One of our goals on the Forum team is to make the Forum accessible to people who are getting more engaged with the ideas of EA, but haven’t yet been part of the community for a long time.. Without getting into a full theory of change here, I think we’ve neglected designing for this user group a bit over the last several years. Some of the barriers to entry for these folks include:
Feeling that the Forum experience (fonts, look and feel) is quite jarring, and different from a lot of the internet they’re used to.
Understanding what the Forum as a space is all about
This feels like a crux. Personally I think the EA forum should be a place seasoned EAs can go to to get the latest news and ideas in EA. Therefore, making the EA forum more similar to “the internet [new EAs are] used to” should not really be a priority.
There are somanyotherspacesfornew EAs to get up to speed. It’s not obvious to me that the forum’s comparative advantage is in being a space which is especially welcoming to new users.
To my knowledge, this tradeoff between designing UX for new versus seasoned EAs has not been publicly discussed much. Which is a shame, because if the EA Forum is a worse space to exist in for seasoned EAs, then seasoned EAs will increasingly retreat to their local communitiesand there will be less interchange of ideas. (e.g. think about how different Bay Area EAs are from DC EAs)
On the EA forum redesign: new EAs versus seasoned EAs
In the recent Design changes announcement, many commenters reacted negatively to the design changes.
One comment from somebody on the forum team said in response: (bolded emphasis mine)
This feels like a crux. Personally I think the EA forum should be a place seasoned EAs can go to to get the latest news and ideas in EA. Therefore, making the EA forum more similar to “the internet [new EAs are] used to” should not really be a priority.
There are so many other spaces for new EAs to get up to speed. It’s not obvious to me that the forum’s comparative advantage is in being a space which is especially welcoming to new users.
To my knowledge, this tradeoff between designing UX for new versus seasoned EAs has not been publicly discussed much. Which is a shame, because if the EA Forum is a worse space to exist in for seasoned EAs, then seasoned EAs will increasingly retreat to their local communities and there will be less interchange of ideas. (e.g. think about how different Bay Area EAs are from DC EAs)