Responsive Project: Forum Enhancements

Hello to all those that have been avidly following the responsive enhancement. As promised below is a more detailed list of the changes that will go live on Tuesday 23 October. I have attached screen shots as you will see this update will have a bit more of a visual impact than our previous updates.

The updates have been done in very close partnership and consultation with forum users and have gone through thorough user testing. These updates will make navigation and use of the forums a bit more intuitive and a little less clunky. For those 'older' members (no age offence meant here guys 😏) it might be a bit of an adjustment and we totally understand that. We hope regardless that it has a positive impact once you get the hang of it!

Without further ado, the changes below:

Revised homepage, with updated introductory text helping to outline what the forums are about, simplified pathways and buttons to the two forums, links and button to external support services made more visible, and diversity and inclusive wording added:

Revised Forums Topics page with updated header area with consistent breadcrumbs, help services link, section headings, easy link to community guidelines and consistent search bar location; revised topic descriptions; latest and unanswered posts on the right hand side; featured discussions moved to lower on the screen:

Updated Discussion list pages with tabs to both the latest and unanswered posts within that topic (for non-logged in members), pinned posts and updated default profile pic which is non-gender specific:

Discussions page for logged in members includes tabs to see posts you haven't read yet and posts that have been favourited:

Updated posts include revised headings to show the section of the forum you are in, headings within the post to demonstrate the original post heading and replies, and easy links to the original post in the thread:

The right hand side (on desktop) / lower screen (on mobile) includes further, related information from SANE, including videos, blog posts, fact sheets and guides and forum features (where available/related/appropriate). This information will try to be aligned to the topic being discussed - such as a discussion on OCD will have guides and resources on OCD appearing on the right hand side:

Updated member profiles include latest contributions, posts you have supported, posts you have favourited and your member stats:

The changes we posted about above are now live (hip hip hooray!)

If you have any feedback, issues or queries feel free to post them in the Latest responsive update- feedback and queries thread.

Hi all,

Just an update here - there are a few fixes based on your feedback that need to be actioned from the latest updates. We will do that on Tuesday 30 (next week). Some of them are around gltiches and spelling and then we will also action the below:

• After feedback from members we are bringing back the previous 'latest posts' function and extending it out to 7 threads. We will also be relabelling the current box as 'latest discussions' which is a little bit more accurate!
• We are also adding in a useful right hand side navigation box for forum topic areas

Examples of both:

Latests posts coming backForum topics navigation

Please head to the the feedback and queries thread if you are unsure of anything - @s-jay and I have shared a few tips there as well!

Surprise! These updates are going up tonight!

Hi everyone,

We have two updates coming through that will go live on Tuesday 20 Nov 😊

• Latests posts will extend to have an ‘All latest posts’ capability. This was something that was raised by you as a community and we are glad to get this happening!
• The automated emails that you receive will have a style update to match the look and feel of the forums. This enhancement is aimed to go live for Tuesday but it may be delayed so I will confirm that here with you all when I know.

Thats all for now!

Hi everyone,

One new update coming your way on Tuesday 11 Dec!

You know how we are always having to post updates like this twice – once in LE and once in Carers?

Well, as of Tuesday next week the Forum News and Feedback Topic area will be merged so that it is the same board on both LE and Carers sides! This means that no matter which side of the forum you hang out in, when going in to read about any news or changes this section will show the same thing on both sides and your comments will go to the one board.

With this in mind, there will a bunch of duplicates that will appear after the merge which we will work out way through to remove and adjust, so bear with us 🎉

Hi all - just wanted to give you a heads up about a very small update coming in the morning.

At the top of every Board (EG Our Stories, or Somethings not right) there will now be a short sentance to introduce what that area is all about. The goal is to help new people understand what that section is all about, without taking up too much valuable space.

Here is an example, the In this topic: is whats new...

Hi everyone - team SANE has been working on an improvement to the Header for the SANE website - and it will be rolled out tomorrow.

If you access the SANE Forums through the SANE website then from tomorrow you will notice a slight change to how the head works.

Currently, on desktop it looks like this:

And when you click on the three lines on the left this pops out:

However the new header looks like this:

The Forums title is the only one that 'drops down' and the rest you can click on to be taken to a section of the website. No more black pop out on desktop

Now the only place where there will be the three lines is on mobile:

And will still have the black menu pop out when you click the three lines.

Shouldn't be too much of a change for everyone, but any Qs or feedback let me know!!

Cheers

Hi all! New feature comin along on Friday!

'Tag cloud'! Tags are classifications that moderatos give to posts - eg depression, self care etc. Whatever the predominant topic is in the thread.

From Friday, you'll see a box on the right hand side that will show how threads have been tagged by moderators - it will look like this:

And will be under the drop downs on the right hand side - Unread, Favourites etc

You'll be able to see what the most common tags are as well as click on a topic that interests you and see all the threads on that topic.

Here's an example of what it looks like if you click the self care tage in the 'tag cloud':

Any Qs let me know!