Regional / Of Pre-Fixes and Subforums
 

So, the pre-fixes experiment didn't work that well, as replacing subforums w/ pre-fixes didn't work for a number of users.

We tried pre-fixes to accommodate the request of 2 constituents: the ones who liked the Regional subforum broken down by Airline name (like Major) and the ones who liked to have an overall view of the most recently updated threads in Regional.

Since the Regional subforum is now broken down by Airline Name subforums, I would assume that the constituents who like this type of breakdown are happy.

But I have a questions for the second constituents, the ones who preferred *not* to have Regional broken down by subforums:

Is the "New Posts" type of experience anything that sort of help having a good overview of what's currently being updated?

You will now see the pre-fixes tag to the threads, so you would have an idea of what the thread is about, by skimming through the page.

New posts:
https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/s...archid=8295074

Thread discussing the pre-fixes tags:
https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/h...de-screen.html

You can access the "New Posts" experience on Mobile, by tapping on the hamburger sign and review the "Today's Posts".

Does this make sense? Let me know what you think. Thank you.

Have a great weekend.

Nick

That's what happens when you jump into the middle of something you don't understand, and start reacting to complaints.

Complaints are the minority. Have you ever contacted an airline to thank them for delivering your luggage on time? Of course not. They only get complaints from the minority of times when the luggage is delayed. Even though the vast majority of transactions are positive, the vast majority of feedback is negative. Which experience should drive the operation, the mass of successes, or the relatively few failures?


Lesson: Listen to complaints, but don't knee-jerk react to them. Learn the environment first. Listen to your long-established leadership. Build on successes.


Change makes most people uncomfortable. Take the time to learn the audience and be sure they want the change.






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Thank you. I couldn't agree w/ you more. In fact, this is what I think I have done. A lot of users are happy that the Regional Subforum is now broken down by Airline, like the Major.

Of course, this now creates a change in the experience for the users who used to find all the regional threads in one place, while they now have to click into each Airline Subforum to get a sense of what's new.

To help the experience of these users, a solution could be to browse/scan the "New Posts". Hence my question, to those users:

Is the "New Posts" a valuable resource for you? If not, why not?
https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/s...archid=8295475

I'd like to hear what they have to say, so I can think about it more.

To conclude: unfortunately, I can't make an omelette w/out breaking a few eggs, but I am happy as far as we get progress. Sometimes, like a user has mentioned, we got to take 2 steps forward and 1 step backward, that's OK w/ me, I'd take that approach for decisions like these ones (Categorize the Regional Subforum by Airline Name?
prefixes vs subforums?...), which are easily reversible.

Hope this makes sense. Let me know.

Thank you again.

Bestest

I've only ever used the New Posts tab, so I'm already used to it and prefer it.

The original concern was not for the user, but was for you the website owner.

Changes made to the site will likely result in less page views. This leads to less ad impressions. Which leads to less ad clicks. Which leads to lower revenue for the website.

Click based ad revenue is directly tied to the number of page visits.

But as far as the user experience is concerned, I'll never read a post for airline X if it is hidden away in a subforum, I just don't care enough to make the effort to go into the subforum for an airline I have no interest in. But if it is there right in the open without having to do a lot of navigating, and it looks interesting, I'll click it to read it. And who knows, maybe there will be an ad there that looks interesting to me enough to click.

Question- The new posts tab- Will you see replies to current posts as a new post?

New Posts
 

Thank you for your comments.

Correct, you will see all the threads that have been recently updated, most recently updated first. Across the entire site, so, not only "Regional", but also "Major" and "Cargo"....

You'll also see the "Prefixes" labels, which could help you glance through things and get a sense of where the initial thread started.

If you are logged in when you browse and read, the system remembers where you left off, and, as you come back, the system will display/get you to the most recently unread post.

Have a look. Let me know if this helps and if is not how you are experiencing this, and I'll look into this more. Thank you.

https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/s...archid=8300675

Nick

PS - Yeah, all agreed on the other topics. Haven't seen a drop in conversations. But it is still preliminary and high-level, I mean to have more in-depth analysis done soon.

I just want to point out out for the cargo section, I recommend a sub forums section for the ATSG group of ATI/ABX/Omni (even though Omni is charter). There is a ATI topic in the Atlas/Polar/Southern section as well.

Combined it's a large pilot group with a lot of posts... but how integrated are they, as far as the pilots go?