General feedback
Status: 

Step:
1
Found things that work great?
Found things that don't work as they should?
Found things that could work even better?
Leave your suggestions here!
Project: Feedback on the NABUUR.com beta site

Found things that work great?
Found things that don't work as they should?
Found things that could work even better?
Leave your suggestions here!
Excellent good, good to here.
Everyone should find that even the longest of the old discussions shouldn't take to long to load. If anyone does find anything else, post the link to it here and we can investigate.
Thanks for all the explanations. For some reason I still can't see my original post that you are replying to, although I can see all your replies!
Mary
It seems non-members posts are not being marked as 'public' by default - 'public' in this case means can be seen by non-members (like the person posting!). I'm adding this to my to do list.
This morning when I posted to this group, I was not able to see my post at all. It made me think it didn't take since I wasn't a member of the group at the time I posted, so I joined the village. Once I joined the village, I was able to see my post listed in the long list of recent posts on the "My Nabuur" tab, but once read it's gone.
I liked being able to easily see what I posted on the previous site until logged out and logged back in. It made it easy to see when someone responded.
The other thing that I've noticed in posting related to the issue with posts appearing separate from threads is that it increases the likelihood that you'll comment on the same issues that have already been discussed. Only after I posted was I able to locate the thread and see that many of my comments had already been made by others. I fear in the long run that this is going to make it easy for facilitators to "lose" new posts and maybe miss responding, but I don't know. It is confusing though and doesn't seem to flow as well as the old site, but maybe I'm just not used to the new one yet.
Jennifer
Dear developers, dear Nabuur team,
I would also like to congratulate to the new site! I believe it is more coherent and user friendly now :)
Some comments from my side:
- I like the possibility to create different threads under one task, but agree it would be great if people could still choose the 'classical view' with the last/first messages first.
- The empty mask for new posts/images/etc. look a bit confusing now and so long...hope that doesn't scare people away...is it not possible to put the body straight under the title? And maybe put the save button straight under, followed by an attachment section? The 'Categories' are also a bit confusing: they need explaining...As to the attachments: why do we need 5 videos?
- To have a general resource section is great - only it looks like a big mess, at least in Yoshinkhel...there should only be one resource per line. Many of the links do not show completely, Newsletters are mixed in with links, etc. I would think the resources could benefit from a bit of structuring: in Newsletter, Documents and Links at least (although I suspect that's the difference between column 1 and 2, although it doesn't explicitely say anywhere). In the 'content types' you even offer organisations and lessons learned as well...
- I also find the possibility to add general tasks now great. But it's a bit weird for me that all the resources are to be found there...is it possible to change this? I suppose if we delete them they will also no longer be found under 'resources', right?
- In the Background: it looks a bit strange to me, the headings 'teaser' and 'body'...would it not be possible to just make the teaser part in bold, the rest normal font...then we could also easily distinguish them. Also I think that the font is VERY small (even for me with good eye sight ;)
- In the project room it would be great if we could have titles for the steps again!
I'll let you know if I stumble across more :) Looking forward to your feedback!
best, angelika
Hello there again,
Most of the things I would have to say have already been said by the others :-).
I too think the font is really too small and the new message screen is a bit too complicated.
I have a problem with old wikis (again me with my wikis:-)) some important content has been lost in the tables, like important addresses or questions and answers from LR.... Is there any chance for those to be back :-(?
My old private messages dissapeared! :-( Can I have them back?
Maybe to bring back the project description to the project room? I think it looked much better when we had a short project/goals description above the list with steps and tasks. Maybe to limit these to be rather short? (Some villages used to have really long and tiresome description)
Why do we need teasers?
I also agree about the resource section... In Walungu we have a loooong list of the links, so I too think we need to separate them somehow from the documents etc.
I too liked more the old list of villages.
"The My Nabuur screen lists the latest posts. However, when you select one, it only displays that post not the whole task discussion. I am fairly sure it displayed the whole discussion a couple of days ago and, for me, that was better" - I agree with this also.
