UBB.Developers Forums UBB.threads 7 Development How Do I? Useability Testing

Anybody else ever done useability testing of wwwthreads. I have been running it for a while now and for the first time we did useability testing. Seriously depressing results. A newbie user is totally lost.
Probably off topic but some discussion is probably a good idea?

A forum on my main site has a statement in one of the forum descripts in bold lettering to place specific questions in that forum. It's a plain and simple statement. I still get way to many questions being asked in the wrong forum.

Expecting new users to actually read what is in front of them is also depressing. Most never do...

I think one of the main benefits to the software being purchased by Infopop is that they have a staff member or 2 (or 3) that do this type of work. The usability (gui) of threads should gradually improve, still retaining its wwwthreads style.

There are some things we'll be working on in the meantime. I think the "quick reply" helps a lot in this. Removing things from view that most do not use and only confuses the newbies are another. Making "post new topic" and "reply" buttons/text a little more prominent another. Some wording changes, etc. etc.

Yeah, when I first switched from UBB -> threads it was still 5.5, and my users were about 50/50. Some loved the new features, others were like "its too hard to follow, I'm not good at computers". Others were just overwhelmed by all the options, like flat or threaded mode, etc. But once I posted instructions and what each feature does people really got used to it.

Now, everyone loves it, compliments on how fast it is, all the features, etc. I think they would all drag me out into the street and shoot me if I ever changed software again

Like Allen said, I think once most of the features are in the program and running well more time will be spent focusing on enhancements to the gui to make it as userfriendly as possible. The small buttons replacing text links (or at least an option to do that) is just one of the many ways to do that.

I'm currently involved in implementing ubbthreads as a forum for a newssite, and we also got a lot of usability issues going on. so far the testing has only been with internal staff, but this has already brought some helpful hints.
newbie users are confused with many things - icons, graemlins, ubb-code, colors, last post...

most striking: newbies often do not know if they are logged in or not.

the biggest problem with ubb-code: users mark some text and then hit the code-button, e.g. bold - and the text disappears (they probably hit enter without filling in the javascript-popup)
one could say, they will learn about that - but it would be easier if they were not forced to learn ("don't make me think" as this is called)

That's why all forums have a fairly visible FAQ link, it explains this to newbies. For anyone who has used any message board software BBcode is almost standardised now. Really new users are going to have trouble with that regardless of the software.

The quick reply mod has really helped on my board. People who want the toys can use it the regular way.

We've had many new first posters makeing replies. When they are comfortable, they can learn all the codes and graemlins. The quick reply helps them simply say what they want to say with one click and one field to fill in.

I'd say it would be good to have a set of templates for beginners, that only has the absolute basic functions and clear instructions on how things should be done. When the user get's more experienced they can turn on the advanced interface with all functions.

User selectable templates is quite doable with the current way .threads is set up. I know it's on Rick's list but I am not sure where it falls in the list... lol

One thing that would need to be changed is to add a call for the field that would contain the template name to all queries as every script would need the information just like the stylesheets.

Actually, there is already a variable called $tempstyle that is set in ubbt.inc.php. As default this is set to "default" and is used by all scripts. So it is possible to have several sets of templates and change between them by setting this variable.

So the only thing that has to be added is a field in the user table to set which template set to use.

So the real problem is really to do a template set that is easy and understandable.

that part is easy I can handle easy templates

Something that might be considered is for the templates to switch to the default once the user hits 20 or 30 or 50 posts or something...

Yeah, that would probably be a good idea since they might not find it otherwise. The user should be informed of this change though, or asked if it should be done. It might be confusing otherwise, when the forums look completely different.

Hiya again, thanks for the input.
We sat some new users down in front of threads and they were completely lost which is what prompted the post.
A few specifics for everybodies edification although I dont want to spoil anybodies weekend

* they could not even find the FAQ link as they did not know what FAQ meant, when they were shown it they opened it, looked, and then decided that it was to complex and muddeled on - go figure.
* my quick links is for registered users only although we have both types of fori ( ), open and closed, so that once they found a forum they were interested in posting in - a problem in itself as they did not understand what Forum Index meant and when they tried a search they did not understand what the results meant - they did not under stand what Post meant nor did they understand that a post had replies.
* once we had managed to get them to register - why do you want my email address etc - they were taken back to the forum where they did not realise that they still had to log in.
* once they were logged in they were taken to 'My Home' where they were lost, they did not know what anything meant and did not know where to go from there.

