Re: Distinguish between read and un-read discussions/forums.
Posted by vames on Jan 18, 2009; 12:41am
URL: https://support.nabble.com/Distinguish-between-read-and-un-read-discussions-forums-tp2157609p2175424.html
Hi Will
Sorry if this sounds like complaining. It's not intended to be :-)
You have understood me correctly.
I follow your logic and with that in mind I have had another look.
Taking on board your points regarding the last post link showing as "unvisited" I am left with the following point of view.
I am still not convinced.
The classic view that I'm using makes it intuitive to use the main link rather than the last posted link which is why this is such a problem for us.
Using the last posted link to visit discussions is O.K. if you ALWAYS use that link.
So when viewing the forum in classic view the proposed solution is both counter intuitive and inconsistent as it requires people to use the classic view in a specific way consistently.
If you read back through this discussion the problem becomes obvious.
The first responses to my request were informing me of the main link showing as visited and that this should be O.K. and the reat of this discussion has been about how the main links show as visited and how they don't show as visited when you have visited.
Gosh, that's a lot of "visiteds"
So I end up with the conclusion that this issue is confusing.
In my I.T. experience I have to say that when issues like this get confusing it's because the correct solution has not been implemented.
Bearing in mind that I find the "classic view" to be the most attractive view for my purposes I can only draw on my experience of usage in other forums that use this view.
Sparklit, eBay Community, Rails forum, Aptana Studio community are forums that I use daily. They all without exception implement the same solution for this issue.
Some screen shots of how these work
The Sparklit forums use a bell icon that is yellow for un-read topics and grey for topics that are read.
Personally I find that this is not very clear but it works
The Aptana studio forums have recently changed their icons and I also find the new Icons to be a pain and it is no longer clear which topics have been read because the icons are so similar
The Rails forum is really good at this.
This is done by the main links being set to unvisited if a new has been added since last visit but it also uses a small - sign to show which posts I have contributed to and this is a great feature it's just not obvious enough
Saving the best 'til last
The eBay community forums have it almost spot on.
Extremely intuitive and easy to see.
They just don't show which topics I have contributed to which is a shame but no big deal
O.K.
Now there is one thing I know about software development in business and that is -
You don't get a budget to develop features that make no sense
Another observation is that organisations like eBay do NOT spend money on ANYTH@ING that they don't have to spend it on.
The community is extremely important to them and their business and they have not invested so much time in getting their forum working well without good reason.
All this adds up to the fact that regardless of what wnybody thinks these features exist in these forums for VERY good reasons.
Now I'm not saying that there isn't a better way of showing discussions and forums as having had new posts since the last time I visited them I just can't think of one (Believe me if I could think of one I'd go and write my own forum)
I REALLY LIKE the nabble ethos and what you are doing here but PLEASE come up with a better solution to the ones you have suggesed as laready working because they just don't work for me.
I am very comfortable with I.T. but a large percentage of our members are not and the few moderators that we have in the forum at the moment are all finding htis to be a real problem and we all know that this needs to be sorted before we can get the rest of our membership to accept the move that we are making to this forum.
I hope I have been able to explain this well enough for you to understand what I mean.
Thanks again
James
URL: https://support.nabble.com/Distinguish-between-read-and-un-read-discussions-forums-tp2157609p2175424.html
Hi Will
Sorry if this sounds like complaining. It's not intended to be :-)
You have understood me correctly.
I follow your logic and with that in mind I have had another look.
Taking on board your points regarding the last post link showing as "unvisited" I am left with the following point of view.
I am still not convinced.
The classic view that I'm using makes it intuitive to use the main link rather than the last posted link which is why this is such a problem for us.
Using the last posted link to visit discussions is O.K. if you ALWAYS use that link.
So when viewing the forum in classic view the proposed solution is both counter intuitive and inconsistent as it requires people to use the classic view in a specific way consistently.
If you read back through this discussion the problem becomes obvious.
The first responses to my request were informing me of the main link showing as visited and that this should be O.K. and the reat of this discussion has been about how the main links show as visited and how they don't show as visited when you have visited.
Gosh, that's a lot of "visiteds"
So I end up with the conclusion that this issue is confusing.
In my I.T. experience I have to say that when issues like this get confusing it's because the correct solution has not been implemented.
Bearing in mind that I find the "classic view" to be the most attractive view for my purposes I can only draw on my experience of usage in other forums that use this view.
Sparklit, eBay Community, Rails forum, Aptana Studio community are forums that I use daily. They all without exception implement the same solution for this issue.
Some screen shots of how these work
The Sparklit forums use a bell icon that is yellow for un-read topics and grey for topics that are read.
Personally I find that this is not very clear but it works
The Aptana studio forums have recently changed their icons and I also find the new Icons to be a pain and it is no longer clear which topics have been read because the icons are so similar
The Rails forum is really good at this.
This is done by the main links being set to unvisited if a new has been added since last visit but it also uses a small - sign to show which posts I have contributed to and this is a great feature it's just not obvious enough
Saving the best 'til last
The eBay community forums have it almost spot on.
Extremely intuitive and easy to see.
They just don't show which topics I have contributed to which is a shame but no big deal
O.K.
Now there is one thing I know about software development in business and that is -
You don't get a budget to develop features that make no sense
Another observation is that organisations like eBay do NOT spend money on ANYTH@ING that they don't have to spend it on.
The community is extremely important to them and their business and they have not invested so much time in getting their forum working well without good reason.
All this adds up to the fact that regardless of what wnybody thinks these features exist in these forums for VERY good reasons.
Now I'm not saying that there isn't a better way of showing discussions and forums as having had new posts since the last time I visited them I just can't think of one (Believe me if I could think of one I'd go and write my own forum)
I REALLY LIKE the nabble ethos and what you are doing here but PLEASE come up with a better solution to the ones you have suggesed as laready working because they just don't work for me.
I am very comfortable with I.T. but a large percentage of our members are not and the few moderators that we have in the forum at the moment are all finding htis to be a real problem and we all know that this needs to be sorted before we can get the rest of our membership to accept the move that we are making to this forum.
I hope I have been able to explain this well enough for you to understand what I mean.
Thanks again
James
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