Implemented...ish Making the case for a XF native app

[Ludachris]

I know XF is forum software, and I understand that forums are fundamentally different than social media. I know that Tapatalk is a viable option for many forum owners. I've tried it but it wasn't the right solution for my site, mainly because it doesn't work with various plugins that website owners tend to use to try and set themselves apart from their competition and make their forums more sticky and cool (among a few other deal breakers). I understand that an app is costly to develop and that it's difficult to come up with something that will make the masses happy.

With of all that said, here's the case I'm making for an XF native forum app:

If your forum members take photos using their phones, where are they more likely to share those photos these days? The road blocks and extra steps it takes to open a browser on the phone, navigate to your forum, click around and find the right place to post the photo in the forum, and then use the upload feature to click around and locate the photo on the phone takes WAY more time than clicking the Share button after you take that photo and selecting FB or Instagram. And when you have a lot of the people in that forum as friends on your social network, why go through the extra hassle of also sharing that content in a forum?

Social media networks have given the user the ability to make their own networks that they used to depend on forums to access. I don't think this will kill forums, but it will certainly start taking away from a big part of what used to make forums sticky. For some communities - take the car enthusiast communities for example - those photos signify what a member is working on at the moment with their car, and that is an extremely important community-building element that is starting to drop off in forums these days because it's FAR EASIER to share that content on social media via mobile, especially with the upward trend in mobile device usage for interaction. This is not a problem that is/will be exclusive to the automotive community.

I've been talking with members of my site for several months about this, getting their feedback and taking notes. The consistent message coming back is that the forum will always be a great place for finding technical information, but that FB is becoming more preferred for engaging and networking with other car enthusiasts because of how simple it is to use, especially on a mobile device. The problem is, being a technical resource ONLY is not going to keep a forum community thriving.

Over 65% of my traffic views the site on a mobile device these days. I'm using a mobile friendly theme without Tapatalk (for various reasons). And though the site is easy enough to use on a mobile device, I would LOVE to have an app that is native to XF that was build in a way that it coule be extended by some of the talented plugin developers we have in this community (like @Bob who built Showcase and other cool content-centered plugins). If I install an app it has to encompass all areas of the site where I collect content - when that user clicks Share after they take a photo I need to be able to give them quick and easy options to share that content in my forum somewhere so that they don't just share it on FB or IG instead.

The simplicity and ease of sharing content from mobile is becoming more and more expected from the average user. And the traditional way the user has to go about posting in a forum is falling behind in terms of modern day usability. I'm not advocating forums be more like social media. I'm advocating exploring ways to make forums as easy to use as social media on mobile device and doing it in a way that it's extendable - so that plugin developers can tie their plugins into standardized locations.

I'd pay an upfront license fee and a monthly fee for that and I know quite a few other forum owners who run their forum as a business and rely on advertising revenue would invest in this as well. I'd think it's worth exploring and I imagine the XF decision makers probably already have, and probably keep revisiting as mobile usage continues to increase. As someone who didn't used to be too concerned about social media being a competitor a few years back I now see why it's very possible that forums could be used less and less for sharing content and networking among people with similar interests - which could turn forums into obsolete, searchable newsgroups.

We need to keep people engaged and make it extremely easy to have new, quality content posted on our sites. I've always felt XF was forward thinking in the forum space, which is why I moved over from vB last year. I'm hoping the XF devs will seriously consider revolutionizing the way members post content on forums using mobile devices, I like most everything else they've done with the script so far.

 

[trapped_soul]

the easier you make the user experience

This is the single biggest issue we have for people leaving. I genuinely don't know how to address it. The ones we have, stay, are active and engage. But it's a minority and the subject matter may be niche, but it's popular.
XF works. It's excellent in content delivery.
XF & an app = killer software package.

 

[estranged]

You are not losing members to Facebook only because Facebook has a mobile app. Think about this.
Everybody has a facebook account.
Facebook, even without an app is easier to use for most people compared to forum software. Forums are a different concept.
Facebook has a mobile app because they are so huge and can easily afford maintaining different apps for different platforms alongside a web site.
It is not easy for xenforo to maintain different products. Also think about 3rd party addons/skins.

I believe focus should be on making mobile experince better. Not on building apps.

 

[Ludachris]

I believe focus should be on making mobile experince better. Not on building apps.

