1) It could be worth conducting user tests of whether people find the site’s landing page being the forum feed overwhelming. It’s hard to get your bearings on that page versus say the “best of the forum” page. People typically like to be guided initially in an experience and get a feel for what’s available, then explore. Or even just a pop-up with “learn about the forum” (it takes a minute to find the link for that page on the sidebar and these days people bounce within seconds).
2) In the spirit of the intranet comment above, I’d love to see the CRM hidden behind a logged-in view; this could just be my “safety” lens but having a giant list of confirmed EAs in public view seems problematic (sadly, something to consider these days). Maybe ask community health team for their view on it? but when it rolled out I was a little irked to see it created without first asking users if they want to be placed on such a definitive, public listing.
We’ve invested a fair amount of team resources into changes to improve the new user experience over the past two years, such as the big redesign, adding the “Best of” page that you mentioned, and an improved onboarding flow for new user accounts. I agree that new users do sometimes still find the home page overwhelming, but I think that, on the margin, improving the new user experience is not currently the best use of our team’s resources (outside of specifically the new author experience).
Thank you for sharing, and apologies for making you feel uncomfortable. If it helps, users can hide themselves from the “People directory” by checking a box in their account settings (under “privacy”). I will say that I don’t view the “People directory” as any sort of definitive list, since literally anyone can make an account (for example there are lots of spam accounts listed, and we haven’t prioritized removing them). Forum user accounts have always been publicly searchable — the directory is just a view on top of the same data, intended to make it easier for, say, hiring managers to find people with relevant interests.
Two general notes on UXD:
1) It could be worth conducting user tests of whether people find the site’s landing page being the forum feed overwhelming. It’s hard to get your bearings on that page versus say the “best of the forum” page. People typically like to be guided initially in an experience and get a feel for what’s available, then explore. Or even just a pop-up with “learn about the forum” (it takes a minute to find the link for that page on the sidebar and these days people bounce within seconds).
2) In the spirit of the intranet comment above, I’d love to see the CRM hidden behind a logged-in view; this could just be my “safety” lens but having a giant list of confirmed EAs in public view seems problematic (sadly, something to consider these days). Maybe ask community health team for their view on it? but when it rolled out I was a little irked to see it created without first asking users if they want to be placed on such a definitive, public listing.
Thanks for the feedback!
We’ve invested a fair amount of team resources into changes to improve the new user experience over the past two years, such as the big redesign, adding the “Best of” page that you mentioned, and an improved onboarding flow for new user accounts. I agree that new users do sometimes still find the home page overwhelming, but I think that, on the margin, improving the new user experience is not currently the best use of our team’s resources (outside of specifically the new author experience).
Thank you for sharing, and apologies for making you feel uncomfortable. If it helps, users can hide themselves from the “People directory” by checking a box in their account settings (under “privacy”). I will say that I don’t view the “People directory” as any sort of definitive list, since literally anyone can make an account (for example there are lots of spam accounts listed, and we haven’t prioritized removing them). Forum user accounts have always been publicly searchable — the directory is just a view on top of the same data, intended to make it easier for, say, hiring managers to find people with relevant interests.