It started. Should I be sad? (Facebook)

Onimua said:
Yes but how easy is too easy? I understand there are new people who may not know how things work, but at the same time they have to learn how they work. I'm all for making things simple, but I'm also against making things more obvious than they already are (such as "Hot coffee is hot" or "Items in microwave may be hot after use").

XenForo's interface is much more plain and simple than IPB or vB, and yet people are still lost? They learned how to use email (and in a lot of cases, email interfaces are not simple), they figured out how to sign up and confirm their account, but they can't figure out how to start a new thread? I'm fine with XenForo as it is right now, and it's not like things that XF does are wildly different than what people should be accustomed to. How much simpler can it get without looking ridiculous?
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I didn't say we needed to change anything. I'm simply referring to the phrase "dumbing down". If I was a new user and saw that phrase, I'd be highly insulted, and rightfully so.
 
Peggy said:
aye aye SIR! *salutes* :rolleyes:
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Well it's mainly the point of people arguing for/against the wording. In this case people go back and forth on terminology, and nitpick tiny details to death, when the tools to make such changes are given to them already. :p
 
kilcher said:
Yes, you still need to "find" it but how hard is it really to find that button? I'll be honest, if people can't figure that much out on their own maybe a forum, especially a busy one, is not the right place for them.
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I disagree, very much so.
 
Onimua said:
I'm pretty sure we've gone over the wording of this in the beginning of XenForo.
There's a phrase system. Use it. :)
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Indeed.
The phrase system is very powerful.
I think what people are discussing here is ...

Why should xenforo's default settings be confusing less than optimal?
 
Lightening this moment...
trilogy33 said:
"START" and "STOP""
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A bit like the Holly Hop Drive on that Red Dwarf episode.
HOLLY: It's fairly straightforward. If you want to start it you press
"START," and you can work out the rest of the controls for yourself.

My old board was confusing, this is better.
 
it is not the wording of "thread" as this coud be easily changed (which I already did).

Not sure what were the troubles of my user which took him 3 hours to figure out. At the end he managed to post a new thread, but I called him (due to his angry e-mail) and went through with him step by step via phone.

What I recognized during the phone-conversation was:
- he did not manage to find the text-link "Edit" within his own post. >>> Solution: I need to find a way in ACP to make the font-size of this text a little bigger.
- he did not manage to find the button "More Options..." (in the pop-up-editor) in order to upload an additional image into his post. >>> Solution: I have changed the phrase for this (Edit Options). I also created an additional style without the use of overlays.

Again: XenForo is the best software I ever come across, no doubt. There are only a few tiny tiny things to change to make it a bit more intuitive.

Slow down guys :rolleyes:
 
erich37 said:
it is not the wording of "thread" as this coud be easily changed (which I already did).

Not sure what were the troubles of my user which took him 3 hours to figure out. At the end he managed to post a new thread, but I called him (due to his angry e-mail) and went through with him step by step via phone.

What I recognized during the phone-conversation was:
- he did not manage to find the text-link "Edit" within his own post. >>> Solution: I need to find a way in ACP to make the font-size of this text a little bigger.
- he did not manage to find the button "More Options..." (in the pop-up-editor) in order to upload an additional image into his post. >>> Solution: I have changed the phrase for this (Edit Options). I also created an additional style without the use of overlays.

Again: XenForo is the best software I ever come across, no doubt. There are only a few tiny tiny things to change to make it a bit more intuitive.

Slow down guys :rolleyes:
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It's amazing how the style properties and CSS XenForo provides can be changed so easily to customize your installation for your specific needs without making the change affect everyone else. ;)
 
So I was thinking you could basically create a new style based off of another one ..then edit style properties such as button sizes and colors and make a style for users who are not familiar with forums in general that would make what we take as obvious, more blatant to them without effecting users who choose to use the base theme (My_theme being the base with something like My_theme_assistance being the modified copy of the parent)

Does this sound right?
 
EQnoble said:
So I was thinking you could basically create a new style based off of another one ..then edit style properties such as button sizes and colors and make a style for users who are not familiar with forums in general that would make what we take as obvious, more blatant to them without effecting users who choose to use the base theme (My_theme being the base with something like My_theme_assistance being the modified copy of the parent)

Does this sound right?
Click to expand...
Short answer: Yes.
Slightly longer answer: Yes it does. :)
 
That does sound like a very good idea in fairness. Would certainly be good to have a way to help and encourage new users to get involved without impacting on more regular members.
 
Compare posting a reply to starting a thread.
  • When you look for a way to post a reply, you see this rather large text box with your avatar next to it. It's fairly obvious what needs to be done.
  • When you look for a way to start a thread, you must locate a button to start the process.
There's been talk of changing where the button is ... Changing the text on the button ... Having different buttons for different levels of forum experience.

None of those are bad ideas, but maybe a solution would be to put a "Quick Thread" box at the bottom of the thread listing. It could be identical to the way quick reply is done, but with an additional input for the title.

That said, there will always be lazy users who would rather complain than learn something on their own. No amount of rearranging will ever truly fix that. :)
 
If you really feel your users require a tutorial for posting, pay to have someone make a step-by-step guide using Javascript to show people how to use a forum (Google Apps is a good example).

Probably not worth the cost however.
 

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