Making the boards friendlier for new users?

[Morrus]

I'm trying to think of ways to make the boards friendlier for new users. For example, I changed "Register" to "Join EN World" because I felt that was more inviting, and its meaning was clearer to those who are not used to messageboards.

Are there any other changes you can think of? I don't feel that "User CP" is a particularly clear label, although I can't think of a better phrase offhand.

Any thoughts or ideas are welcome - my suggestion is that you try logging out and visiting the boards and looking at them as though for the first time. See if you can see where somebody might get confused. Maybe walk yourself through the registration process (without actually registering).

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Piratecat]

I'd probably also change user cp to something else; right now, it's just not intuituve.

Perhaps "My settings" or "my account"?

 

[JoeBlank]

Friendlier for new users is a good idea. I have no experience with running a website, so these are just the observations of one guy who surfs the internet:

"Join EN World" sounds inviting in common conversation, but on the internet it usually means "pay us money to view more content". Maybe I've just seen too many of those kind of web sites, but when I see "Join" I think the site wants money from me.

Doesn't User CP stand for Control Panel? Maybe that would make more sense, or just "User Options".

Although I am not a Hiveminder, I for one welcome and respect our alien overlords (or something like that). Hivemind is a good name for the OT forum, and I enjoy the fun names, but some mention should be made in the name that this is the off topic forum. (Perhaps a parenthetical, as I share Morrus's habit of overusing them.)

 

[Steverooo]

A "Help!" document would be nice, explaining how to do un-intuitive things, like post a poll, etc. Maybe a FAQs (and answers) page, as well (although there's not a lot of difference berween the two). "How Tos" are always nice.

 

[Psionicist]

A good start is to remove all unnecessary features, tables, boxes, buttons etc. It's very confusing.

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1384833&postcount=36

 

[Morrus]

(Perhaps a parenthetical, as I share Morrus's habit of overusing them.)

Oi! I do not (honestly!).

 

[Morrus]

A good start is to remove all unnecessary features, tables, boxes, buttons etc. It's very confusing.

Some of your suggestions are very good, Psionicist, and I'll certainly look at them.

Others, I'm not sure sure about. A few of them suggest that users just check elsewhere for the info; I'm of the opinion that every time you require someone to actively do something to find the info, you reduce the chance that they'll be able to do it. For example, my grandmother would never think to check someone's profile (or even know that it's possible), but she might like seeing someone's location next to their name - "Oooh! That nice chap lives in Newport! I went there for my holidays last year!".

I realise that using a grandmother is a bit of an extreme example, but from the "Help!" emails I regularly get, having as many of the options/info clearly displayed on the screen is a good thing.

I especially think that having the style dropdown on the main page is important. A lot of people want different styles, and many of them don't know where to find it.

 

[Henry]

...For example, my grandmother would never think to check someone's profile (or even know that it's possible), but she might like seeing someone's location next to their name - "Oooh! That nice chap lives in Newport! I went there for my holidays last year!".

I happen to know from talking to Rel that the now-regular North Carolina Gamedays would likely have not happened had the locations not been listed in an easily observable place

 

[Morrus]

I've changed "User CP" to "My Account" for the moment.

 

[Morrus]

Hmm... that's odd. The change seems to have applied to my post, too. Maybe "Replacement Variables" isn't quite what I thought it was. Just goes to show that software can sometimes be too confusing!