New Dashboards Coming Soon!
Hello Community!
We have been quietly working away on revamping the dashboards for the last several months and we are excited to share a sneak preview with you.
You can see the new member dashboard here.
You can see the new growth path here.
You can see the new listener dashboard here.
You can see that there are many of the same elements that have been cleaned up and reorganized. The goal was to present the information in a more streamlined and accessible way.
The biggest innovation is the feed in the center. The feed consists of different “cards” that are organized in a scrolling format. As you scroll down more cards will appear. The cards are growth path steps, featured posts in the community, posts from around the different sub-communities and alerts. It will start off being less personalized, but, with time, will become more personalized. Here is an example:
I struggle with anxiety so in my feed I’ll see posts that other people with anxiety find helpful, exercises that will help me better manage and overcome anxiety, and featured posts. Eventually, with time, the feed will get smarter because we will better know what exercises seem to help the most. We can also eventually recommend groups and maybe eventually listeners that specialize in certain topics.
We will start really simple, but the goal is to get people the best information and support to help them feel better and increase strengths to better navigate life and relationships.
One way I’ve imagined this is like a food court at a mall. Here is an image of a food court. There are restaurants all around the perimeter of the food court. If you like sweets, then you might go to cinnabon. If you like chicken, then you might go to popeye’s, and if you want ice cream then you might go to Ben and Jerrys. The normal strategy is to get a table and then walk over to each restaurant and make a purchase.
The normal food court process is kind of like how things work now on 7 Cups. You have to wind around the site and discover different communities, growth path steps, and posts that might help you. We help a lot of people in this way, but it is also unnecessarily challenging, particularly if you happen to be stressed out!
In keeping with our metaphor, the new feed is like walking to the food court and sitting down. Then, without even doing anything, the people from Popeyes come over with your chicken, Ben and Jerry bring over that coconut/almond/chocolate ice cream you like (or is that only me?) and cinnabon brings you over a cinnabon just how you like it.
The feed will surface more areas of the site so that people have to do less discovery and more readily find the tools and support so that they can feel better and reach their goals.
We will be rolling this out in stages in the coming weeks. Our goal is to learn as we go. Some of you might see it. If you do, then let us know what you think! Please post any feedback in this thread.
Thank you and look for more on this front in the coming weeks!
@GlenM
Is there anyway you guys could implement a dark mode?
@KyleBorg Isn't there a dark mode somewhere in AudioEye? I haven't tried it myself because I block it for privacy reasons.
@KyleBorg we have it on the list. The app has a nice dark mode for the immediate term.
@GlenM
Great to know I would use the app but I am on desktop so :)
@KyleBorg
If you use Opera GX browser you can force/change 7cups website(or any website) in dark mode.
😄🌙
@GlenM
Also I notice at the time of writing this the tone of blue has changed quite a bit it is much brighter now and personally for me is a struggle to look at for such a long period, a few members have agreed, hence why I ask to implement a dark mode for those who would prefer it :)
@KyleBorg Did anyone ask for the reduced contrast, I wonder? Or is it just random churn like the disappearing thread titles?
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie
Reduced contrast and/or a dark mode for the entire site that we can toggle
@KyleBorg I once made a browser extension that did that, but 7 Cups disabled it (accidentally, I think).
Charlie
@GlenM
The new blue kinda hurts my eyes :/
@WoahtasticOswald the new blue on the designs?
@GlenM
yeahh
@GlenM The new blue in the proposed designs went live on the website yesterday. (By mistake?)
White text on the new pale blue background fails the minimum contrast requirement in the international standard Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, with a contrast ratio of only 2.72. The requirement is 4.5.
The old darker blue background just about passed at the minimum level (but failed at the enhanced level) with a contrast ratio of 4.63.
I used Contrast Checker to calculate the ratios.
Personally, I prefer the darker blue and I'll probably change it back for my own use.
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie thank you for doing this research and sharing.
@GlenM Thank you for being there for all of us. It is very comforting to know how much you and the 7 cups Team prioritize our needs and well being
@faithlove1111 you bet! Thank you for joining us!
Thanks again for all of the feedback and help. We reviewed and cataloged the changes we requested. Keep in mind that this will be an iterative process. Here is the latest design. Please let me know what you think when you get a chance!
https://xd.adobe.com/view/8ab0d700-ad3f-48fd-bab9-9cfa0d5fee2b-dfe3/
@GlenM
Thank you for providing larger photos.
I might be ok with this
But suggestion / request - can we please not show a preview of previous chats? Sometimes the last message in a chat is triggering or I don't want to review all the trauma or depression I've been talking about with listeners if I login on a good day for example, does that make sense?
Maybe a better way is that sometimes existing and old chats (even ones that helped us) can be retriggering. I don't want to hide the listener from my list but I also don't want the chat preview. Can this be a toggle maybe?
Thanks for considering
@wontwakewontsleep Good idea! It would be better to see that chats but not the messages.
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie - Thank you, I appreciate that!
@wontwakewontsleep thanks for checking out the new design. Let me forward this request over and see what they say.
@GlenM - Thank you!
@GlenM I like that the newest picture looks a lot less cluttered than the original design. I'm curious that the new listener dashboard seems to not include any of the current features I actually use:
1) "welcome new members": I tend to use this frequently just looking for inappropriate new member accounts to flag as part of safety patrol
2) Leadership roles progress bars: very handy for me to get an easy glance where I am in making my targets
3) Links to subcommunities I'm subscribed to: I use this basically every day to quickly go to the subcom forum I'm in the most
That's all I can think of for now!
@TaranWanderer thanks for checking it out! Listener dashboard hasn't really been started yet :). We will be starting a separate thread for that one. Stay tuned!
@GlenM I agree with 2 and 3 as a member as well. I think the leadership progress is more important than the Member Level bar. That stays stagnant and has for I think years now.
@AffyAvo thank you for sharing :)
How do I start the Academy?
@LayneGirl @hope is lead and you can learn more here: 7cups.com/academy
Will there still be the chat request bar at the bottom of the page on listener accounts (on desktop)? I understand a listener's goal is to take chats but the bar is a big distraction for me and really jarring. It keeps popping up, going away, changing color etc. I would much prefer another button on the site somewhere to view chat requests that isn't so distracting/jarring. Or maybe the option to hide the bar temporarily. Sometimes I like to do relaxing things on my listener account - reading, meditation, and it's not very relaxing to be constantly reminded of all the chat requests.
Also thank you for taking our concerns seriously on this. I too appreciate the darker blue color, so thank you!
@Solome24 you are welcome and glad we could help on the blue; yes, the chat bar will stay.
@Solome24 I agree. For my own use I've hidden the general request "pill" in bar, stopped it changing colour, and stopped it bouncing up and down. When I want to take a chat I use the menu. (PM me if you'd like more information.)
The bar was particularly annoying when I was already taking a chat, because I would certainly never have had any intention to take another one simultaneously.
Maybe there was a time, long ago, when members requesting chats outnumbered listeners, but now available listeners far outnumber members requesting chats. The design of the general request queue seems stuck in the past. It would be possible these days to allocate a listener without delay (most of the time) and remove the queue entirely. If I remember right there has been a research study at Carnegie Mellon looking into this, but I believe a simple solution would be possible even if the researchers come up with something more fancy in future.
Charlie
@GlenM Seems that I am late to the party on this one!
Looks great, Glen! Round of applause on everyone's hard work with this. Looking forward to learning my way around the new dashboard :P