Goulven Champenois
ImaniWhen viewing the profile of someone you're already following, which button combination would you prefer and why? Please boost this post so we can maximize feedback!
Option A is what we've implemented so far, and it remains unchanged from the previous versions. Options B and C have some tradeoffs – is unfollowing more important as an immediate action, or would you be satisfied with it being delegated to the overflow menu?
| A: Unfollow as primary, notifications as secondary | |
| B: Mention as primary, notifications as secondary | |
| C: Mention as primary, unfollow as secondary | |
| D: Something else |
Poll ends at .
Brendan Jones@imanijoy I almost never set notifications on for profiles. I have it on for I think 3 accounts out of the 800ish I follow, and it’s a once-off action to turn it on. So definitely not a primary action.
Starting a post while viewing a profile (i.e. mentioning) I do slightly more. But mentioning doesn’t need to a unique action, right? If you’re viewing a profile and you hit the create post button, then the person should be automatically mentioned.
Follow/unfollow is still primary, imho.
●@Brendanjones Agree with all of that.
Katzentratschen@imanijoy Would there be a "You follow" / "Follows you" / "You follow each other" badge for each option or for some options? If there is such a badge, I'd definitely prefer option B. But if there isn't, I'd stick with A.
@imanijoy (Although I don't use 🔔 notifications a lot, it's IMHO an important feature for official accounts, e.g. your hometown, NGOs, brands. They usually encourage their followers to use it.)
@katzentratschen yes, assume all of these options would be in combination with the 'Follows you' indicator.
@imanijoy Ha! 🤩 Just thought about a different approach:
Option D
How about changing the wording of the button to "Follow" / "Follow request" / "You follow" / "Follows you" / "You follow each other". And 🔔 (= Enable notifications) next to it?
If you'd change the wording of the button, there is no need for an additional indicator. And at least in German "Ihr folgt einander" is shorter than "You follow each other". Maybe there's even some space left for another button: "@ Private mention".
@imanijoy (I'm not very fond of looking at a big, fat "Unfollow" button every time I browse a profile page of one of my peeps. Or looking at a looooong list of "Unfollow" buttons in search results. I like following them! Feels like sticking a "Divorce" post-it note on my husband's forehead.)
@katzentratschen Good question! That's because labeling the button with its actual action, vs. a status, is a better practice from an accessibility standpoint.
@imanijoy It is? If I'm reading "Follow back" I always have to pause and think.
@imanijoy My expectations were shaped by Twitter. There was 1. "Follow" / "Follow back" vs. 2. "Following" (button) and 3. "Follows you" (indicator). This indicator was nearby, so "Follow back" was less confusing. Neither "Unfollow" nor "You follow each other". Simple. Short.
@katzentratschen we aim to make button text action-oriented, per W3C guidelines. I hear you on this being a common pattern on other apps, though!
Lykso@imanijoy It seems to me like the "follow" button would act as a toggle, so having "unfollow" in a different place feels like "moving" the button. Further, in the proposed alternatives, I now have to infer the meaning of an icon on a much smaller, not-so-centrally-located button when I've not yet demonstrated an ability to do so. The current design seems to me much more intuitive than the proposed changes.
@imanijoy For clarification: Are options B and C private mentions or just regular mentions?
Henrik Pauli@imanijoy My problem with B and C is that they change the button's meaning (or in a different interpretation: its location) even if it's probably a good idea to de-emphasise Unfollow.
Bradley Schaefer@imanijoy option A: Unfollow. Keeping parity with where the “Follow” button is, is all good and fine. My true reason is that I think it encourages the behavior of curating who they follow by making it easy. It may be counter-intuitive, but I believe that curation is one of the most important aspects of a social network
katzenberger"Languages" as optional primary; "Unfollow" as primary/secondary depending on "Languages"; notifications as secondary/tertiary.
I'd make new followers realize somebody is posting in multiple languages, instead of having them follow and unfollow soon afterwards, because they're unaware that feature exists, and mistakenly believe they either get all posts in all languages, or none.
@katzenberger interesting point, thank you for the input!
wakest likes your bugs ⁂@imanijoy currently when you follow someone the button then turns from Follow into Unfollow, but then what would happen if you decide to change it to @ Mention? The flow would then go: Click Follow > button fades into @ Mention? And then what happens with the Bell icon? What does it start as from an unfollowed state?
@liaizon both options B and C would require a carefully-timed microanimation (refreshing with new actions, as you mentioned) to prevent user error.
GunChleoc@imanijoy @liaizon How about putting the @ button in place of the Bell button?
To prevent public instead of private mention accidents, the @ button could trigger a dropdown menu to pick your visibility if the posting box is currently empty, and if there's already some text in the posting box, add the mention directly, because we can assume that the visibility has already been chosen.
Steffo@imanijoy absolutely A, i don't think i've ever pressed the mention button on an user profile
Jak2k 🏳️🌈@imanijoy I rarely mention people from their profile but "DM" could be really useful.
James Adney@imanijoy I think I would make the primary action "Mute" for people I follow, based on what I do the most. After that probably unfollow and notifications could be hidden.
Florian K.@imanijoy I would keep 'Unfollow' as the primary action simply because that's where the 'Follow' button would be.
As for the secondary button mentioning could be an option, or just keep it as is
As for the secondary button mentioning could be an option, or just keep it as is
Snippety Snap (she/her)@imanijoy
I look at those buttons and the only one I understand is "unfollow."
What does the "@ mention" button do?
What does that button next to "@ mention" in item C mean? Is it a person? What does the horizontal line next to the person mean?
Does the bell "notification" button notify me when the person I'm following makes a post? Why would I want all of those notifications when I can put them on a list?
I am clearly not the target market for these options.
@shansterable this type of feedback is invaluable. When you feel like you're the reason the interface is confusing, that means WE have more work to do. Thank you!