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Making the topic list buttons understandable?

By KajMagnus @KajMagnus2019-02-17 04:28:55.604Z2019-02-17 05:10:42.848Z

People who don't use computers a lot, get confused by the topic list buttons. That is, these:



They think that "Active, New, Top" refer to the "All categories" button, and are unsure about if the list below shows categories, or topics (they don't both see & read the text "Topics, recently active first"). And what's the difference between "Categories" to the right, and "All categories" to the left, they wonder.

I have in mind to try this: (then, one can read the buttons texts from left to right, and understand what the buttons and the list below, all is, right?)



Is that easier to understand?

Or maybe this, but this seems a bit too verbose, to me:




Any thoughts?

Or this — almost like the current approach, just reordered some buttons:


  • 4 replies
  1. S
    @someburneraccount
      2019-02-17 14:59:24.626Z

      Personally, I wouldn't make the changes you suggested. Few of them look kinda messy and make things more confusing. I personally like the way it currently looks. Few suggestions I would make is making those buttons more stand through different colour scheming. And I do kinda agree with the "all categories" not conveying its purpose and idea too well. Why not have it as "Choose Category". I think that would make it impactful and simple enough for people to click on it because of the word "choose" and then the rest will be self explanatory to them.

      1. Thanks for the feedback. I can add a way for admins to choose how to display the buttons toolbar in their community (so you can choose).

        (And such choose-how-the-user-interface-should-look functionality can be useful for doing A/B testing later, to find out what actually works best, I would think)

        1. S@someburneraccount
            2019-02-21 00:17:51.162Z

            Having the authority to choose the display design through would be great and always appreciated. Thanks!

        2. Progress
          with doing this idea
        3. @KajMagnus marked this topic as Done 2019-06-09 12:56:17.884Z.
        4. Now (actually, maybe 2 months ago) I've slightly redesigned the topic list buttons and choose-category buttons, and UX testing indicates people no longer feel confused about what "things" are topics and what "things" are categories.