Discussion forum

Overview

Introduction

Creating a design discussion forum to host meaningful conversations & debates on UNI.

Context

Background

In my opinion, discussion forums are one of the worst designed things on internet. I've been to forums that have thought provoking discussions, meaningful questions, helpful suggestion and much more, but most of this remain inaccessible due to poorly designed space. This problem is practically throughout the internet and there are very few exceptions to this. Sites like Reddit, Quora, Stack Overflow and some product forum do a better job tackling this issue, but they certainly do not cover the entire opportunity this space has to offer.

Project history

We at UNI saw a potential in introducing design community a better, safer space to organize their discussion and share their value and opinions. Our motive was to build a place where people can have meaningful discussions fearlessly without getting bullied or patronized. The discussed content should be accessible and easily searchable. Also, we are trying to build something community driven without the need of moderators (I know this can backfire but it at least deserve a chance)

My role

I was involved since the inception stage and actively converted it from concept to prototype and handed it off to developers.

Research

Hypothesis

The process of creating this forum started with a 'why'. Why do we need something like a forum on UNI? Why will anyone use it? What value are we giving to users? How is it any different from existing community spaces. In my career, I've learnt that asking this set of questions at the initial stage does help in clearly defining the value, scope and boundaries of a product. At this stage it's also important to have all stakeholders provide their inputs and formulate a hypothesis.

Case study

Once we had a clear direction of where we wanted to be, next step was to conduct a research to understand the specifics of these things. I studied several related websites for things that were good or could be improved. Also, we noted the gaps which we felt was there in existing platforms where our value proposition could be.

Process

Approach

It isn't tough to build a product, it is tough to make it a success. We wanted to make this product a success (obviously) and realized that rushing things could harm our efforts. So, a decision was made to hit a pause after initial research phase to soak up the findings and take time to ponder. We also needed time to work on other open projects and this seemed to be the only way around. Looking back, that pause was useful as we had a clear understanding of base requirements and took that time to study other platforms in depth. However the workload of other projects did force us to push the resume deadline by few weeks delaying the expected launch.

Resuming after all that time felt like starting afresh. In the first meeting we realized that unlike previously, each one (designer, developer & PM) had a different vision. In all that while, we all went in different direction and came up with entirely different goals. So we held a series of discussions to get on same page and align our expectations.

Process

Now after completing my research and having my ideas aligned with rest of the team, it was time to turn it from a concept to something concrete. This is a stage which most designers love (including me) as it is the space where we have the liberty to work on our craft. But if working as a designer with a team has taught me anything, it is that this stage doesn't matter as much as we value it. Research, team collaboration, feedback are often more important to get a successful product. Thus, my intention was to create something as quick as I can and present it to other members to ensure we're actually on the same page. This is something I always do and also recommend before diving into details.

Challenges

1. One of the biggest challenge was to create a space for our community that fosters meaningful discussion, without getting bullied or patronized.
2. Also, we wanted to make sure that no responses get lost in the threads and discussion stays to its topic and doesn't deviate too much.
3. Final challenge was dealing with threaded response which is followed almost in every forum and needs an update

Outcome

Final design

In the threaded responses, a scrollbar was proposed in place of thread for quicker navigation

Learnings

This project gave me a chance to study discussion forums in depth, understand things that are needed to foster communications. Although the actual outcome can only be understood once the project is live and used by community, nonetheless it was a good exploration and we're hopeful it'll turn out to be as meaningful for our users as we wanted it to be.