can navigation be changed?
I am evaluating Groupsite for a client who is looking for social networking and collaboration tool for scientists. Groupsite does everything we need, and the client's main objection is that there are too many options, and she fears it would be confusing for users.
Can the navigation be customized to eliminate some of the options? For example:
* We would want to change 'communicate' to "discuss," eliminating the other options under that tab (we don't need a group blog and forums and the client wants to eliminate any possible confusion.) This tab would lead directly to the discussion forums.
* Subgroups: I created a subgroup which showed up in the navigation, but I would prefer for the nav to say 'subgroups' and the actual subgroups would be secondary categories
Thanks!
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Hi, Sarah.
While Groupsites do offer some flexibility in your navigation bar, we don't allow you to rename, reogranize or delete the COMMUNICATE, SHARE, NETWORK
or MY SETTINGS tabs. The reason is so users can enjoy a simple
user interface, with consistent navigation in all of their groups, with
a single log-in. (Think of a Groupsite as an operating system. When
you're on a computer using Windows, the "Start" button is always in the
same place, you know where to go to get to your Control Panel, etc.)
Rather than eliminate or change the navigation, Groupsites offer
excellent features that make it easy for you to spotlight the
content that's most important to your group:
selected forums or featured topics right from your SUMMARY page.
can use hyperlinked text or graphics to promote the "discussions"
area. (Check out the "Join our Discussions" button on the SUMMARY page
of this Groupsite as an example.)
feature allows you to create a menu shortcut - so you can promote
"Discussions" as a top-level tab in your main navigation.
These features can help drive members directly into "Discussions."
Members
that take the longer navigation route via the "Communicate" tab
can still access the "Email" and "Group Blog" pages. However, they
won't see the "create" buttons that you see as a Groupsite Manager
(unless you enable that functionality for members). It may help to
temporarily set your Groupsite's visibility to "public" and log-out of
the system to get an idea of what these pages will look like for your
general members.
Regarding your Subgroups tab: When you
enable Subgroups, you do have the option of re-naming the tab (to "teams,"
"chapters" etc.). You can re-name change this name, including setting it back to
"subgroups," at any time. This FAQ can help: http://champions.groupsite.com/post/how-to-rename-subgroups
Public and Limited visibility subgroups will then appear to members in
the Subgroups Directory, found under the main navigation "Subgroups" tab.
You may also want to visit our Subgroups resource page: http://champions.groupsite.com/page/subgroups
Hope this helps, and if you have more questions feel free to write here or directly to support@groupsite.com.
Thank you for your quick and helpful reply!
While I do understand what you are trying to do with consistancy and appreciate your suggestions. I have to say that you might also be alienating the other percent of people who don't care about using other groups. The people in my group are mostly made up of non computer savvy people. They are not like "Oh wow, let me go see what other groups exist". They are coming to the group I created because thats what they need to see.
By not allowing us to change "Share" to a name that they understand for the business, it is annoying them quite a bit and making it slower to understand for the new people. Its almost like I need to give a training class to each new group of people I introduce to the site.
It would be great if you can also allow us to make certain menu items inactive. That would be huge. There are those few features like member objectives and key connections that will never be used and now only confuse people.
I know you have alot to think about and need to try and make everyone happy, but if people are paying for a service, they definitely should have more flexibility to make the site fit their business needs.
Second.
I've said this before, I think the menus as they are, are confusing almost to the point of unusability. The few other sites that I've seen that I really like are those that put a big static widget in the front (right under the menus) with nice shiny buttons that provide alternative entry points into the site -- that bypass the menus completely.
I've been running a site for a couple of months now, and am still having to get used to the fact that "Discussions" is under "Communicate", but "Calendar" is under "Share".
I think that arguments you make above, Diana, don't hold water. Re. your analogy with Windows -- it's not true, for example, that the Start button is always in the same place -- I can move the task bar to any side of the screen I want.
I'm guessing a consideration you didn't mention is that you are concerned with branding -- wanting users to know that they are on a Groupsite group. That's fair enough, but I'd suggest that having people think "Oh, here are these unusable and confusing menu headings -- I must be on Groupsite" isn't really what you're after.
