“Helpful” and “agree” icons are gone. Where are the page numbers?!?!! A list of 1300 posts (looking at HKimPossible’s thread) doesn’t tell me where and when I left off.
Using a Pixel2 and every time my finger gets near an ad, the entire screen starts vibrating. Annoying as all get out. Happens on the beta and regular site. I’ve seen other posts about it.
Um, that’s not what beta testing generally means.
And as one of the beta testers who mentioned that the whitespace issue is improved on the new forums but still isn’t great, plus as someone who has been pretty vocal about the need to do careful beta testing before rolling anything out, I’m kind of disturbed by just brushing away @momofsenior1’s issue. If one of the main purposes of the new forums is to improve the user experience, then the beta phase should involve more than just making sure the login process works!
I did get feedback from one beta tester about the missing “helpful” and “agree” icons. I’m curious how people use them. It’s nice to have options, but I can never figure out what they communicate.
The site should take you back to where you left off, but it doesn’t know how far you read on this version of the site. Please let me know if it doesn’t scroll you down next time you visit the thread on the new site, @CountingDown .
If it happens on both sites, it’s probably an issue with the ad server. I’ll bring it up to the team.
I poked around a bit and something I don’t like is how long threads have a continuous scroll. It was easy to remember a certain post I wanted to double back to was on page 3 or whatever, and I don’t enjoy the forever scroll to find things.
We got tons of excellent feedback. Addressing that feedback requires prioritizing and planning. The most important and urgent things are log in issues. After that are usability issues like making sure people don’t have to scroll through hundreds of schools to find the Parent Cafe. (And yes, we had that problem in the very beginning.)
How the page is laid out is important, but won’t stop anyone from using the site. Changing the layout of the page for one device has a high risk of breaking the site for other devices. I don’t want to dismiss the concern, but I do want to be very clear it’s not something to be hasty about.
“Agree” means you 100% agree with what was posted (i.e. you get your post validated)
“Like” means you liked the post but don’t necessarily “Agree” or that it is “Helpful”
“Helpful” could mean that the post helped you understand something better or a lot of times if someone is having a difficult time or has a trying experience members will select “Helpful”. For example, a student writes that his father died last year and caused his grades to go way down. You want to convey empathy and that you are sorry about their situation, you can select “Helpful” (you wouldn’t select “Agree” and certainly not “Like”.
I do think we should have a “Disagree” button.
Regarding the “new look”, you really need to have page numbers for threads (or an easy way to navigate).
I would like to see easily the bookmark and message icons on that home page as in the past. I use those a lot. Don’t want to have to hunt and peck for them.
The left column is great…very clear with all the forums. But that right side? What is that? Is it latest posts? Is it frequent posts? What is it? What is the purpose of that list of posts? I think it’s very busy…and when I looked at it, there wasn’t one thing on there I was interested in.
I see that you indicate posts as 2/18, 3/18. Frankly, I think post numbers are better. I agree with others upstream that page numbers would be good to have as well. There are times when I’m looking for something and need to go back a couple of pages to find it, way easier with page numbers than just scrolling and scrolling. Especially true for very long threads.
Like and agree. These save time when others simply want to agree with something posted, or like what has been said. Is it a problem to have that?
I saw no evidence of the tags. Are they gone. Good! No Kai either…if you bring him back please make the “forget forever” really be forever!
I would suggest that you put this request for feedback in a red banner at the top of every forum. That way, it will stand out.
If it helps, there is a slider bar on the side of the post that you can use to move up and down the thread.
Edit to provide feedback: I was switched to Discourse on another forum I frequent and I hated it at first. It took me a while to figure out how to get around. But once you’re used to it, it’s pretty good. I do hope you will reinstate the “agree” and “helpful” buttons.
I can’t wait to be able to format my text. It would be much easier to read some of the longer and more informative posts on here (especially on the phone) if they could be organized with formatting.
I am still unable to log in to the new platform. As soon as I hit Log In, I get a pink box saying my account has been suspended until September of 3020. I sent screenshots to Sorin.
