Read part 1 first »

We recently moved a forum options sidebar from the left to the right of the screen in an online community I help run.

The change generated a lot of discussion and in this post I’ll document how people reacted to the change and some of the ways I’ve managed the feedback.

Reactions to changing a layout

Initial reactions seemed to fall along three lines (in order of magnitude):

• Users who felt uncomfortable with the movement. Things weren’t where they expected them to be, and it took them back.
• Users who didn’t care about the change, they were more interested in doing what they always did on the site.
• Users who liked the change immediately, for no particular reason.

After some time, reactions changed to (in order of magnitude):

• Users who got used to the change, and carried on as usual.
• Users who preferred things how they once were and had a reason for their opinion.

A change in layout does require a change in behaviour. It’s going to be strange at first - hence the reason I like to give things a month to see how they pan out.

Managing feedback from changing a layout

When we introduced the layout switch, we gave limited reasons as to why we made the change. One of these was:

We read from left to right, and the content is the focus of the forum, not the options first.

I feel very strongly about this reason and had researched how people were actually using the forum’s sidebar options over the previous six months to back up this decision.

On so many sites, the real content is crowded between sidebars and focus is taken off of the main purpose of the site. I’m not talking primarily about sidebars used for navigation here, but sidebars with related options and information to the center stage.

In a forum, I want readers to first focus on reading the forum topics and forum threads. That’s what the forum is there for. Not options and information such as “mark all read”, “bookmarked discussions”, “edit profile” or even “who’s online”.

However, one site member strongly disagreed with the change. Comments included:

“It goes against all the site usability rules.

We have millions of websites worldwide as irrefutable proof that the left hand side is the correct location for this panel. Surely they can’t all be wrong?

I would NEVER recommend to a client that they have their side bar on the right. People expect to see this stuff on the left because that is where it has always been. Nothing puts people off using a website faster, than not finding things where they expect them to be. For that reason alone, I am amazed that the change was made.”

The other day I came across this quote:

“Any architect who tells you that the bathroom always needs to be in a certain place in every house is obviously insane or a control freak. Why do we think any different from “usability gurus”? (Dan Saffer - UX Week 2007)”

I responded by saying:

“If the sidebar was primarily used for navigation, then I would have left it on the left hand side. It is not primarily a navigational aid. It has a login, forum statistics, options, filters and preferences along with two banners.

As a person who makes a living from designing websites, research-based decisions are important to me. I am not advocating that right hand sidebars are right for every site, but with our sidebar content, I believe it is the right decision.

Based on thorough research of the last six months of 2007 of how users of this site are behaving, very few people are using the sidebar to navigate the forum.

Putting the options and preferences to the right hand side means that the focus goes back on the content - the forum topics and the forum comments, which are the most important things in a forum. We also subliminally reinforce the message that people should read topics first, before clicking the “add discussion” button.

To navigate through the forum, one does not need the information in the sidebar - and in fact, the only link people are using in any real quantity is the link to the off topic forum, one which is not an essential aspect of the site.

When people come to the forum page and click on another link within the site, here is what they are doing:

44% Reloading the forum page (i.e. checking to see if something has changed since last load)
42% Clicking through to one of the latest forum topics
6% Clicking through to an item in the top menu
3% Logging in / changing things in their account page
3% Clicking through to the Off Topic forum category
1% Adding a new forum topic
1% Searching the forum
1% Other (< 0.5% each)

Within forum topics, the click rate on the sidebar ranges from a mere 0.1% - 2%. The bulk of people click on the forum link at the top, a pagination link, the bottom/top of page links or something else in the main menu."

(Note: slightly edited for brevity.)

While I strongly believed my decision was the right one, I was still open to changing things back after a month - when initial reactions had died down, and people were used to the new furniture positions.

Aside from the one member who felt strongly about the issue, it hasn’t been mentioned as an issue by others since that time.

So, we’re about to reach the end of the month and I look forward to the responses from people. Again we’ll survey logged in members over a two week period.

The sky hasn’t fallen, and traffic is up. My prediction is that the vast majority will say they are happy with how things are, or don’t care what happens.

Dealing with people who disagree with change isn’t easy and you’re not going to please everyone.

I’ve been thinking about and observing how people react to change and how best to manage it in an online community - whether it’s a blog, a forum or a ‘portal’.

This week Jeff Croft - one of the designers whose blog I read - made a sudden and dramatic change to his blog design. He’s been busy responding to feedback and queries about the design and posted more details about the design and colors in a blog post response. How he has dealt with response to the redesign has been the most fascinating part of the whole thing for me.

Meanwhile, in an online community I help run, we made a number of changes about a month ago after much thought and research.

One was adding a new feature to vote up or down others’ comments in a forum.
Another was moving the forum options sidebar from the left to the right of the screen.

Both these changes generated a lot of discussion on the site and in this post I’ll document how people reacted to the changes and some of the ways I’ve managed the feedback.

