Summary
There are three main areas of change in this redesign:
- Main section button-tabs
- Nav Bar section, including
- Menu changed to collapsing menu
- Search bar moved to menu (in part because this persists no matter where the page is scrolled to)
- Sign in / Join button (instead of Sign in text only), which will persist on page scroll
- Smaller Community Promos
With this mockup, we are trying to make the discussion page easier to navigate for the three types of users:
- Anonymous users
- Community Members, and
- Super Users
Further explanations and analysis below the image.
Main Section
This main (center) section of this design makes paths of action more obvious with large, brightly-colored tab-like-objects (TLO's) for the main actions:
- Find Your Answer
- Ask a Question
- Help Others, and
- Sign in or Join, which will change to the user's mini-profile stats (didn't come through on the mockup, but something like this:
Anonymous users are most likely to be looking for an answer to a specific question, which is likley going to be one of the top solved questions. By landing on that tab as the default, we offer the most useful information to those we want to join the community. Additionally, we make the SIGN IN OR JOIN Tab/button big and clear and "in your face" in order to encourage them to Join, and for Community Members who are not signed in to do so in order to participate in the Community, as well as give us tracking data.
Community Members are (unlike Anonymous Users) able to Ask a Question or Help Others by answering questions.
Super Users, while occasionally having a possible question are most likely there to help answer others' questions.
Nav Bar
The Nav Bar has already been modified to persist at the top on page scroll. This gives an excellent opportunity to promote signing in and joining, as well as a persisted search form. In order to achieve both of those things, the horizontal menu must be changed to a more standard pancake menu to provide vertical listings, which has the added benefit of standardization of menu in mobile and desktop witdths (mobile-first design).
Community Promo Ads
The ads are now smaller, making them less of a distraction for users coming to the page to do something specific (almost never to click on an ad), i.e., Find Your Answer, Ask a Question, or Help Others. Making them smaller contributes to a better user workflow by making the desired actions more obvious, and extranneous (but useful) information less intrusive but still available.