I agree, I just don't see how that goal can be fully achieved focusing ONLY on the mobile browser experience. If more than half of your users browse the site with a mobile device, then chances very high they are engaging with FB and other social networks through apps on their phone. If that's the case, they've become accustomed to the simple and highly effective engagement triggers of those apps, and the common features of sharing photos and videos. Those features have set the standard and the user interface expectations for social network and online community user interface as a whole. The apps have the capability of accessing the phone's camera and push notifications, regardless of the mobile OS. For browsers, you have a different experience depending on which type of phone you're using. We can't design for a consistent user experience for those features like we could back when we were designing for multiple browsers (I miss the days when we only had to design for Netscape and IE). And we can't do anything for iOS users, which makes up the majority of mobile users for many of us.

I find I'm repeating the same points over and over. Again, I understand the challenges. I'm just frustrated because I feel like we're all losing ground every day, every month, every year. Until we can address the simplicity, ease of use, and tight integration with mobile devices for our communities, similar to the standards set by the social networking apps, I fear we'll always be far behind the curve. We'll always be limited in terms of our potential market share in nearly every niche when building a new community, or keeping an existing one going with a critical mass. If we can do that through huge advances in browser technology that make it so we don't need apps for the key features we've been discussing, great, but I don't see how that will be possible.

 

[Recep Baltaş]

I believe focus should be on making mobile experince better. Not on building apps.

PWA is the solution for this one.

 

[Kirby]

Until we can address the simplicity, ease of use, and tight integration with mobile devices for our communities, similar to the standards set by the social networking apps, I fear we'll always be far behind the curve.

I somehow don't think that this will ever happen and if it does it will not be a forum any longer.

If you start up Twitter you can just write something, add a phote and post it.
If you start up Facebook you can just write something, add a phote and post it.

For forums this simply does not work - you first have to know what you want to post (a forum post, a conversation message, a profile message, a resource, an image, etc.).
This gives us very well organized content (compared to the mess that is Twitter, Facebook, etc.) but creates a high barrier to entry.
And I don't see any way to overcome this short of giving up what forums are.

 

[Ludachris]

I somehow don't think that this will ever happen and if it does it will not be a forum any longer.

If you start up Twitter you can just write something, add a phote and post it.
If you start up Facebook you can just write something, add a phote and post it.

For forums this simply does not work - you first have to know what you want to post (a forum post, a conversation message, a profile message, a resource, an image, etc.).
This gives us very well organized content (compared to the mess that is Twitter, Facebook, etc.) but creates a high barrier to entry.
And I don't see any way to overcome this short of giving up what forums are.

It's not an impossible problem to solve. The thing is, we cringe over the mess because we're used to the organization. In my opinion, we've been too concerned about that and are overthinking it - we have to look at it from the perspective of the new wave of online community users. Most users (who aren't forum loyalists) don't care about the organization aspect of it these days - they just want to quickly post something and get quick responses to something they post. We need to understand the expectations, the new UX standards created by the social platforms, and accept that the expected user experience has evolved/changed.

I believe we can find ways to keep content organized, or at the very least provide options for users to quickly post content in specified places to appeal to the masses - both the old school users who want the content to be organized, and the newer users who don't care about it so much.

 

[Kirby]

It's not an impossible problem to solve. We need to understand the expectations, the new UX standards created by the social platforms, and accept that the expected user experience has evolved/changed.

How? How do you enable users to "just post content" and stil have that content automatically organized in a tree like structure with different settings (photos (attachments) allowed yes/no, custom files required yes/no, min/max post length, etc) obeyed for each node?.
I'd be really, really interested in how you would envsision this.

Of yource we coudld do away with those limitations, but as said: If we do this it's not a forum any longer.

A discussion forum is hierarchical or tree-like in structure: a forum can contain a number of subforums, each of which may have several topics. Within a forum's topic, each new discussion started is called a thread and can be replied to by as many people as so wish.

 

[Ludachris]

PWA is the solution for this one.

I've been told Ionic and Phonegap would be good options to pursue. The last time I researched this, it got complicated when you got into XF alerts and lining them up with phone push notifications.

 

[Ludachris]

How? How do you enable users to "just post content" and stil have that content automatically organized in a tree like structure with different settings (photos (attachments) allowed yes/no, custom files required yes/no, min/max post length, etc) obeyed for each node?.
I'd be really, really interested you wou would envsision this.

