Does the Online Community site work as well as it should?

YvonneH

We have just received a comment by a new member

Is it me or is this site hard to navigate around ?

and it has prompted me to ask for your help in our period of user testing.

We have been looking at the registration form, accessibility and generally using the site. Please let us know

• How you are accessing the community from a mobile/tablet/laptop/pc
• What the issue/s you have had and how you resolved it or not.
• Do also let us know if there is anything that works well for you so we don't get rid of the good bits!

We will be making changes to the accessibility and ease of use within the next 3 months. Help us to make it work for you.'

Lilymary

I access from PC and ipad, and sometimes on iphone.

I always use the Recent Posts link, which I find works best as it takes me into all the different forums. I can understand why it might feel more complicated if you go through each individual forum.

Apart from that I find the site easy to navigate as far as the forum is concerned.

frogmorton

All sites are slightly different Yvonne. I find it easy enough to be fair, but of course I've been around a long time🙄😁

I use my laptop and sometimes my mobile phone if that helps.

I am not an apple user so no ipad for me.

Mike1

I think it is fine,  I only access from my laptop and only go to "Recent Posts" rather than the separate sections, that way I can see everything that was posted since my last visit (which is normally a couple of times a day); if there is any post title that I am not particularly interested in I simply click the "mark all read" button.

stickywicket

I access it from a desktop usually but a tablet on an evening.

I dislike the fact that we can no longer go automatically to the latest post on a thread. (At least, I think we can't.)

I've yet to fathom out how to look up some info on the main VA site while remaining on the post I'm currently typing.

I preferred the old system of knowing who had started a thread rather than who had posted last on it. I'm heartily sick of reading, on the archive thread, that my leg is giving way just because I was the last person to post on it. It is now which makes it worse😁

I still dislike the huge pictures which take up so much of each page.

I'm starting to get cross with all the sticky threads / announcements which mean we have to scroll down even further to get to the actual posts.

Just call me Victoria Meldrew 😉

Brynmor

Just to clarify...

Clicking on a conversation that has some new posts in it (Val's Cafe being a prime example) will not take you to the latest (end of) post but to where you were last time you visited the conversation. If you have been away for a few days, then you can end up with a couple of pages to read in catching up to the latest post. 😀

@stickywicket has raised some great points that I will "add to the list" - we are looking at what updates and changes we need to make, especially where the mobile view of the Online Community is not helpful.

Woofy

I found it a bit confusing at first, but I am slowly finding my way. I’m not great with forums at the best of times , but I’ll get there😀

RogerBill

I use the forum on an Android tablet accessed via the Recent Posts option. Unlike other forums this one requires rentry of user name and password at regular intervals and these details aren't stored by the Chrome browser on the Android operating system. I find this to be a minor irritation. Also it'd be handy to have an option to go to the next unread post at the bottom of each topic. It'd be great if users entered a topic heading more specific to the information they're seeking rather than a general "hello", etc.

These are all just minor quibbles. Generally I think the forum is great and the users are friendly, helpful and courteous. It's a really useful and interesting resource which should perhaps be given greater prominence on the website.

frogmorton

@RogerBill my password is stored and I use Chrome, but I'm on a Thinkpad if that's relevant? I still have to re-log in sometimes, but may password is stored so quite easy for me. I do know what you mean if users say hello and really they want info about a specific thing like a medication or something. I suppose it's if they are new and don't know what's the best way to get a reply.

100% agree we need greater prominence!!😊

RogerBill

@frogmorton Re storage of password: I guess if you're using a Lenovo Thinkpad it'll be running Microsoft Windows so the implementation of Chrome will be different to the one on Android I'm using. Initially I thought that would be the reason for the different behaviour we were seeing. However, I've done some fiddling and found I can save the password for this forum. So thank you, you've saved me time and irritation in having to reenter my password each time and apologies to all for the misleading statement in my previous post.

frogmorton

I'm so pleased @RogerBill 😊 very occasionally I do still have to log back in but that's fine once in a while in spite of my password being saved.

Toni x

Summer2022

https://community.versusarthritis.org/discussion/54679/does-the-online-community-site-work-as-well-as-it-should

I find it difficult too

They need to change and make it easier to navigate? Too many categories and moving around

veryaraf

https://community.versusarthritis.org/discussion/comment/699733#Comment_699733

PeterJ

Thank you @Summer2022 and @veryaraf we are constantly looking at ways to improve the user experience and have tried to put the most popular categories near the top. We had hoped that the changes made it easier, not harder to navigate so we will take your comments into accounts when we next look to upgrade.

Peter (Admin)

Baloo

Going from where I found myself today, I mostly refer to living with arthritis so I have forgotten there is a way to Visit Verus Arthritis Website, , so if I have a specific new problem to solve such as unexpected neck pain it just sits there waiting for my brain to operate or a moderator to provide a link.

I had to fill-in the content review survey and wonder how on earth do I find information about necks.

I work in IT support. The place I expected to find information about necks is in the community search results, which has buttons for All, Discussions, Categories (mysteriously empty), members (yes there is a member called neck) but no cross link to Articles.

I can't find a tag about necks either, but I suppose there might be one so it might be possible to include a button for tags as well.

noddingtonpete

Hello @Baloo you can use the search function (magnifying glass symbol) at the top and get the following:

https://community.versusarthritis.org/search?domain=all_content&query=neck&scope=site&source=community

the Versus Arthritis website is what will be found by using a search engine, but is here

https://www.versusarthritis.org/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAj9iBBhCJARIsAE9qRtC-vTDDKQuKOi2NlhR0H0hNNlFYRwx0L9mUB7_ZXTUnHv7biPGJyUsaAuoNEALw_wcB

and you can search on that for neck - click here.

There is no specific Category called Neck which is why the button you are clicking on is empty.

Regards

Peter