Chris and Jeff - Please accept this candid reply in the spirit it is intended. We do not believe we have all of the answers. We also don't believe we can be all things to all people.
We would rather have a "No" from our potential clients than an uncomfortable "YES". If our interface decisions do not meet your needs and are "unusable" perhaps you should find another tool. There are dozens of companies that will build exactly what you want and lots of open-source code that allows you to build it yourself. That is not us.
As for Diana's windows Start menu comparison "not holding water"- try this one: If you like music as I do and want to carry over 100gigs of tunes in your pocket, the only choice Apple gives you is the 160 gig iPod Classic. Two colors, black or silver. That's it. No more choices. If you want red, too bad. If you want 200 gigs, too bad. What Apple has decided is that most people don't need more than that and 40,000 songs handles most peoples daily music needs.
Understand, we listen to all feedback, but our decisions are based on serving a community of over 33,000 groups and our goal is not to cater to web developers and designers but to the needs of the group who is trying to make things happen. Our most active groups are doing amazing things. What they are accomplishing has much less to do with our interface than it does with the make-up, purpose and interaction of their dedicated group members.
Sorry for the rant.
Thanks for listening,
Shaun
So Shaun basically all you are telling us is "Too Bad" instead of saying something to the effect that maybe with the people that pay for the pro solutions and the extra customizing features, maybe we can come up with a way to edit the menus or allow you to customize more. When I purchased your solution, my thoughts weren't to join your community of 33,000 other groups, it was to provide a way for the group I need to communicate and have central area to look for items, look for information or ask questions. That's it. I hope that you reach 330,000 communities and very soon. You have a great product, that's why I am here.
So i will tell my members as the come in to just ignore certain stuff on the site because there is nothing that I can do and that those features are for 32,999 other sites that "might" be using them.
Also, I will look for a suitable photo to use as my avatar.
Jeff - My intent was not to be as harsh as "too bad" but was intended to explain our model and how we make our decisions as a company. We have had large government agencies ask if we could port our entire platform over so they can host us inside their firewalls on their own servers and we have said No to them as well.
Everyday, dozens of people ask if we will "white label" our offering and make all references to Groupsite.com go away and again, the answer is No.
If you like what we have, you have a vested interest in our Company staying in business and actually making money instead of taking the route that most tech start-ups take of building a cool gizmo without a business plan or path to profitability and hoping to one day get bought by Google.
Being intuitive to members is critical. Getting to the parts of the site that they need most is critical. Not having extra stuff in the way of productivity is critical.
We are constantly re-evaluating what features and interface elements elements meet our 90% rule of 90% of our groups using them 90% of the time.
I understand that you would prefer a different design. The reality of our world today is that most of our groups are getting along just fine and greatly prefer us over the clutter that most competitors offer.
We are looking into how to let group managers turn certain key features off but we still hold that all groups need to communicate, share and network to make things happen. They may not need a group blog but they do need to do some form of these three things.
I assure you that suggestions that can be implemented in a way that all of our groups can use are taken very seriously. That is whay I am taking the time to have this dialogue.
Shaun
Shaun, fair enough -- it's your call, of course. When I post here, I hope you know, although my tone might be over-critical at times, it's as much to give you what I think will be helpful feedback as it is to try to get the features I want. I've always been really impressed with your team's (and your individual) responsiveness.
Chris - The great news is we have customers who are willing to speak with us and give us feedback. Without clients, we don't have a company. Too many technology companies forget this in the faceless world of the internet where too many business models are advertising to "eyeballs" rather than serving the needs of people.
Please accept the fact that if our writing style ever appears to have too much of an edge to it, it's just because we are people too.
Keep the comments coming. We are listening.
Shaun
I would also like to see more flexibility on the main tabs... Our company recently implemented groupsite (at my recommendation), but I almost recommended another solution because of the convoluted and non-editable navigation. I love the functionality of the product. I HATE the navigation. just sayin :)