When looking at groups, I find the default feed view confusing. It’s not obvious how to start a new topic (you have to switch to discussion) and have to click into the message to reply. I wonder if this is confusing people and reducing engagement
I find it all very confusing. I am an old dog, but I can usually figure stuff out. I will press on as I find hope in the work of the FLCCC, but do wish I could navigate this like the dreaded FB!
We plan to add a button to help lead you to the discussions, but it is a difficult thing as they are separate items. If we instead enabled Feed posting, which is how FB groups works, then nobody would create discussions, which are better for long form content and easier to share.
In short, it is a known UX problem that we are working to build a custom solution for.
I’m not sure I’m doing this correctly but here goes. I would like to form a group for members who are suffering with Long-COVID. How does one do this?
Thank you flccc-Tom for voicing what I believe many of us are experiencing. I thought it was just me and my lack of tech savvy but apparently not. I cannot count the number of times I have wanted to share/post something but gave up because the process was so cumbersome. It’s weird because I navigate X, Substack, and other interactive sites just fine. I just don’t find the process here intuitive. For example, when the link at the bottom of a post says “view discussion”, it should take you to THAT discussion. Ok, so making us sign in isn’t the worst thing but when one does, it goes to the main page and the user has to essentially ‘start over’ to find the discussion they thought they were linking to. For me, this involves going back to the email to find which Forum it was from, then returning to main page and clicking on the proper forum, then seeing the post isn’t there because you’re not actually in the discussion tab, so that’s yet another hoop to jump through. Am I just spoiled by the ease of X and FB where when you hit ‘reply’, you can just start typing a reply? Sorry for the rant but thanks for listening!
Thank you for the feedback. I am going to take this back to the team. We removed feed posting because early feedback said it was too confusing when combined with Discussions, but everyone agreed we couldn’t get rid of Discussions as feed posting was too simple, couldn’t be shared/linked to easily, etc.
To avoid that confusion, we disabled the feed posting (aka FB style). But maybe it’s worth turning back on to increase engagement as we work to improve the user experience regarding discussions (we do have several big features/changes in the works on that front).
I will say, just as some tips, that from the Group Feed you can do quick replies and “join the discussion” from any item on the feed itself. And the feed of each group is a good way to see all posts and replies that happened in that group.
You also have your own timeline on your profile that will show you all posts to groups you have joined, making it easier to find those posts you were emailed about.
And lastly, you can look at the Latest Activity box on the sidebar. It will show you all activity, chronologically. If you were emailed about a post or a reply, it is likely still in that feed.
Here is a support article on using the Timeline feature: