
Quora Raises Questions - kmfrk
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/quora-raises-questions/
======
gfodor
The "Ask Question" button is a horrible, horrible UI thing and I'm really
surprised it hasn't been fixed yet. The reason it's so bad is because its next
to the search bar, and the expected UI for a search box is there is an
(optional) button next to the box you can click on to perform the search.

~~~
huangm
This was an intentional choice. It attempts to fight duplicate questions by
forcing users to see the search results for their question before asking it.

I don't claim this to be the right design choice, but it is worth noting that
there are trade-offs to consider. Optimizing for "ease of asking new questions
by new users" is probably not optimal.

~~~
gfodor
I suppose I see the tradeoff, but it sounds like an idea to me that went over
well in a design meeting but never actually was user tested (I could be
wrong?) There are other ways to ensure a user doesn't ask a duplicate question
without having to convolute the search box with the "ask question" use case,
which is certainly less common.

It was incredibly confusing to me, a software guy, so I can't imagine how
confusing it must be to the average user.

~~~
jdp23
It's been user tested for many months now and the results are a consistent
stream of confused users and duplicate questions. The response: long-timers
there moan about how stupid the new users are.

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zzzeek
Sites like Quora with bad design and all that are very common.

But sites like Quora with all the buzz and publicity they have, NYT writeups
and all, that doesn't make a lot of sense.

Interesting that the Quora devs apparently don't believe in HTML templates,
all their layouts are hand coded in Python (source: [http://www.quora.com/Why-
doesnt-Quora-use-templates-or-an-OR...](http://www.quora.com/Why-doesnt-Quora-
use-templates-or-an-ORM)) . It's of course doable, but I think choices like
these have a subtle impact on the end result.

disclaimer: I am the author of a popular HTML template system for Python.

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auston
What designers at Quora (& web designers in general) should know; MOST
"normal" or "novice" users are often afraid of "breaking something".

I've seen it in everyone from my Uncles, to my girlfriend to my grandfather.

If there are no guides, or instructions; then users will be afraid they will
accidentally click into a irreparable state.

~~~
elithrar
For a site like Quora though, I believe that things should be obvious enough
that instructions _aren't_ needed. They're not there yet, but that's what they
should be aiming for.

~~~
jdp23
indeed. Yahoo! Answers accomplishes this. So does Naver in South Korea. It's
not rocket science.

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jacobian
"Why not make this thing easier for normal people to figure out?"

For me, at least, the value of Qoura is that normal people haven't figured it
out yet. Once Eternal September hits I suspect I'll slowly lose interest as
noise drowns out the signal (c.f. Slashdot, Reddit, Stackoverflow, ...)

~~~
richardw
HN is pretty easy to figure out and thanks to Techcrunch et al has had ample
opportunity to be overrun with junk. So it can be done. In fact it should be
easier because here we all share a front page, but Quora can use the social
graph to massage results.

~~~
notahacker
HN doesn't have to exit at a multiple of $86 million to generate returns for
investors and so can _afford_ to be a niche site carefully curated to be
uninteresting to the mass market.

~~~
richardw
The curation is mostly done by users voting on others' contributions, not by a
user interface that is too hard for dumb people to understand.

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dmix
When someone who has 1.3 million twitter _followers_ can't grasp the concept
of _following_ on your site, then there is a clear communication problem that
needs to be resolved ASAP.

~~~
erickhill
I found Pogue's hyperventilation over Follow a bit bizarre as well. Did he
really not understand the concept (which was borrowed) or was he playing
Devil's Advocate for mass consumption? Or did he simply find following people
in a Q&A site an odd mix? Following questions and topics makes perfect sense
to me.

"...the only question I have for Quora is, “Why not make this thing easier for
normal people to figure out?”"

Other than the Question/Search box (which at first I found confusing because
it was, well, rather innovative), maybe he'd like a bit more user messaging
each step of the way to put his mind at ease.

I wonder how feels when he opens the box to his new Mac/iPhone/iPod/etc. each
year without any instruction manuals?

~~~
davisp
I'll preface this with a mention that I haven't taken the time to check out
Quora yet. The only interaction I've had is to read the occasional answer
someone links on twitter.

> Following questions and topics makes perfect sense to me.

But he didn't mention questions as a source of confusion. Those would be
almost understandable (new message for new answer). As to topics, is it new
questions, new answers? What type of events trigger a notification in my Quora
stream? As to following users its the same question, what events trigger a
notification?

For things like twitter its fairly straight forward to the point that normal
people look at you funny. "Why would I want to know what someone had for
breakfast?" is a perfect example of great UI (though, perhaps a deficit in
marketing). The reason its great is that the entire system is easily and
directly communicable to non-techies. The "What are you doing right now?"
(which I just noticed is now "What's happening?") is such a simple thing that
most people don't realize that its an example of genius UI.

I have just formulated a theory that technical folks are at a disadvantage for
identifying and creating a great UI experience. A stereo type of technical
folks is that they like to solve puzzles. So a UI that presents tiny puzzles
in the form of "What do you suppose this does?" are like tiny injections of
happy directly into the blood stream. So if the annoyances are unnoticeable
they can be a good thing.

The fact that you switched from "confusing" to "innovative" means that while
they may have a good idea hidden in that particular UI device, it is not good
UI because it requires the user to figure it out. Good UI is not something you
figure out. Good UI is "I know what this is and what it will do without ever
having seen or used it before."

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davros
It amazes me that this site has any users at all! There is no path from the
home page to browse the content - its sign up or go away. I think very few
people will sign up to a site without seeing its content, I know I won't!
Quora marketing must be really good to have overcome this barrier to achieve
the success they clearly have had...

~~~
kongqiu
They initially recruited some really good (especially for social networks)
"experts" who made the content a cut well above your run of the mill social
Q&A site.

Early adopters were intrigued by this early high-quality community. "Less
early" adopters were in turn attracted by the (still) high-quality content;
this group was followed by people like me, who have seen the site's quality
gradually decline. Heaven help the people who have followed _me_ onto Quora,
much less the people who will follow _them_... :)

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rapicastillo
I somewhat hate the fact that websites had to spoonfeed almost everything to
the user. Quora does look rudimentary, but it gets the job done. i think the
simplicity is not ugly, but rather clean.

I would love to see a site whose part of the user experience is actually
experiencing the site first hand on one's own, like the smart people that they
are. (or is it a user-filtering system)

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dave1619
I love Quora but also agree with David Pogue. I find lots of great answers but
there's a lot in the UX that's overwhelming and confusing to the normal user.
If I was Quora I would reach out to David Pogue, fly out to NY, meet with him
for a couple hours, and pick his brain on how to make Quora easier for the
normal user.

~~~
techiferous
Or I would do some proper usability testing with new users.

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Dramatize
I love the Quora UI.

Making the site hard for new users could even be seen as a feature. Keeps
youtube/yahoo users away.

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code_duck
I tried to find the quora account I signed up for last year, with which I
associated my twitter account, and it was pretty much impossible.

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iamwil
So the guy's basically asking for a manual when we all know generally, people
don't read. Why doesn't he just click around and see what happens?

The entire article baffles me.

~~~
guptaneil
"Normal" people never just click around and see what happens. They're afraid
of breaking something.

The author is not asking for a manual, he's asking for a better design for
first time users. I had a similar impression when I tried Quora too. It seems
to be mostly designed for power users who have already invested the time to
familiarize themselves with the site. However, only tech-savvy people are
going to do that, which will make long-term growth difficult for Quora without
a design change. On the other hand, it will maintain the overall quality of
the site by limiting its appeal and size.

~~~
suprgeek
This is a really key insight: "They're afraid of breaking something..." is an
attitude that Software People never understand but is deeply ingrained in most
other people. "Click around until stuff starts to happen and see what sticks"
is never a good UI interaction choice and Frontend Software devs need to test
all their designs by running it past their (non-computer savvy) grand moms.

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lwat
> The account sign-up process says that Quora can use your Facebook or Twitter
> identity to save you time — so why did I have to enter my e-mail address and
> make up a password anyway?

This is what annoyed me most when signing up for Quora.

~~~
ryanb
Facebook and Twitter just help Quora verify your identity, while also ensuring
new users have nice profile pictures. They still have to create their own
unique account for you, which is why they want your e-mail.

~~~
lwat
I felt like I got duped into revealing my Facebook account for no reason. The
page indicated that I'll 'save time' but as far as I can tell I didn't save
any time at all.

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abossy
Quora uses your Facebook friends graph to determine who you'll initially
follow on Quora. It's been critical to onboarding new users and showing them
relevant content immediately.

~~~
taken11
for me its clearly a reason to not sign up with Quora...

