"Contact Details => Identities" is confusing

Enigma

Well-known member
The "save" button at the bottom of the different "Your Account" pages makes sense. You change something in a textarea/input or you change a checkbox/select menu and then you must save the changes.

On the "Contact details" page, the "save" button is confusing given the visual feedback given when adding or removing identities. For example, if I click the red X by an identity, it is nuked, gone, removed from the page entirely. In terms of UI, this means it has been deleted IMO. But in fact you actually have to click "save changes" for it to take effect.

Possible solutions-- gray out the "save changes" button until something has actually been changed on the page. When you have unsaved changes on the page, highlight the "save changes" button and maybe even insert a message at the top & bottom of the page saying something like "You have unsaved changes on this page, click 'Save changes' to save them." Although you don't want to run the risk of cluttering things up either.

Another iffy UI thing I noticed here is using the checkboxes combined with the + button to add an identity. To me it would be more intuitive to remove all of that and simply have an "Add Identity" button that when clicked brings up a popup menu with the identities you can add. You then click on one to add it. Additionally, why limit the user to adding only one of each identity? Gmail contacts doesn't do that. :p

/rambling
 
Upvote 2
I think the idea is that instead of having 2 or 3 possible profile fields, and them showing as 'empty' or n/a
You can now say, i want skype & facebook & twitter, ... and you get the input fields, you enter your details and save.
 
Instead of the present way of checkbox selection of the identity, and the new dialog coming up asking you to enter a new one at the top, i suggest the entry box comes right below the identity selected. That way would be a lot more intuitive and faster.

So basically, select the checkbox of the identity you want, immediately below that the textarea opens, enter the identity and next to it, hit save button and the identity is added. The state can be reset after this to allow additional input. (I didn't check, but i hope there is a limit to the amount of entries you can add.)
 
Hi there,

I was just playing around with the contact details page and found the adding accounts a bit confusing.. my first reaction when ticking "facebook" (for example) would be that an input box would appear under it where I can add my facebook email however this isnt the case... at first I thought it was broken but infact you have to click the + box on the top right of that area.

I feel this could be made more user friendly and more obvious.

Thoughts?
 
I would like to second this notion. The current implementation is pretty confusing as far as usabilities are concerned.
Please make it so that upon checking of the checkbox, identity box appears (pre-populated with content if the user previously had content there before saving), and upon unchecking of the checkbox, identity box disappears (preserving content until user hit save, in case of accidental click).
 
Andy's suggestion of showing the input when the box is checked (instead of when clicking the + button) would be an improvement. But I think the interface is still needlessly complex and needs to be rethought.
 
It's a long time since I did that, but I seem to remember that my reasoning was that people would tend to only set up their identities once, and would pick the ones that they had in one action before adding them in the second. I could be persuaded to change it in the future, if lots of people really disliked it.
 
Thanks for the explanation. I personally find to be more user friendly and, maybe, less confusing to just show the input box. The way it is right now, I feel users who are not computer friendly will skip it...
 
I'm in two minds. I like the way it is now, but I also understand aculate's POV.

I like to think of it this way:
The first time I view it, they're all checkboxes which allow me to choose which networks I wish to add to my identities.
As I begin adding networks to my identities, they appear as input boxes which I can fill in, and they remain as permanent input boxes for as long as I have them networks enabled. The rest of the networks are just out of the way in a checkbox list.

I think I prefer it rather than showing a list of input boxes for identities I don't use (such as AIM, ICQ).
 
I was playing around with the identities in the Contact details panel (http://xenforo.com/community/account/contact-details) and i'm trying to understand the logic... why the two steps to enter a value? Why not show the input box right away instead of clicking and then clicking again the +

Thanks for the explanation. I personally find to be more user friendly and, maybe, less confusing to just show the input box. The way it is right now, I feel users who are not computer friendly will skip it...

I agree with you. I was just 'testing' the whole 'Your Account' area and this was basically the only one small 'issue' I noticed in the current state of XF. I am recommending XF to a potential business-client at the moment and the majority of people who are going to use their (XF) platform are non-computer literate. I want to offer them the most easy and simple to use forum system out there and obviously the choice is then XenForo. A lot of their trainers/trainees use IM clients, so the 'Identities' area in XF will certainly be used. In my eyes this area in XF....

identities.webp
...could be a little bit more intuitive as it is now indeed. At least this was my feeling when I first tested/used it myself, but since I now understand the reasoning it is actually (like so many things in XF) well thought out and ditto implemented :cool:.

But yes, maybe it could be made less sophisticated (<---did I really say that? ;)) for the novice computer/software user so that it is a little more clear/intuitive at first use. This is what I came across (mind you, only at first use):

  • I kept pressing the [+]-button (without selecting/doing anything else before) and nothing happened. I would be helpful to the end user if this button could check if an IM client was checked and if not it would display a message 'Please select your account(s) first' or something along those lines,
  • Regardless of the [+]-button, I checked some Identities and then just pressed the [Save]-button (since this is so near to the bottom of the Identities-area I am convinced people will see this [Save]-button as a direct part of the Identities-setting-up-process, in fact I did so myself in the beginning). What happens then is that XF let's you enter the value of the selected Account fields and you can/need to press [Save] again to actually save the entered values. So I didn't use the [+]-button at all to be able to fill stuff in.
The question comes up now if this [+] is needed/handy in the first place? I agree with Aculate that it would be more straight-forward and therefor more intuitive to the end user if the input-field would be shown right away instead of having to click on the [+]. But, to unclutter things and make it at least a bit 'XF-sophisticated' ;) those empty fields (all of them from all empty Accounts) should not be shown at default. Only when a checkbox is ticked, the empty field should show up, exactly like James is suggesting:

I like to think of it this way:
The first time I view it, they're all checkboxes which allow me to choose which networks I wish to add to my identities.
As I begin adding networks to my identities, they appear as input boxes which I can fill in, and they remain as permanent input boxes for as long as I have them networks enabled. The rest of the networks are just out of the way in a checkbox list.

I think I prefer it rather than showing a list of input boxes for identities I don't use (such as AIM, ICQ).
 
Although, I do see the benefit of the way it is now...you can tick several checkboxes and click the '+' button and an input box is generated for each ticked box.
 
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