We all know that many people don’t like change. Why?

Reactions to adding a new feature

Initial reactions to a new feature seemed to fall along three lines (in order of magnitude):

• Users who love a new toy and get straight to work at giving it a go, experimenting with it.
• Users who are happy to carry on doing what they normally do and aren’t interested in something new or don’t feel like they have a need for it.
• Users who love a new toy but quickly get frustrated as they can’t seem to figure out how to work it.

After some time, reactions changed to (in order of magnitude):

• Users who found the new feature a useful part of their regular life on the site.
• Users who ignored the new feature and carried on as usual.
• Users who wished the new feature would just disappear and things went back to how they once were. How other people were using the new feature bothered them.

Managing feedback from adding a new feature

When we introduced the new feature, we gave clear examples of how a person might use the new feature.

We opened a forum topic for discussion about how people were using the new feature, what they liked and disliked - so that people with opinions had a place to express them.

We made some minor tweaks in response but deliberately didn’t add on new features to the new feature.

We said the new feature was a trial for a month. After a month, we are now running a deliberately short private survey of online members for two weeks. A month seems about the right time to evaluate a website change. Initial reactions have calmed (whether positive or negative) and patterns of usage have formed.

Instead of emailing all members asking for them to complete the survey, we wanted to focus on the regular site members (defined as logging into the site over a two week period) cared about the issue enough to respond to a short survey.

The questions were (generalised here):

• Have you used the new feature in the past week?
• Do you think the new feature should stay, go or you don’t mind either way? Why?
• Any other comments about the new feature?

Members have been grateful for the opportunity to have a say in the direction of where the website goes via the survey. We haven’t promised that the “majority rules” in the survey, but are noticing that the final decision will please almost everyone. We’ll then look at adding new features suggested by members and manage that change process separately from the initial implementation.

A question I have been pondering in light of the way people initially react to change:

Are people are not as resistant to change itself as they are to being changed?

Read Part two: managing reactions to changing a site’s design

“Any architect who tells you that the bathroom always needs to be in a certain place in every house is obviously insane or a control freak. Why do we think any different from “usability gurus”? (Dan Saffer - UX Week 2007)”

This morning, I wanted to unsubscribe from a monthly email newsletter that no longer interests me. At the bottom of their graphics-heavy newsletter was the following (actual size):

I’ve included in there some Gmail links just to show you how unreadable that tiny grey aliased text is. (I’ve blurred out the website’s name in the middle.) Since it was an image, I couldn’t resize it to make it easier to read. There was also no quick link to unsubscribe (which is the ideal way) nor a link to the part of the site I needed to go to.

The instructions didn’t work either. Seems they have changed their website’s CMS and there was no option to turn off the newletters. All I could do was “un-activate” (since when did that become a word?).

Oh, and one final frustrating point? The layout was completely unreadable in Firefox and I had to completely update my profile before being allowed to cancel anything:

I know they don’t want to lose customers but if your exit experience is a bad one, that’s the last experience you’re going to remember and tell other people about.

I’m experiencing this now in an offline context as well. I’ve been trying to cancel an account for over three weeks with a company. I’ve made over a dozen phone calls, spent far too long on hold and got nowhere so far.

Back to websites, it’s a good idea to test any unsubscribing feature on your websites and check that the instructions are updated if the site is too!

… vegetables grown in your own back yard.

I’ve been thriving on fresh tomatoes - both the cherry variety and the much larger type (I forget the exact variety Regan planted). They’re best when picked and eaten while still warm from the sun, juice dripping everywhere and the terrifically sweet taste making your mouth water for more. It doesn’t matter if there’s a small mark on them, or they’re not a perfectly round shape. The experience is just so good.

You grow accustomed to tomatoes bought at the supermarket that you forget just how good they are meant to be.

At the supermarket, you hunt for the ones which look bright and red, unblemished and not too squishy. They’re watery, flavourless and hardly can be called sweet. They’ve been picked too early, not allowed time to ripen naturally, have been usually sprayed with all sorts of things and have travelled for miles from their home to get there.

I began thinking, inadvertently, about how this relates to blogging and blog design.

Good things take time to develop and if hurried unnaturally, just don’t have the same taste and experience.

Home grown blogs which started out just as someone with a passion for writing are often so much better than manufactured ones which were engineered for fast success and growth. A blog from a stock standard template that hasn’t been altered may be missing that something unique and special.

What if we voted? asks the question: if the rest of the world could vote in the upcoming US election, who would they choose to be president? This was designed, coded and implemented for a client in a matter of hours and was fun to put together.

While not scientific, it certainly is interesting to see if the results reflect what happens in the US election primaries. We get a considerable amount of election coverage here in New Zealand, with full page spreads outlining the candidate histories, policies, perceived strengths and weaknesses. Not a day goes by here without in depth updates on the election campaigns.