Looky here! I actually did it! Round 2
Okay hubski.
I think we can all agree that having a simple "Getting Started" tutorial type thing would be helpful for new users. I stumbled upon this random site a while back and found their getting started page was clean, simple, easy to understand, and would be easy to create. http://hitention.com/
I am so down to make one but I need your help, content wise. I'm an okay writer but with a little teamwork, I think we can make something truly exceptional and easy to understand. Then I'll make it pretty.
I think that the technical features (like how to click the hubwheel) can be omitted as people don't really give a fuck about those. People want to do something, and clicking something is how they do it. Therefore, if we show people how to do the thing they want, they will learn how to click the things to do the thing. Still with me? Good.
1. What is hubski in one sentence.
2. How to get the content.
IMO, this is the more important part. If we can get this right we don't even need the rest.
How do people follow people and things that are relevant to them? How do they find new things? New people have a hard time figuring out how to find, follow, and get posts that they want to see. I also know there are a lot of different ways to go about this. How do you do it?
I was thinking something along these lines:
a. Using tag page to view tags, follow tags and follow the people who use these tags (explains following people, tags, community tags here)
b. Using profile pages to get a deeper sense of the user (recent posts, tags they are interested it, etc) (explains users, profile pages, here)
c. Browse the global pages to find content that is interesting to you and follow those people. (explains hubwheels/sharing here)
d. Remember, you can always unfollow people so don't be afraid to follow someone.
3. How to post your own content
4. Nifty features/references - TMI page, markup, badges, chatter, ???
Absolutely love this. One thing I've been looking into is intro.js for giving people a little walking tour of any given page. Start out with hubski in a sentence, go through each link on the page (feed, chatter, etc) explain what they do, explain following, etc.
How would it work if you were to go to more than one page? For example: Home Page: "This is a feed of awesome content. It shows the content that users you follow share. It's easy to find users to follow." Highlight "tags" link at top: "One way to find new users to follow is by finding people who share your interests. This is where you can see all the tags people on hubski use." Go to tag page/highlight "music" tag: "We love our music here. If you click this you can see all the recent posts about music" Go to music tag page (http://hubski.com/tag?id=music): "You can see people like bfv and flagamuffin like music a lot. It would be a good idea to follow these users if you want to see more music on your feed." Go to user profile (http://hubski.com/user?id=bfv) "Maybe you want to check out what this person usually posts." Highlight "interested in" : "Does this user post stuff that you find interesting? If so, click follow" (rough, but you see what I mean?)
Hmm, that's a good point. Perhaps something can be put together using the preview popups (I don't know what they're actually called, I just refer to them as cboxElements) that are used for previewing posts on the main page and things like seeing who badged a particular post. We could probably even embed things like the music tag page into a cboxElement so they could have real info and be able to interact right away.
I think "interested in" has been due for a makeover for a while. I think it should just be the tags each user has most used, but currently it's more of a recent tags thing. Mine's misleading at the moment. As an aside: I just noticed the new badge feature by clicking on the badge on this post. I think the design there could be a little cleaner, particularly alignment.
Yes, this is awesome forwardslash. The best thing is that it doesn't break context.
Some ideas: For number 2: I don't know if you guys have used StumbleUpon, but to begin is a huge list of categories and subcategories where a user checks off what kinds of stuff they'd like to see. Might something like that be done with a number of tags? For example, if after registering, the user was presented with a tag list, in addition to users to follow. For numbers 3 and 4: I'm not a huge fan of programs where things tell you what to do, like older versions of MS-Word with the paperclip thingy (or was it a dog?) but what if on registering for hubski, the user's first post were "guided" in some subtle way?
I completely agree. That's why I want show people sort of how to accomplish things without telling them how to click things. For example, I think if we cover how to follow people via the tag page, they will understand tags and we can avoid covering "Now, type in a tag for your post." It's a fine line though. forwardslash has a nifty link too: http://usablica.github.io/intro.js/ Perhaps 3 and 4 can be on a bulleted text page that links from the guide so at the end they can click it to get even more detail about specific pages, etc or they can just jump right in.For numbers 3 and 4: I'm not a huge fan of programs where things tell you what to do, like older versions of MS-Word with the paperclip thingy (or was it a dog?) but what if on registering for hubski, the user's first post were "guided" in some subtle way?
The best answer I've heard so far to Question #1 is here said by katakowsj: "Hubski is an online pub with creative and thoughtful people belly-up at the bar of reason and sanity." But that's not really descriptive. I had a little trouble understanding what hitention was and how it is used. My guess is that like hubski or linkedin, you have to go there, to your page/feed to see new trends. "h!tention is the Social Trend Board Service to collect the trend to share that you have found on the Web page." - following that model, one could say that "Hubski is an aggregation of articles and discussion posted by a thoughtful community. It has also been called and online pub ... etc."
Nah. I didn't mean anything morbid about it. "Belly-up" being more of a colloquialism for an individual pulled up to a bar. I suppose I was intending to convey Hubski as a location for intelligent, rational social discourse. As I see it from my perspective, Hubski, due to following other users, offers a social accountability in idea sharing that I've never before experienced online. We are all free to make asinine and hurtful replies to one another as long as were willing to accept the resulting changes in our followers or shares. On Hubski, users are tied together via positive interaction. There are no other social obligations. Hubski offers habitat for creative ideas to roam and grow as they become self-supporting.
thenewgreen and I were just discussing this the other day. I think it's a great idea. I'm no match for your skillz insom, but I can edit if needed.
FYI, I will be creating a full typeup Tuesday, or Sunday, but more likely Tuesday.