really follow the tread. I happened to click on a weird Accept button and now it looks that I've accepted Claudius solution while the green header "Solution" points to your post DGS...weird.

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

Mats Knutsson — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 15:32:56 GMT

@Claudius...before answering to you request about posts with the community suggestions I need to ask if you didn't get this background when starting working with the Community? A regular handover... Tried searching the forum?

And please don't use the "hardcore BBS users only" derogatory phrase. Apart from being very foul it's so totally wrong.

Matsimus the gr8 70er

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

DGSketcher — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 16:07:10 GMT

@Mats Knutsson Sorry, it was a wind up for @Claudius to make my point. In the process you seem to have exposed a "solution" bug.

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

scottjm — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 00:03:14 GMT

I was just thinking this exact thing this morning. I find it very different to identify when a post is a reply to another post, vs a reply to the overall thread. The very slight intending is far too subtle. I was thinking some hierarchy lines similar to a folder tree display could be helpful.

Additionally I think the reply button under every single post is very confusing as people unintentionally reply to a post instead of the overall thread and their response gets lots. The reply to a post to create a subthread button should be much smaller, so you intentionally need to go looking for it if that is what you want to do.

The way that reddit does sub threads is a lot clearer as to where a post sits within the structure of the communication.

Also, should sub threads be restricted to only 1 level deep so you we can't create this infinite depth of subposts?

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

Barry Kelly — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 01:02:40 GMT

I often open new tabs if I want to keep a particular message open, so I can respond later without having to try and find it again.

You can right click on any of the links, menus, icons, and open in a new tab or complete new window.

Barry.

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

Barry Kelly — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 01:06:59 GMT

@Mats Knutsson wrote:

I happened to click on a weird Accept button and now it looks that I've accepted Claudius solution while the green header "Solution" points to your post DGS...weird.

I believe only the original poster (author) can accept a solution (as well as moderators).

If you do it in error you can go into the options and un-accept it.

Barry

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

Barry Kelly — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 01:21:29 GMT

@scottjm wrote:

Additionally I think the reply button under every single post is very confusing as people unintentionally reply to a post instead of the overall thread and their response gets lots. The reply to a post to create a subthread button should be much smaller, so you intentionally need to go looking for it if that is what you want to do.

There needs to be a reply button to every post so people can reply to that particular post.

Maybe it could be moved to the top of the post next to that poster's name?

I am not sure it could get much smaller compared to the 'reply to topic (thread)' which only appears at the end of the thread.

Too small and it will be missed completely.

I am not sure there will ever be a perfect solution that will satisfy everyone.

Barry.

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

Lingwisyer — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 07:04:35 GMT

I feel like the per post Reply option only really benefits the Threaded layout as having to thread jump for context really breaks the flow of things...

I am still waiting for the Quote function to be reworked. Something that I brought up when this forum was first converted to Khoros, and was talked about with some of the backend staff. At the moment I manually copy sections that I wish to quote then edit to source to convert it to a quote... Miss the quote button of the old forum where you could highlight a section, press quote, it would be added into the reply box, highlight another section, press quote again and it would just ammend it onto the end.

The problem is you are providing threaded and linear options where things look very different. How someone replies is influenced by how they see it on their screen.

I agree that it would probably help if they just committed to one layout, and given they have been updating the Linear layout recently, integrating better quote functionality into the reply button and having the quotes be the jumps could work.

Ling.

Re: Any ongoing work for the Forum UI?

DGSketcher — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 09:04:53 GMT

I'm guessing the best part of 75k users don't know that link is there! (Some people are probably looking at my post and thinking which link). I also think using it can be disruptive to the whole reading process. Did I ever mention GS need to simplify things in my posts...