Unfortunately it goes on.

What I have looked at for a first step is taking one of the language files and adding as much explanatory information in as simple a language as possible. Next up I will probably follow the advice above about a different template set and after that I will get some design work done for big bold buttons. (I will put these up as we go along.)
It means segregating the users into beginner, intermediate and power users and what I am going to try and do is use that as part of the community building as we have users who have been on the system for years and others who are new. Part of what caused the usibility testing was the fact that although we have a couple of thousand users we only have about 50 regular posters and we could not understand why people were registering but never posting.

Great work on this! It is a very big help knowing exactly what it is that is confusing.

Regarding the FAQ, I have changed it to Help/Questions on our forums, which hopefully helps a bit. But if they don't read it when they get to it it won't be of any use.

An idea that I've had is to have a Quick Tip every time a (new) user logs in, which basicly could be a randomized question from the FAQ. This would mean that they would only get a little piece of information, so that it won't be as overwhelming. Also, the start page for beginners could have some welcome information, some tips on how to get started etc.

I agree there should maybe be a seperate template system for novice users, mainly because some people just don't do this computer stuff a lot.

In your case it looks as if these people would have trouble with ANY message board system. If they didn't know what FAQ meant then they would need a lot of things simplified for them to use forums.

So I think that would be a good thing to work on, is templates for forums for the people who don't use things like these very often. Especially in internal environments and such where they really only use the forums for business and such. This would help keep the learning curve to a minimum yet still retain all the features.

Simpler does sound better at times.

I've created a "Frequently Asked Questions - Site Help" forum where I answer basic questions.

I haven't linked the "FAQ" link to it. I'm thinking I should rename the FAQ link to "HELP" and then make it link to my forum.

I have also modified my language files...so that error messages link to my FAQ Forum.

Then the post about deleting cookies is Sticky...as that's the most common technical problem. I've got step by step instructions written for each OS to walk people through the process.

It has cut down on alot of questions.

And when new questions surface, I add them to the FAQ forum.

A forum dedicated to this usually works pretty good. What I have thought about is having something like this available for download. Basically what that means is maybe we start a forum her on threadsdev. We then add common questions and answers to the forum that are general (no links to hardcoded urls, etc). Then once a week we do a mysqldump of the forum. Then anyone could come here and download it. They just setup a forum with the same keyword and import it.

The trick in this would be the posternames. 6.2 will be going by posterid but this still wouldn't match everything. We could probably do an update before dumping and set all posterids to userid 2 which is the main admin account so when imported on a site it looks like the main admin made all of the posts.

Just a thought at this point

Rick,

That's an Excellent Idea.

Many people ask if they can copy stuff from mine.... Burns asked me today in another thread. Answer: yes, please feel free.

This would work best to be able to edit down any problems into a simple, question-answer-solution formula.

Question: What if before dumping here.... you updated all the User IDs on the posts in that forum to "0"....the Do Not Delete User and changed the Name to something Generic...that probably wouldn't exist on anyone elses forum, like "UserHelp" in whatever field it stores the username if you allow them to choose one.

Would that allow you to import it into your board as "User Help" without a link to anyone's profile? Thus generic.

Just a thought... but I like this idea.

I send alot of people at the infopop site to my site for cookie instructions and such.... but not everyone may appreciate my board at first glance.

heheh, wonder why

I think the idea is a great one too, we can do something like that, it shouldn't be too difficult to update the poster names to some type of SiteHelper/ User Help or something

If it helps, I can create an account with that name when we are ready to get to work... we can work on threads, refining the wording, etc. and then make some clean threads, delete the old stuff, and do a mysql dump Josh has some great material that would make for an excellent start

he he indeed
As an aside: At first glance my site contains some porn or adult material.
Look deeper and we help alot of people. We saved a 19 year old from Suicide in a thread this last week (he tells us) and convinced him to seek the medial attention/hormone treatments that he needs. He goes to the doc Tuesday. The other admin at my site even offerd to pay for his doctor visit and fly out there if he needed someone to go with him. So I defend with every bad there is some good.
But that first glance is killer.


