topic Re: Online Community Refresh in About Our Community

Online Community Refresh

AARPMichaelP — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 20:10:51 GMT

Hello Community Members!

Online Community has updated the site design in our discussions area to make it easier to connect, follow a conversation and access resources.

The new look and feel will be rolled out in multiple phases starting with these initial improvements in the conversations and replies levels.

Overall, this redesign provides a cleaner, more user-friendly experience. We appreciate that any change can be hard, but hopefully, in short order you’ll not only find your way around, but will find new ways to participate and engage in our Online Community.

The enhancements that we have immediately rolled out consist of the following.

To aid legibility and ease of use, we:

Updated formatting for lettering, color schemes and discussion threading
Removed duplicative navigation links that caused confusion
Removed design elements that cluttered the page and discussion
Implemented the industry standard for post length and height and offer Read More… option when post is truncated

To follow discussions and replies within a discussion, we:

Moved date and time to the left of the message number, all on one row
Kept the first post at the top of the conversation with replies following
Used indentation to associate replies to specific posts

To facilitate interaction, we implemented the following:

Kudos are now represented by the universally used thumbs-up
Moved action links to one place
Enhanced the Social Share option

To provide better access to key announcements and resources within your community, we cleaned up the right side part of the discussion pages to include:

Search, Announcements Feature, Two new Custom Component Features (allowing for HTML) ACE’s and Experts
Top Tags and Top Authors components have been removed

For those of you who used the Quick Reply option, you will now need to use the ‘Reply’ button.

Removed the Quick Reply option

Here are some "How To's" links to help you demonstrate, execute and properly navigate your experience:

How To Start a Topic

How To Reply to a Post

How to Expand the Editor Box When Replying

How To Use the Icons

How To Set My Viewing Preferences

How To Display Discussions in Chronological Order

Thank you for being part of our Online Community. Let us know what you think of the updates by clicking on the red ‘Feedback’ tab on the right of the page.

AARP Online Community

Always there for you.

Experts. Tips. Connection.

Re: Online Community Refresh!

williamb39198 — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 17:12:40 GMT

Sorry, but...
So far, not impressed. The older format worked quite well. Perhaps in the other topics, members wanted a change. I am not on Twitter or Facebook. I might be resigned to learning to live with it.

Re: Online Community Refresh!

catwoman500 — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 17:27:56 GMT

This stinks....no order or continuity to the posts. Can't even tell if my post was "posted."

Re: Online Community Refresh!

TxGrandpa2 — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 18:28:06 GMT

Just another useless change to make the posts hard to navigate and hard to understand. Basically the page is too 'busy' with non-essential sections i.e. the right section of this page. Comes across as amateurist. Remember the site is supposed to be geared toward senior and should be simpler as before. No input from users.

The original programmers several decades ago had the right idea with their formatting which has served since.

Re: Online Community Refresh!

oceanedge2 — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 18:31:25 GMT

Moved date and time to the left of the message number, all on one row

Except the message's number, I no longer see. Nor the number of pages for a given thread. I used a system for retaining member's posts - using the page and post number assigned to their thoughts.

When making a reply, the site's tab on my banner would change to "Reply".... Not now and that is very irritating to not have that noted appropriately.

The small space to compose a reply? Sucks. It's just rude.

Re: Online Community Refresh!

aruzinsky — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 20:34:47 GMT

@AARPMichaelP wrote:
Hello Community Members!

You said you wanted a more updated design to make it easier to connect, follow discussions and find resources. We heard you, and today we’re happy to announce the new design is here!

The new look and feel will be rolled out in multiple phases starting with today’s improvements in the conversations and replies levels.

Overall, this redesign gives you a cleaner, more user-friendly experience, and more engaging on every page! We know change can be hard, but hopefully in short order you’ll not only find your way around, but will find new ways to participate and engage in our Online Community.

The enhancements that we have immediately rolled out consist of the following.

To aid legibility and ease of use, we:

Updated formatting for lettering, color schemes and discussion threading
Removed duplicative navigation links that caused confusion
Removed design elements that cluttered the page and discussion
Implemented the industry standard for post length and height and offer Read More… option when post is truncated

To follow discussions and replies within a discussion, we:

Moved date and time to the left of the message number, all on one row
Kept the first post at the top of the conversation with replies following
Used indentation to associate replies to specific posts

To facilitate interaction, we implemented the following:

Kudos are now represented by the universally used thumbs-up
Moved action links to one place
Enhanced the Social Share option

To provide better access to key announcements and resources within your community, we cleaned up the right side part of the discussion pages to include:

Search, Announcements Feature, Two new Custom Component Features (allowing for HTML) ACE’s and Experts
Top Tags and Top Authors components have been removed

For those of you who used the Quick Reply option, you will now need to use the ‘Reply’ button.

