Well then they shouldn't be annoying to find. --- Double Post Merged, Mar 31, 2017 --- We already have a little list (of user icons) of who's currently online, how hard would it be to expand it slightly to show usernames, have that list available wherever you might be on the site, and be able to initiate chats from that list in an intuitive way?
Mhm, problem is people are lazy. It's fewer clicks to just post a reply on the forum thread than do that. Plus, that forces you to a completely different page that you need to stay on the continue the conversation, not allowing you to reference any pictures, discussions etc. from elsewhere in the site in your conversation with ease.
I guess I misunderstood. I thought you didn't know how to start a conversation with someone, so I was trying to show an easy way to do it. I agree it should be more intuitive.
They could just do something like @a Chunk youtube channel and make quick walkthroughs. It's not ForgeLabs quality value but it gets the job done. And I prefer to check the maps in video better than forums screenshots. Maybe just me being nitpicky.
Staff should go through one of these. Start from the right, defining the users and gaining some empathy for them. 1. Who are your customer segments? Some examples: Senior Members (Reach or further back. Could probably segment this further) Junior Members (Joined in 4 or MCC) New Members (Joined in 5, or are considering joining) 343 Employees/Matchmaking team Forgers/Level designers Customs Games players Streamers/content creators Others...? -> Note, use site traffic data to see how big each of these segments are. And consider the site strategy to figure out which ones you want to target improvements to the site for. I hear a lot of talk about new members/competing with channels like ForgeLabs - so although New Members may be small, you might decide we want to target them with improvements because it is important to community vitality. This lets you prioritize features that satisfy different user groups. You are going to do the little circle in the bottom right for EACH customer segment. You can spitball this, like I'm about to, but you actually need to be talking to these people directly. Find 10 or more users from each segment, draw up some interview questions, and go talk to them. Record the conversation or write down everything they say. It's easy to be blinded by our own impressions of what is true. Taking the time to talk to people forces you to check your assumptions against reality, and you get a better understanding. There's going to be plenty of questions to ask, but the three things we're trying to get out are: 1a. What makes this user happy? 1b. What makes this user sad/disengaged? 1c. What "jobs" does the customer have to do? This might be "get attention for my latest map" or "find an artist" Now you do the square box to the left hand side of the circle. It maps to each of these three questions. AS IT STANDS, what "Gains" does Forgehub provide for this segment? AS IT STANDS, what pain points does Forgehub relieve for this segment? AS IT STANDS, what "Jobs" does Forgehub do/make easier for this segment? When you are done, you have two things. A deep understanding of who our users are and what they care about; and a good idea of how we're addressing their needs. We should keep and improve site features that address user needs; We should remove or at least stop maintaining site features that don't address user needs. And we should see which user needs aren't being met and focus our improvements there. Two things to note: First, the Value Proposition that Forgehub offers needs to be things entirely within our control. Say we interview @a Chunk as a Senior Member and find out his pain point is that he doesn't like Halo 5 and it kills his motivation for Forge. That's legitimate for him to feel, but as a community site, we don't have the power to address it. We should take note of it, and focus on the the things we can control that affect his interest (reward system for community creations, ease of publishing, matching up with artists to finish his blockouts, community interaction, etc). Second, someone should go talk to the people that started Forge.World and see what was so bad about Forgehub that they felt the need to go through the massive undertaking of launching a new community. There's a ton of valuable feedback there, even if it hurts. @Nitro - if this looks like something the site wants to do but needs some help coordinating it, hit me up. I've run a lot of these for a lot of the teams at work over the last year, and I can probably help out.