Of yource we coudld do away with those limitations, but as said: If we do this it's not a forum any longer.

One way would be to specify forums those posts would be allowed in. The node could have a setting called "allow quick threads". Then, create a quick thread posting form that has a select menu option that comes up when they start typing that allows them to choose the forum where they want their new post (which is actually a new thread) to be submitted to - similar to the way the following add-on does it, but make it way more powerful and graceful:

[XFA] New Thread From Index

Description New Thread On Index brings your user with the capability to start a new thread directly from the index. Once they click on the Post a new thread button, a popup opens, letting them choose in which forum they which to start the new...

xenforo.com

Once they choose the forum where the thread would get posted, the node requirements could be displayed underneath their text box. A second select menu could come into view listing the available thread prefixes for that forum. You could also add in some qualifiers - for example, maybe have a select menu that asks what type of thread it is - is it an update or a question they want answered? If it's a question, the subject they type could bring up some similar existing threads to suggest they read through those before posting. Maybe you could add auto prefixes depending on the type of post it is.

I would want this quick thread call to action at the top of any page of the site. Whether the call to action is a Post Content button, or a text field that brings up a popup modal (like on FB), it doesn't matter. I'd want the user to be one click away from starting a new post no matter where they are on the site. They shouldn't have to click around and look for a place to submit content. I'm not saying to do away with the forum structure, I'm saying we need to think creatively about how we can provide the expected user experience and do our best to maintain the organization with some advanced UI techniques. It won't be easy, and there will likely be some compromises, but it's not impossible to address.

Again though, none of this addresses the points made in previous posts about features that only an app would allow for. This just addresses the UX surrounding the ability to quickly post content on any page of the site, though this is something I've felt has been a major need as well.

 

[Kirby]

Well, that is certainly doable (and the functionality of this Add-on is a standard feature in XF 2 anyway), but that still does require the user to select a target.

So the question remains:
How to fit a forum structure with possibly different requirements per node with the foal of "just posting content" without having to deal with this complexity?

 

[Ludachris]

Well, that is certainly doable (and the functionality of this Add-on is a standard feature in XF 2 anyway), but that still does require the user to select a target.

So the question remains:
How to fit a forum structure with possibly different requirements per node with the foal of "just posting content" without having to deal with this complexity?

I've been using XF2.1 quite a bit lately and it doesn't function the way I described. You still have to navigate to a forum before you can use the quick thread feature. What I'm describing is a call to action widget, link or button that can be placed and accessed from any page of the site that brings up a popup modal with the posting form with more features than what's available with the existing XF2 solution. It would be a very powerful posting form. Sending people to the page you linked to is not very elegant. I'd want the user to simply select the forum from a pull down select box in order to remove the need for them to click around to different pages. The goal would be to keep them on the form. One form to post a thread. People who want to use the traditional route to post a thread could still do that.

So long as you get the user to select the forum where they want their new thread to live, you're able to maintain the forum structure and the node requirements. I'm not sure I understand your question.

 

[jmurrayhead]

Too many focus on the structure of a forum. I find it adds little value in many cases. The use of tags could easily help people find related content. Tags could be automatically suggested based on the content of the post. This is how StackOverflow works. We then need to look at how people consume content these days. I have not used the forum "categories" in a long time. I just go to what's new and see if there's anything of interest there. I think more and more people are doing that these days.

 

[Ludachris]

Too many focus on the structure of a forum. I find it adds little value in many cases. The use of tags could easily help people find related content. Tags could be automatically suggested based on the content of the post. This is how StackOverflow works. We then need to look at how people consume content these days. I have not used the forum "categories" in a long time. I just go to what's new and see if there's anything of interest there. I think more and more people are doing that these days.

I fully agree. I think most of our users these days use the What's New/New Posts page more than they do the drilling down into forums and browsing threads that way. The Whats New/New Posts pages are sort of like the New Feed people use on FB.

 

[jmurrayhead]

I fully agree. I think most of our users these days use the What's New/New Posts page more than they do the drilling down into forums and browsing threads that way. The Whats New/New Posts pages are sort of like the New Feed people use on FB.