Are you going to add some more general sections on the website, like results? I find these very important. And to my mind they should be separated from the "news" or "development stories", since these can but don't have to be the results at the same time.
I would also like to have "results" separated from "news" in my village.
This might be enough for the first time? ;-)
Keep up good work.
Sonja
Decided to join the group in the hope that will make my posts appear (edit after posting: it does!). Realise that may make it less easy to work out whey they were not before, but its kind of difficult to post when you can't read what you have posted!
I have been having a wander around the site so here are a few more comments... Don't think I have mentioned any of these before, but I still can't see all my old posts. And I have tried not to mention things already mentioned by others, except to agree with a couple.
I agree about text size - its very small.
My old private messages are still there - strangely rather old ones were marked as new!
To follow on from the one about Teaser and Body, have a look at http://www.nabuur.com/en/village/kayole-soweto/background/location where its split half way through a word!
News page
I don't understand difference between Latest Developments and News colunms.
The User Profile pages have a 'latest blog posts' section on the right-ahnd side. This links to the old website news, rather than the current blogspot blog. Its confusing to see this on user profile pages, as it has nothing to do with that user.
FAQ page http://www.nabuur.com/en/frequently-asked-questions has a lot of links that don't work.
Villages page http://www.nabuur.com/en/village
The Keywords section, and keywords search, does not link to all villages, only to the newest ones, presumably as older ones don't have keywords added. Villages were split into category in the Tasks section of the old website but that info does not appear to have been copied across. So people clicking these links are mostly finding villages that are not active yet. It won't encourage new neighbours to get involved if they can't find the active villages...
In the Location search, don't understand why it is all split by continent, except that Tibet is there as a separate entry.
Village list pages e.g http://www.nabuur.com/en/village/results/taxonomy%3A8
I don't know what order they are being displayed in? But in most cases new villages that are not yet active are at the top. While its interesting to see people I know getting their villages online, would it be a good idea to hide these until they are fully set up to avoid confusion?
Many villages don't have a proper description, it just shows the village name. So nothing to encourage people to visit and find out more.
Village pages e.g. http://www.nabuur.com/en/village/kayole-soweto
On the Overview page there is a section called Project Latest. This appears to display latest posts. But when you click on one, you only get that entry, with no indication of how to get into the discussion that it is part of.
Am unsure what the box at the bottom of the Background page is for as its blank.
The Gallery page does not contain all the pictures that were on the old site.
Project Room
Is there any way to see completed tasks?
Don't understand meaning of task status - Just Started, In Progress, Stalled etc. It looks like tasks no longer have owners, so surely tasks are either Active or Complete?
All wikis seem to be shown under General Tasks. I cannot see any way to get directly from a task to its associated wiki or vice versa. Also wikis for completed tasks are listed while the tasks themselves are not.
As wikis all show as zero replies/never, it looks as though there is nothing in them, although they may contain a lot of information.
For some reason http://www.nabuur.com/en/village/anai-acoke/project has two projects on it - grain mill is old project from several years ago!
Individual tasks
What does the star rating mean and how is it set?
My Nabuur screen
For news items it shows when it was posted. However for tasks it is showing 'never'.
If you try and remove yourself from a village via remove on a screen such as http://www.nabuur.com/en/og/manage/82770 you get taken to an 'are you sure' type screen (can't remember exact words) when you say yes you get a Page Not Found screen. You do get removed from the village though.
Its kind of confusing having an Edit screen for both My Nabuur and My Profile, and knowing which info can be changed where.
There is a Contacts setting on the My Nabuur edit screen - does this enable something different than the normal Private Messages. When you go into a village, everyone's posts have a 'write to author' option.
My Profile - edit screen
The Edit screen is quite complicated and I don't understand what all the options do - keywords, audience (does this limit who can read things you post?),
I agree with what others have said about the complicated posting screen. Also on the old site there were simple buttons you could press to do bold, italic, quotes etc. That does not seem to be possible on the new site, it looks like you have to write formatting codes into the text which is not very friendly.
