Don't want to upset anyone but I have to be honest and say the navigation and grouping of the forums is abysmal. It's really, really bad and some one needs to do something about it.
First of all on the homepage of the RSPB main site it's not even obvious there are any forums on the site at all. If you're a first time visitor and that's what you want you won't find any mention of forums anywhere. If scour the page really thoroughly in a detective like manner you might find the icon with 'Community' near the bottom of the page. Click that and you get to the community home page and you see the latest forum posts so it's obvious a forum actually exists. If you're used to internet forums AND you happen to spot the small print under the topic headings you'll probably figure out there are a number of different sub-forums as is the norm. So where is the complete list of all sub-forums? And how does one post a new topic? The answer to such questions should be obvious but it takes more detective work to figure out the latter and a good dose of luck to find the former.
After somehow stumbling on the web site feedback forum I found another post about this and someone fortunately posted a link to the Forum Map. Without this I couldn't have foud the web site feedback forum again. This is very handy but this should be arguably be either the home page of the community section or at least as a top level link from there. Instead it's a reply to a thread tucked away in the web site feedback forum that most people will never see.
The top level navigation is totally confusing too. Navigation titles should be short and unambiguous. Well unless you know what to expect the title of 'Wildlife' tells you nothing. That pretty much covers the whole of what the RSPB is about plus non-birds as well. I suppose one could make an intelligent guess here and assume this means non-avian wildlife. But that would be wrong. If you click it you get more 'latest blog posts' and more 'latest forums' and again if you scour the page you might see the tab for forums. Click that and lo and behold,, at last a complete list of all the forums here. Except you'd be wrong again. That's not a complete list.
Click on NEW POST and you get a drop down list or 8 of the forums and a little message at the bottom saying 'and 2 more'. How you get to post to these extra 2 isn't explained and anyway the fact is there are 4 more on the list to the left and an untold number of forums tucked away somewhere else.
Another confusing menu heading is 'CHAT'. Chat on the internet usually means IRC or Internet Relay Chat or something similar. If that's how a user interprets that he/she won't click on it and won't see the extra forums here. And 'Chat' here doesn't mean IRC at all. It's simply a list of more forums that don't seem to fit anywhere else. As such 'CHAT' is used to mean 'forums' or perhaps 'other forums' which is about as undescriptive as you can get.
It's unorthodox to separate the lists of forums in this way in any case. And it's difficult even when/if you get the hang of the overall plan you won't be able to find the specific forum you want unless you can memorize which main heading it falls under. And having to memorize lists of headings to use a web site is a sure sign of poor design.
I could go on but the point is the navigation is abysmal. I don't say that as someone who rarely uses the internet. I use it a lot and have even worked in web design.
On a more positive note many other aspects of the site are excellent. The visual look of the site is excellent and once you find the forum you want posting text, photos etc is all very easy. The potential is here for a great resource but currently I think it's seriously let down by this one aspect: navigation. As it's implemented at the moment one can only guess at how many potential visitors are being lost.
A second and unrelated problem is site speed. It's OK but it's definitely quite a slow site and would be better on faster servers.
By the way this is not a request for help in getting round the site. It's really to say the aspects outlined above need changing. Regular users might not have a problem with it but the test of site usability is first time users not those who have spent time learning the specifics of a site's navigation.
Yes, I think we all agree. That's why I'm trying to do something about it in my amateurish way.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/about/f/1251/t/60195.aspx
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Tony
My Flickr Photostream
We have been moaning about this since the website was upgraded many months ago. It seems it is down to us as contributors to help each other. TeeJay has recently done a site map for the forum and sub-forums, (see above post) but goodness only knows why the Technical staff couldn't have done one and made it obvious where it was.
It is also noticeable that this thread is now 3 days old and there is no reply as yet from the Technical boys.
Cheers, Linda.
See my photos on Flickr
Echoes of many of our past comments Syntarsus. It is a nightmare. As a new user months ago, I was amazed at how illogical and non intuitive it is. It takes months to get used to and you have to throw out all the standard navigation tools and even a bit of common sense! If it were an old site with an old design, I think we could forgive it and settle in as if it were an old comfy arm chair. But it is new (ish) and for such a large organisation is surprisingly difficult to navigate and make sense of. However it is a charitable organisation and the more money spent on this web site, the less goes on welfare. I suppose!
bye for now
lorraine r said:I am very surprised aswell that the techie boys have not replied to Teejay's excellent work
Are you? I'm not.
The Mods are great with their replies and threads, but the Technical Team is somewhat lacking in communication.
Latest version of my forum navigation diagram is below
Forum Diagram
Well nice to hear I'm not alone in my thoughts. If the site has been made by volunteers then I could see it might not be easy getting them back. However if was paid work I'd have thought that the dissatisfaction here would pretty much oblige them to return to sort it out.
I suppose I should also add this minor error I get with the date stamp. This shows up in Firefox 8.01.
Hi-
that was an excellent overview and sums up the probs we have had since the upgrading of the site.
We regulars probably all come straight to the forum via our faves list. Recently I had an issue getting on and I COULDNT FIND THE FORUM FROM THE HOMEPAGE and I KNOW IT'S THERE :))))
:)
In my experience the Mods are Birders so they understand our needs. The Web team are less bird-user savvy.
S
For advice about Birding, Identification,field guides, binoculars, scopes, tripods, etc - put 'Birding Tips' into the search box
Oh I do feel a bit better now, I thought it was just me!
Here's my two cents.
As a regular forum user for 10+ years (and as a forum administrator myself), I've watched community websites change and improve over time as new web based technology is released, but all forums have kept to the same baseline navigation system because it just works.
You have your forum home page which usually contains a navigation menu at the top to different parts of the forum software (ie, calendar, profile, search, blogs, whatever).
Then on the actual main area of the forum, you have your Categories (ie, Wildlife, Chat, About) these are JUST headings for the actual forum boards which you post in, underneath them would be the boards such as Identify This. For example, under the Chat category you'd have The Art Club and The Tea Rooms etc.
The whole point is that ALL the boards are visible on one page so you can find the section you want without clicking around multiple times.
All other forums work this way, it's a very standard and basic layout - there would be fewer posts in the wrong sections if all boards and their descriptions were visible immediately.
If you need a screenshot to help visualise this I will quickly make one up for you.
I love Columbidae.