On my agenda this weekend is to revise/redo some of my help/faq posts as some things have changed... or will be changing with 6.1.

I'll post them whereever, however we decide to do it. I'll look forward to sharing everyone elses ideas as well.

That all sounds great. I'll try to get some help from my admins/mods to translate some information aboute features and such. We have been bad-mouthed on other Swedish forums because we are using threaded forums... A little interesting since threads also has flat mode. =] We really need to show that we have the option of flat mode as well, because we can't be on all other boards telling people how it actually works on our site. =]

There's a problem with this, Scream.

The best way to aid newbies is to shut down as many bell/whistle features, remove as many icons, gremlins, buttons, and otherwise generally de-clutter the interface as much as possible. You guys are too close to it, you don't see how crammed and confusing it's all getting (thru the eyes of newbies).

But given that, the one-help-forum-serves-all approach doesn't work, because it will refer frequently to buttons, features, etc, which a given user might not see in his forum. Thus INCREASING confusion.

So these two solutions are essentially at odds. The central help forum is good for NON-newbie forums that have everything turned on. The webmaster would essentially send terrified newbies there for aid and comfort.

But a site that's extra newbie-concerned (and has weeded out features/buttons) will create as much confusion as it dispels by sending them there.


JIM

We have it set up so people can pick and choose those helps that are... helpful to them.

We'll also be developing some alternate templates as well that are extra-newbie-friendly, with the option to set them for a particular forum or site (forum) wide.

A couple of months ago I searched the web to find a (free) forum system that was easy to understand for inexperienced computer users. I couldn't find a single one, noone even tried working in that direction. Every single forum system either tried to have as many functions as possible, be easy to install (for the admin) or look as flashy as possible. For a newbie user none of these three ways are of any use.

A simple interface for newbies would give threads a huge advantage IMHO.

And I'm not the one to do it, since I'm too much of a techie. But as you say, removing all extra functions will probably help a long way. Also easy to understand descriptions everywhere would probably be good.

Coming up

"We have it set up so people can pick and choose those helps that are... helpful to them."

That assumes that newbies 1. are aware of what different features are called (so they can do that picking/choosing), 2. are aware what's on or off on their forum, and that 3. no topic ever makes confusing reference to other features or icons which the user may not have in his home forum. It assumes, in other words, that newbies are pretty slick. And if they're slick, they're not going to want/need to go to the central newbie forum.

This isn't academic; as larger sites start using UBBT, there will be many more features and graphical elements shut off. As the thread starter here has noted, UBBT fully "loaded" is newbie hell. And larger sites have LOTS of newbies coming in all the time; it's not just a matter of educating the user base once and that's it.


"We'll also be developing some alternate templates as well that are extra-newbie-friendly, with the option to set them for a particular forum or site (forum) wide."

awesome.

In the newbie template, I'd suggest turning off:

ranking of threads/posters

"date registered" (which I myself keep mistakenly mistaking for the post date), also location and post number

showing number of posts for a user

seniority titles

gremlins, icons, and instant UBB code

Private messages

thread views (save some server/db stress, too)

post icons

email and reminder icons (and function)

"extra information" and "permissions" footers

If you clear that stuff out, what remains is a fairly intuitive setup where a newbie can actually concentrate on reading and posting messages without being distracted by a page full of doodads and text.

also:

make the "post" button twice as big and thrice as conspicuous and change "FAQ" to "help"

change every iteration of words like "next" and "previous" change to "next post/thread/board", "previous post/thread/board"

Explain the registration process at the very top. I've had (intelligent) testers get lost at every stage of this process.


JIM

[]
"We have it set up so people can pick and choose those helps that are... helpful to them."

That assumes that newbies 1

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the stuff you can pick and choose from is for the admins of the site. if you don't use a button, you don't have to add the faq/help-thread for it

thanks for the template suggestions, I'll look over them once I get started