Please, Create a blog. Huh??

houstonlively posted 8th of October 2012 in Community Voice. 6 comments.

This has always been a strange initial step when a Dolphin site user first begins to use the blog system.  They  don't really understand this step, and I can see why.  Most of the time, they think this is the actual blog post entry, and start typing away.  The step is just a little weird.

 

Fortunately, this is a really easy fix.

  1. Change the language string from "Please, create a blog"  to something like this: "Please enter a Name for your blog before you start posting. You will only have to do this once. "

  2. "Change the language "Description"  to "Please enter a name for your blog"  Maybe give some example names for clarity, ie  "Bubba's Blog", "Bubba's Health & Wellness Tips", etc

  3. Get rid of the TinyMCE editor for this preliminary step.  It's part of the confusion, and it's an overkill.  All that is needed is a simple input field with perhaps a 255 character limit.

  4. People  will understand it this way, but they won't understand why they can't edit their blog title.  Add an action button or link somewhere in an obvious place.  Call it "Edit Blog Name"

 

 
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houstonlively
P.S. Andrew, I know I said I'd shut up for a few days, but I just couldn't help myself. This is another little thing that reduces user confusion, and rectifying little confusing bits, is always a good thing.
geek_girl
It is true, I have over 133 users on the test site I am building and just about everyone was confused at the point of creating a blog. Most social networks that allows blogging have the blogs installed automatically for the user. This one thing has been the biggest headache so far from the test users. For some I had to go in and create the blog for them before they could understand. If nothing else, a clearer message and not in grey, grey text on grey is to be ignored; greyed out menu items are see more to be ignored, that is universal so the same goes for such things as grey on grey text; messages; people don't see them.
geek_girl
Part of the problem stems from the fact that people have mixed writing a blog post with writing a blog. It is almost universal for people to say "I am going to write a blog" instead of "I am going to write a blog post." Therefore, if they do notice the "Create a Blog" they think it is the same as creating a blog post.
Andrew Boon
Noted. Agreed. Will do. Thank you!
 
 
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