Top Menu Navigation Suggestion

When a user enters the forums, it would be ever-so-helpful to show the main categories with a description of each, and make them navigable.

It would be even better, if such a thing exists/is possible, to show the sub-categories within each category, possibly also with descriptions.

It sure beats having to click one category after another when you’re not sure where to go.

There are no sub-categories.
If there are categories that you think are ambiguous, can you suggest a less ambiguous title?
As mentioned in the welcome banner, there is also a search functionality, so you don’t need to browse around when you’re looking for something.

Yes, I read the welcome banner, but it didn’t show what I needed to know.

Yes, searching is wonderful if you know approximately what you’re looking for…

:frowning:
You seem to have missed the main point, which was the idea to improve navigation and make it easy for anyone just arriving at the forums which category to go to…Have it always link to here instead of where it sent me, which was there. That will solve the entire suggestion I made (and, no, I hadn’t yet found the Category page when I posted about this).

Having just seen the Category page, I have realized that all my posts should’ve been put into Contributors, which I didn’t know because the title led me to believe it was more of a dev area, thus I didn’t look there. Yes, I know that FCC is developed by everyone who wants to help, but that doesn’t change the fact that if I misunderstood that one word, others will, too.

FYI:

Project Feedback
You can get feedback on your any projects you build here. Be sure to use a descriptive title.

One of the two adjectives should be removed as they are mutually exclusive.

The titles could do with a little tweaking and, AFAIK, they can be longer. But, on the off-chance that that’s not possible…

You could consider:

  1. Project Feedback = Project Help
    This is because “Feedback” implies something slightly different than help. When I saw the word, I thought that was where I could put suggestions about FCC.

  2. Contributors = Discuss FCC or FCC Talk or something like that.
    The current title implies an exclusivity that is belied by the description.

  3. Support has no description, so it seems to overlap with Contributors. That should probably be cleared up with a description for Support.

I think the other names are clear enough if you change the above 3. :+1:

  1. Project help has the wrong implications, too. That category is for campers to seek feedback on their projects. The help category is for help.

  2. Support is where people are sent by an automated email for support requests, such as potential bugs or account requests.

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That is not entirely true, although I see your point. Project help is specific to projects, which is the point of the adjective. Help is very general and thus lends itself to the description. Can you think of some other wording that is better…like Project Support or Project Help & Feedback? :confused:

This is not stated on the category page, which creates unnecessary ambiguity. Simply adding the description you wrote to that page would be enough. :slight_smile:

I think the system is fine where we have it. Project Feedback should only be about getting feedback on your websites not getting help. The help category encompasses algorithms, projects, and non-FCC related issues. I personally don’t think it is necessary to have another help category - it seems that the one we have now is doing fine.

Fair enough, I can see the issue here.

I will be honest with you, I don’t want it to link to categories every time I get on. I like the current way that it is set up. When I come to the forum, I want to see the latest threads not a collection of categories. However, I think I can see the confusion for new users who might not understand that the category page is there. I think that adding information about this in the tutorial would be a lot better than changing the whole thing around.

You really don’t need to be too concerned about what category you post in. I usually just post in general because I’m lazy. We aren’t as super strict as StackOverflow or other forums that have obnoxious control over every little thing. Duplicate post? Banned. Necropost? Banned. Wrong category? Banned. No, we keep it simple for people. General, contributors, and most of the other categories all show up in the main thread, so there is practically no difference unless people are searching for an exact thing. If a post is in the wrong category, we moderators can move it appropriately. There are really only three major categories - general, feedback, and help. Feedback and help have their own threads that aren’t seen in latest, but other than that, General, Contributors, Support and everything else is all shown together. Because of this, I don’t think categories is that big of a deal. Like Ariel mentioned, we don’t have sub-categories either. I personally think the system is user-friendly, and there isn’t a need to overcomplicate things by changing around categories. In other words, if users misunderstand the use of categories, it really isn’t a problem at all, and I don’t think we want to make it one.

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As you wish. I’m just trying to give constructive feedback. I have more, but I’m locked from adding new topics for a few more hours. :frowning:

Please do. They were good thoughts and ideas, and we need all the feedback from new users that we can get.

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