Removed the Quick Reply option

Thank you for being part of our Online Community. Let us know what you think of the updates by clicking on the red ‘Feedback’ tab on the right of the page.

AARP Online Community
Always there for you.
Experts. Tips. Connection.

Who is "You"? The only improvement I see is that the forum posts are no longer backward.

In most of the posts, "Show More" has to be clicked. That stinks.

Re: Online Community Refresh!

LydiaN586309 — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 21:22:02 GMT

Dear Michael,

This whole forum reconstruction was, in my humble opinion, a resounding failure! What in the world were you folks thinking? And why no input or request for suggestions from us--the users? And why no forewarning of these big changes as they make for nothing but "disorder" and confusion?

In the words of Nancy Kerrigan (Olympic skater of the '90s), "WHY? WHY?"😭

Re: Online Community Refresh!

MaVolta — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 21:47:43 GMT

You could have given us a heads up, or something to try out first. You could have asked for some opinions on proposed changes.

I do like that it is "supposed" to keep threads together the way other forums work. But there is no way to not be in a thread on most topics that I have seen. Only on one topic did I see a "Reply to Topic" space at the bottom of the page. On this page, I can only reply to you or someone else which will become part of a thread. The "reply to topic" is not available to keep it in proper sequence. So this post is replying to you, and it will appear out of order.

And for what it's worth, I don't think that the layout is all that great. Most of what appears in the right hand column is useless information.

Re: Online Community Refresh!

BobH07 — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 00:25:40 GMT

The new format is a total mess. Posts are not in chronological order.

Everything is very confusing. I'll stay off till you get it fixed.

Not sure why you messed with something that wasn't broken.

Re: Online Community Refresh!

jen43 — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 01:48:25 GMT

Hi, This is going to take some getting used to,can we make the font larger, and use color? Can't find an option. will that come later, Hanging in there,Jen

Re: Online Community Refresh!

GailL1 — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 02:05:13 GMT

I seem to be having problems making post which contain links and/or font styles like bold or italics.

It keeps giving me an error message - I can't post the error message here because then it won't allow me to post this message.

Edited to add: Trying a screen shot

Re: Online Community Refresh!

miliannie — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 05:18:19 GMT

Everything new requires some adjustment. You will find older members (over 70) react differently than younger members (as in just turned AARP eligible).

Re: Online Community Refresh!

Panjandrum — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 11:53:17 GMT

Easier to connect? How so?

Re: Online Community Refresh!

sandy — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 14:48:24 GMT

@GailL1, This message comes up when you're adding many messages quickly to the community forums. Are you still having the problem?

Sandy

Re: Online Community Refresh!

sandy — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 14:55:11 GMT

@jen43,

When replying to a message, you are now presented with the reply editor just below the post you're replying to. On the top row of the editor, click the three dots to see all the options. This is where you will find font and color.

Re: Online Community Refresh!

sandy — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 17:04:51 GMT

@BobH07

The default sort is the most recent post first. What's different now is that the first post that started the conversations is anchored at the top. The replies flow under the anchored post and are threaded with an indentation. This new flow takes away the need to quote and copy information from the message you are replying to because it falls directly beneath.

I hope this helps you better understand the new format.

Re: Online Community Refresh!

sandy — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:28:53 GMT

@MaVolta

Clicking the reply on the anchored post at the top will result in a reply to the overall conversation. Replying to an individual post will put the reply just below the post you've clicked the reply button on.

I hope this helps.

Sandy

Re: Online Community Refresh!

GailL1 — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 15:53:44 GMT

@sandy wrote:
@MaVolta
Clicking the reply on the anchored post at the top will result in a reply to the overall conversation. Replying to an individual post will put the reply just below the post you've clicked the reply button on.

I hope this helps.

Sandy

I think this sorting style works very well on many of the Community boards where the main topic is usually the complete focus of the discussion. But on those boards or on those topics where the discussion is actually a discussion - like the Politics and Current Events Board and probably some others - then without some sort of index source for the topic it just gets confusing trying to respond to different posters.

Re: Online Community Refresh!

MaVolta — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:16:57 GMT

Yes, I understand that. That isn’t my issue.

Re: Online Community Refresh!

GailL1 — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:26:46 GMT

@MaVolta wrote:
Yes, I understand that. That isn’t my issue.

If you want to REPLY to the topic then you just reply to the initial post that started the topic. Like on this topic you would just go to the beginning post and hit reply. See the "REPLY" button at the bottom of AARPMichaelP initial post. (screen shot below)