No obvious way to access "Your Account"

Paul B

XenForo moderator
Staff member
Due to the recent changes, there is now no obvious way to access "Your Account".

I know that all I have to do is hover over my username and click one of the options in the menu and it will take me to that part of my account.
However, new members and those less savvy might get confused by this.

Is it worth just putting a "Your Account" link at the top of the drop down menu, just underneath "Sign out" for example?
 
There isn't really a 'My Account' page as such - it just happens to open on the alerts page. Pretty much any of the links under the username menu are entry points to 'My Account'.
 
As Brogan pointed out, this is very confusing to novice computer users. I prefer to have simple links to Settings, My Profile and Private Messages pages in the Navbar.

Hopefully the template system will us to easily remove the entire Navbar code and replace it with a simple Navbar like we had in vB3.
 
As Brogan pointed out, this is very confusing to novice computer users. I prefer to have simple links to Settings, My Profile and Private Messages pages in the Navbar.

Hopefully the template system will us to easily remove the entire Navbar code and replace it with a simple Navbar like we had in vB3.
The template system allows anything and everything.

On the other hand, I'm not sure how a menu that is labelled with your own name could be less intuitive than the cryptic 'User CP' text that was used in vBulletin 3.
 
To be honest, on my community I think we will have the dropdown's first option in the list be a link called: Settings
So they can go that their account page. Simply because it's what users are expecting.

An "account" dropdown that's additional, does not make sense to me.
 
It does exactly the same thing as the 'Preferences' link about 100 pixels below it of course ;)
Indeed :D

But for noobs and less savvy users it might be a more obvious way to reach their account page.

Besides which, as Floris has intimated above, a simple template edit will now allow forum owners to replace that with any link they like if they so wish.
 
In the other hand, I'm not sure how a menu that is labelled with your own name could be less intuitive than the cryptic 'User CP' text that was used in vBulletin 3.
A name is just as bad as 'User CP'. People are always looking for Settings or Account. I already know my name - I don't need the system to remind me. ;)

Settings or Account makes it obvious to the user.
 
On the other hand, I'm not sure how a menu that is labelled with your own name could be less intuitive than the cryptic 'User CP' text that was used in vBulletin 3.

I actually remember the very first time I used vBulletin and I was quite perplexed by the term "User CP". After I figured out what CP stood for, I still always thought it should say "Account" or something more understandable at first glance. /off topic.
 
Due to the recent changes, there is now no obvious way to access "Your Account".

I know that all I have to do is hover over my username and click one of the options in the menu and it will take me to that part of my account.
However, new members and those less savvy might get confused by this.

Is it worth just putting a "Your Account" link at the top of the drop down menu, just underneath "Sign out" for example?

I was one of those people who suggested to completely dish the old Your Account menu option on the left side of the bar. Which is a good decision. However, since it is gone, I agree with your point actually. Myself I had the same experience the other day... it was not clear enough how I could actually go to 'My Account' now and since I always try to look through the eyes of the enduser (my memberbase), I am convinced it will be a bit 'unclear' for more people.

When you click your user name to open the menu, clicking the same link (to open the drop down) takes you to:

http://xenforo.com/community/settings/

This is not intuitive enough. You have to know you can click twice... and in my book I have this rule: if I have to know something to be able to do something, it is not intuitive :).

I thought... that there has to be some kind of [fieldset] maybe or horizontal tag inside the big username dropdown to show the enduser these options there are part of Your Account. Until...

I've added a link into 'Preferences' in the white section of the [Your Name] menu to make this a little more apparent.

... this. Thank you. (will play with it a while and see how it feels/works)
 
... this. Thank you. (will play with it a while and see how it feels/works)

So, I did play with it for 5 seconds. And I realized... it is a bit of a redundant link isn't it? Because...

It does exactly the same thing as the 'Preferences' link about 100 pixels below it of course ;)

... exactly this reason.

Kier, why not call this link 'Your Account' and bring the user to exactly that page? : http://xenforo.com/community/settings/

Then the problem of redudancy is solved and we have at the same time the solution to go straight to 'Your Account', which is what we need I believe.
 
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