If you are in "Newest Comments First" view, and write a post, it returns as "Comment discussion view".
Think thats all I am going to find!
Overall view is that site is OK for those of us who are already members of villages, and used to the basics of how things work. But not as easy for newer people who are wanting to find suitable projects to get involved with.
Mary
Dear Mary,
regarding the village status I can tell you that we in Yoshinkhel actually have a case now where a task is stalled - as the local rep decided that another task is of more importance currently. Regarding the 'just started' I was also wondering, but I suppose it might help if you go into the discussion and there's nothing there yet. If it shows as 'just started' people don't get the impression noone's interested and that's why there's no posts.
I fully agree with the Wikis! This is an important possibility after all, to be able to work on a document together...
I'm looking forward to the manual - I'm sure we'll be enlightened about some useful functions we cannot look through yet like blogs, stars, etc. I think the stars might be useful to see the more important/recent threads first in a task (if you give it a lot of stars)...but that's just a guess so far.
Best, Angelika
Hi Angelika
There doesn't seem to be any logic to why a task in 'in progress' or 'just started' which was why I mentioned it. As you can see from http://www.nabuur.com/en/village/anai-acoke/project the task that shows as 'just started' has many posts!
I also agree that its important to be able to save results somewhere central - so many villages end up searching for things that others have already found...
Mary
I agree with the results - that was also my first reaction: people will be interested in the results we achieved and it is cumbersome to look through the news in case local reps or facilitators make a point in providing frequent news. Actually I just saw that 'result' even shows as a content type. And there's also a distinction made between docs/links/lessons learned/organisation regarding resources. But as I'm not too sure what these content types are for yet?!? Neither the keywords. As I said: looking forward to the manual...but maybe it would be useful to have a short info or help next to these things...
Regarding the titles of the posts: I think they should automatically be set to 'Re: title of post I reply to', like it was before...with the option to change it. That way it might also be easier to see what a certain thread is about.
Best, Angelika
Sorry, me again!
Something occurred to me this morning... when the new Nabuur website was launched, all the page addresses changed.
Many Nabuur villages have their own websites outside of Nabuur which have links to their Nabuur village and these will no longer work (have just tried it on one). May be worth sending something out to warn people so they can change their sites?
Mary
While I don't think we should really edit other people's entries (though to be able to delete unrelated items is important!) I think it WOULD be useful if we could MOVE posts to other tasks. It happens regularly that people post not in the most fitting task. Plus: I just have the problem that we have rearranged tasks, making one out of two, and it would be great if I could move some of the important posts before deleting the task...Is there any plan to introduce this possibilty?
Best, Angelika
Hey
I like Angelika's idea to be able to arrange the postings accross the tasks, for both the reasons.
Can we have the option to see several last postings when writing a new message? Sometimes I comment on more than one posting.
I would also like to have the existing title when I'm posting a new message, i.e. when replying to someone else's posting(s)...
Is there an option for bold letters and so on...? I don't see it.
Will we have again the option to search the neighbours according to the number of villages, or number of postings, languages they speak...?
Will the postings be counted again?
Where can we see when someone was last online (someone that is not a neighbour of a particular village)?
I too would like to have a page 'who is online' for all the nabuur neighbours.
I liked the administration tools we had on the old website, all on one place and very user friendly.
I hope you guys are not drowning in all this feedback :-)
Take care,
Sonja
Hey everyone,
Hope the weekend's been good to you!
Lots of comments and feedback over the past few days, thanks! It's certainly helpful to make sure the website is working as it should, or to improve its functionalities.
We are sorting through all comments, questions, bugs, and will try to get answers to you ASAP.
In the meantime, keep 'em coming!
Thanks,
Romina
One thing I'd like to propose in regards to the administration options for the project.
As it is now, in order to edit a task, the facilitator needs to click on the task title and then click on 'Edit' to go into edit mode. Personally, I find that's not user friendly.
My suggestion is to add an 'Edit Task' option tab underneath 'Create Content' in the project room. In that way all administration options are listed in one spot.
Romina