Indeed. Based on how XenForo is written, it shouldn't be too difficult for them to add this as a view option to the software. Admins could then just choose how their forum behaves (or even give the users a choice, instead).

 

[Kirby]

Tags could be automatically suggested based on the content of the post. This is how StackOverflow works.

StackOverflow is great and I totally agree that this might work.
But again this would no longer be a discussion forum but a question & answer site which is quite different.

Based on how XenForo is written, it shouldn't be too difficult for them to add this as a view option to the software.

Hmm ... there already is an option to have New Posts (instead of index) on forumhome?

I've been using XF2.1 quite a bit lately and it doesn't function the way I described. You still have to navigate to a forum before you can use the quick thread feature.

Depends in how you define "navigate to a forum", you can use start a thread from everywhere - you just have to add the appropriate link to the menu (can also be open as an overlay)

 

[jmurrayhead]

But again this would no longer be a discussion forum but a question & answer site which is quite different.

Not necessarily. It doesn't have to be Q & A format. The topics just wouldn't be under a hierarchy of a forum category. They would instead have tags that would allow people to filter on content they wanted to read.

Hmm ... there already is an option to have New Posts (instead of index) on forumhome?

Yeah, but the new posts page would need some UI/UX work to make it work. It should focus less on statistics like "views" and more on some of the content. It would also be beneficial to give it a more social feel. For example, allow users to have a filter to show only people or topics they follow. It would also show the content of the main post and then some of the replies...just like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc. This way, as people are scrolling through, they see something that catches their eye and they might expand it and even interact with it.

 

[Ludachris]

StackOverflow is great and I totally agree that this might work.
But again this would no longer be a discussion forum but a question & answer site which is quite different.

Forums have long been Q&A resources in most niches. People often use them that way. They're now using FB for the same thing, and it's not structured like StackOverflow. But since it's so easy to use, they use it for that anyway. I think we need to get away from the mindset that we have to classify a forum as a forum, a Q&A site, or a social network. The site needs to be a destination for the subject matter and be the best possible system to collect user generated content. Look at it from the user perspective - not as a forum admin, not as a long time forum user, but as the average person you want on the site.

Depends in how you define "navigate to a forum", you can use start a thread from everywhere - you just have to add the appropriate link to the menu (can also be open as an overlay)

I define navigating to a forum in clicks. If the user has to click to go to the Forums index page, then click on a forum (and/or possibly a sub-forum after that) then click the Post New Thread button, that's too much. The goal is to not have the user click around. I would want a call to action on nearly all of the common areas of the site (threads, forums, home page, etc) for the user to click "Post New Topic" or something similar up at the top of the page that brings up an overlay (popup modal) with a form. On the form, the user could choose the forum, not click to another page. Shave 3 clicks down to 1.

 

[Ludachris]

Not necessarily. It doesn't have to be Q & A format. The topics just wouldn't be under a hierarchy of a forum category. They would instead have tags that would allow people to filter on content they wanted to read.

Yeah, but the new posts page would need some UI/UX work to make it work. It should focus less on statistics like "views" and more on some of the content. It would also be beneficial to give it a more social feel. For example, allow users to have a filter to show only people or topics they follow. It would also show the content of the main post and then some of the replies...just like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc. This way, as people are scrolling through, they see something that catches their eye and they might expand it and even interact with it.

Right - people are used to scrolling now, not so much clicking that is required with forums. If we can incorporate ways to display the content with fewer clicks and more scrolling instead, that would also be a big deal. Putting some emphasis on this with the What's New page and make it more powerful and easier to engage with, would be huge.

 

[Kirby]

I would want a call to action on nearly all of the common areas of the site (threads, forums, home page, etc) for the user to click "Post New Topic" or something similar up at the top of the page that brings up an overlay (popup modal) with a form. On the form, the user could choose the forum, not click to another page. Shave 3 clicks down to 1.

I might be misunderstanding your idea, but I think this is almost already possible out of the box, you just have to add a link:

 

[Ludachris]

I might be misunderstanding your idea, but I think this is almost already possible out of the box, you just have to add a link:
View attachment 223283
View attachment 223282

Wouldn’t work the way I’m describing. I can create a mock-up but that would be better suited for a different thread. We’re getting a little off topic, not that it matters I suppose. I don’t think this thread is going to make an impact on the XF roadmap anyway.