Usability at EasySocial
By Manuel Müller on Wednesday, 13 November 2013
Posted in General Issues
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Hello!

If we talk about a community, we are always talking about usability. Without a easy and logical usability, no shared content - no active users.
After spending some hours with EasySocial I had a split opinion over "ES", the one is that this could be the best Joomla component I ever have seen or worked with, the other opinion was that I could not use it at my websites like it is now.

But I don`t wanna give it up now, because I see this high potential in it.

So I will give you this three screenshots, where I make notes how a user can get frustrated by misunderstanding EasySocial. I don`t say that this will happen to all users and I don`t wanna say it is all wrong about the construction, but I wanna tell you my experience in working with Communities and Joomla for long time.

I will invite you to discuss that or ask things, because I´am sure Stackideas is a company which is listen to his customers.

The attachments:

01. EasySocial - the connect page - > this is the main community page by defult
02. EasySocial - at a users-page - > this is a user-page (linked from connect page sidebar)
03. EasySocial - the "other mainpage" - the dashboard - > this is the dashboard, you will get there if you click the home button at the toolbar

Let me say one more time: I have the full respect for the great work from Stackideas!

Kindest regards
Manuel
good points. like i say before in another thread, i hope there will be later any chance (e.g. with different templates) to rearrange the site layout for a more simple way. the time in there we life is complicated enough, all user i know want it pretty and pretty simple ;-)

but that's no Critique for the hole component, es is at this early stage the best community script for joomla.. and a pretty one :-)
Mike Sko
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Wednesday, 13 November 2013 22:09
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Hey guys,

I am really sorry for the delay of this reply, just got back from the Joomla Word Conference. I sincerely appreciate this input and we'll definitely merge the dashboard and the unity view on EasySocial 2.0. At this point of time, we can't really change the views because we are still trying to collect as much feedback as we can, after all it's only a month since the first release of EasySocial


Mike,

Agreed and this will definitely be in the roadmap for 3.0 or later. As you know it, having it appear on different positions could be a pain because we are dealing with tons of different Joomla template clubs (I wish there was an easier way for this too).
Mark
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Wednesday, 13 November 2013 22:31
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WELCOME BACK MARK!

Travel to and from conference must have been exhausting (plus the conference itself too) - Hope you got some rest in somewhere along the way!
Andy
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Thursday, 14 November 2013 00:51
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Yeah, it's very exhausting and I need to get over the Jet lag
Mark
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Thursday, 14 November 2013 01:30
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@Mike I agree the world is complicated enough

Let´s get back to usability. I asked myself if I need this connect page or if I could make the dashboard the new and only mainpage.

1. I changed the menu link "community" so it belongs to the dashboard now
2. Let`s change the dashboard News Feed order from:
1. Me & Friends 2. Everyone 3. Following
to
1. Everyone 2. Me & Friends 3. Following

this could be done at components/com_easysocial/themes/wireframe/dashboard/sidebar.feeds.php

brings this code:
<li class="<?php echo $filter == 'everyone' ? ' active' : '';?>"

				data-dashboardSidebar-menu

				data-dashboardFeeds-item

				data-type="everyone"

				data-id=""

				data-url="<?php echo FRoute::dashboard( array( 'type' => 'everyone' ) );?>"

				data-title="<?php echo $this->html( 'string.escape' , $this->my->getName() ) . ' - ' . JText::_( 'COM_EASYSOCIAL_DASHBOARD_FEED_DASHBOARD_EVERYONE' , true ); ?>"

			>

				<a href="javascript:void(0);">

					<i class="icon-es-genius mr-5"></i> <?php echo JText::_( 'COM_EASYSOCIAL_DASHBOARD_SIDEBAR_NEWSFEEDS_EVERYONE' );?>

					<div class="label label-notification pull-right mr-20" data-stream-counter-everyone>0</div>

				</a>

			</li>


in top of:
<li class="<?php echo !$isAppView && ( empty( $filter ) || $filter == 'me' ) ? 'active' : '';?>"

				data-dashboardSidebar-menu

				data-dashboardFeeds-item

				data-type="me"

				data-id=""

				data-url="<?php echo FRoute::dashboard();?>"

				data-title="<?php echo $this->html( 'string.escape' , $this->my->getName() ) . ' - ' . JText::_( 'COM_EASYSOCIAL_DASHBOARD_FEED_ME_AND_FRIENDS' , true ); ?>"
...

The list is now at the right order, but we need to improve that all News Feed (Everyone) is choosen by default, here I need your help!

3. the last step ist to bring the need modules like Online Users / Recent Users / Albums / Leaderboard to the sidebar of the dashboard.
That should be easy done because we just change the module position to: es-dashboard-sidebar-top and if needed the module assignment.

So the big question is, how to have get the "Everyone" field (News Feed) is choosen by default?
Manuel Müller
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Thursday, 14 November 2013 03:19
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Hello Manuel,

In the next version of 1.1 , the "Everyone" can be set as the default
Mark
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Thursday, 14 November 2013 03:35
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Hello!

Is there a way for me to do it "manual" at the moment? I would like to test how it will work without the connect page and the dashboard instead. But therefore "Everyone" news feeds needed to be shown from the beginning.
Manuel Müller
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Thursday, 14 November 2013 15:11
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Hello Manuel,

Hm, actually I was wrong. This option is already in EasySocial 1.0.6 Please take a look at my screen shot here, http://screencast.com/t/zlsQkKS2Iscl
Mark
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Thursday, 14 November 2013 23:14
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Hi Mark!

What else could I say then "legendary"

Did you take care about the menu-link "Dashboard" in the Joomla menu administration with the filter settings "Me & my Friend + Follower" is supplemented with "Everyone" or being deleted in cause trouble with the EasySocial administration settings?

Thank you Mark for your reply
Manuel Müller
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Friday, 15 November 2013 02:06
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Hm, sorry but I don't quite get you here
Mark
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Friday, 15 November 2013 03:23
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Hm how much do you need to get me there?
Manuel Müller
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Friday, 15 November 2013 03:43
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Hello Manuel,

Sorry but I am actually a little lost right here Would you mind elaborating more about the "Menu"?
Mark
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Friday, 15 November 2013 11:57
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