We’re working on this. From what I understand, it’s a mismatch between your current account here and the data we imported in August. As soon as we have a solution, we’ll let you know.
@CCadmin_Jon Samsung Galaxy Tab A.
When I click on the avatar, I do not see Bookmarks. Same on the cell, a Galaxy S10. I get lines of earned anniversary notices. I don’t care about that sort of stuff.
I understand the need to attract and keep new users. But among the longer timers, we need to distinguish between when we come in to idly poke around versus when we want to get straight down to business, head straight for Latest or delve into what’s new under Bookmarked threads.
I also still think categories like Prep School or Transfers (whatever) could be color coded. How many times I open an admissions thread only to find it’s about boarding school.
I have a bunch of comments:
Which brings me to a general rule: if people are using a feature, that means they like it and find it useful. It is just basic common sense, and whether or not you understand WHY is not really relevant, just know that it IS useful. (Of course, it would be icing on the cake if you do understand why, so you can expand and emphasize what does work about CC).
Another general rule: stop shutting discussion down! Instead, do everything you can to FOSTER interesting discussion. With every decision you take, as yourself: does this encourage, or discourage, discussion?
To be continued when I have more time –
I only use CC on a PC. Print is too small on my phone. On my PC, it is FAR TOO MUCH information on each page, which makes the background too ‘noisy’. I also did not see a way to jump in where I left off last (which the current site does well). The slide bar was nice, but I have no clue where to place it based on my last visit.
When you go to the list of threads there’s a whole row of icons of various people who have posted. This seems seriously pointless.
@mathmom agree. That is the list I see on the right side of my iPad screen. Just a waste of space. The left side listed forums is great.
I agree about the badges and other “awards”. And the tags. Not useful. Plus it seems that incorrect tags end up on posts.
My eyes want to ignore the entire left hand of the page on my laptop. It is very busy with all of the links. I’m not sure why but it hurts my eyes. It may be the size and amount of links. The right side is fine.
I like the content organization.
I also agree with the like and helpful buttons, They should stay.
I didn’t have to log in, when I clicked on the link here, or when I copied and pasted the address.
Question: what happened to many of the posts in the parents’ forum, not related to a class of 20xx?
Also, why are musical theater schools listed but music, art and dance schools aren’t? Not that I want them all listed. I would think musical theater would just be listed as a major without the list of schools.
I have always wanted easier access to majors forums, so my pet issue is addressed 
No need for badges. I think just a “like” button would suffice. I have never understood whether to do like, agree or helpful. A dislike button would cause hurt feelings and conflict, I think.
The low usage of CC would seem to be a result of COVID.
Unsure about the logic here: There’s less use of a social media outlet (and that’s what these forums are, social media) because so many people are stuck at home in front of their screens all day?
For my part, I chalk the lower traffic on CC up to a few own goals: The botched login changes, the abrupt change in the site’s visuals, the focus on “engagement” (e.g., the badges) over content (including, as mentioned upthread, from shutting down discussion before it’s done).
That’s part of why I’m in favor of the site redesign—a few kinks to work out as mentioned in this thread, but on the whole I like the new site better—but even so I’m highly skeptical that it will solve the overall problem.
Well I am still finding the site very slow to load, which is annoying. Seems like it is loading access to thousands of ads rather than access to college information.
Not understanding the color coding. Is there a key somewhere? Subcategories have different colored “dots”, and some dots are even half and half. Whats that all about?
And while there is a lot of info blasted on one page, that is a mixed blessing. Its a little overwhelming at first, and the type is teeny tiny. So trying to touch something to try to select it is hard enough on the ipad. But at least its in 2 columns on the ipad. On the phone it’s one ginormous scrolling event. All this scrolling has been one of the things I have disliked about the new layouts. JMO
Overall i don’t mind the new look… i agree with most of the comments made. One I have not heard … when I open any post or thread… there does not seem to be a way to get back to anywhere. So i am forced to use the back button.
Was it a clear decision to have no navigation within a thread? Or is this just something that appears on my desktop screen?