Tumblr Evaluation
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Content and Usability Report Autum Hosler English 420 Final Project Professor Daniel Tripp Penn State University table of contents. introduction.! 1 accessibility.! 2 tutorials.! 2 help page.! 3 usability.! 6 posts editor layout.! 6 messages.! 7 notifications.! 8 tracked tags.! 8 tag character limit.! 9 additional suggestions.! 10 dashboard customization.! 10 blacklisting.! 11 tag features.! 11 replies.! 12 chat.! 12 conclusion.! 13 Tumblr Content and Usability Report! i introduction. At the request of Mr. Karp, CEO of Tumblr, Inc., this report examines tumblr.com. Specifically, it seeks to assess the usability, accessibility, and design of the website from the standpoint of both new and everyday users. It also makes suggestions as to possible improvements for the website in order to make it easier and more enjoyable for its users. This report observes that several changes have recently been made to the layout of tumblr.com which are actually detrimental to its functionality, while other features that should be changed have been left untouched. Overall, this report recommends that several changes be made to the layout and design of tumblr.com in order to improve its functionality for its users. This report will address three main areas of concern pertaining to tumblr.com. The first topic addressed will be accessibility. This category will assess the ease with which a new tumblr user can navigate and learn the site and make suggestions as to how tumblr can become more accessible to potential new users. The second topic addressed will be usability. This category will assess the main features of the tumblr website that are used most frequently by regular users and make suggestions as to how to improve these features for easier use. The final topic will cover additional suggestions pertaining to new or existing features that can be added or changed in order to streamline use of the website and make it a more enjoyable experience for frequent users. We hope that you will find this report helpful when assessing the possibility of future improvements to tumblr.com. Tumblr Content and Usability Report! 1 accessibility. tutorials. In order to begin research for this report, we created a new account on tumblr.com to assess the the clarity and ease of use for a new tumblr user. We were intrigued to find that there is no introduction tutorial upon completion of a new account. This could potentially cause confusion for anyone who is not familiar with tumblr, as many of the functions on tumblr are represented by icons that have no immediate description (Figure 1). Figure 1: The tumblr dashboard as it appears immediately upon creation of a new account. Although it can be assumed that many of these icons are intuitive in their representation of the functions they portray and descriptions of these functions can be accessed by hovering the cursor over the icon, this assumption may not be correct in all cases and could alienate new tumblr users. Tumblr.com is a website rich with content and options Tumblr Content and Usability Report! 2 to create the user’s desired blogging experience, and the lack of description could impede the experience for new users. To solve this issue, we propose creating an interactive tutorial that begins as soon as the user is transported to their dashboard for the first time. The style of this tutorial could be similar to the type that Facebook employs when introducing new features to its users. These tutorials consist of pop-up boxes that appear near the feature in question and give a short description of its function. The pop-up boxes could include a link that the user can follow for more information on the feature and a dismissal button for when they are satisfied with their understanding of the feature. We suggest including these tutorials whenever the user accesses an area of the website for the first time (dashboard, new post type, messages, blog customization, etc.). We also recommend allowing the user the option to completely dismiss all tutorials, as not all new account creators will be unfamiliar with tumblr’s functions. help page. In order to further assist new users, we suggest revamping the help page as well. As Figure 2 shows, the help page consists of a search bar, a list of frequently asked questions, and a box that contains some bulleted advanced topics. There is no section that includes information on some of the site’s more basic features. We even typed a simple question in the search bar of the help page, “what is reblogging?”, and were awarded no results that pertained to the question (Figure 3). Due to this, we are led to believe that no information exists to these simple questions on the help page. Adding pages describing the basic features of tumblr to the help section could be beneficial to any new user, and would be very simple. The links could be added to the main help page, perhaps above the F.A.Q. section for easy access. Tumblr Content and Usability Report! 3 Figure 2: Default tumblr help page. Tumblr Content and Usability Report! 4 Figure 3: The search results of the question, “what is reblogging?”. Tumblr Content and Usability Report! 5 usability. post editor layout. Recently, tumblr.com implemented a new layout system for creating new posts and reblogging. Previously, whenever a user created or reblogged a post, they would be directed to a new page where they could then proceed with creating or editing their post. The new system opens the post editor directly on top of the dashboard, effectively stalling all other possible interaction with the dashboard while the user is posting (Figure 4). Figure 4: The dashboard as it appears when creating a new post. Tumblr Content and Usability Report! 6 Although this new layout was created in an attempt to streamline the posting process and make tumblr seem more similar to other social networking sites, such as Twitter or Facebook, it actually makes the process more difficult for users. This new system makes it impossible for the user to interact with the rest of the dashboard, or any other feature on tumblr, while accessing the post editor. If a user wishes to reference something on any other section of the website, they would be required to open a new tab in order to do so. Another issue with this system is that upon the creation of the post, the screen “jumps” to the top of the dashboard and then back down to the position that the user was at when they opened the post editor. This issue is extremely jarring and distracting. Our recommendation is that the post editor should automatically be opened in a new tab, allowing users to reference other areas of the site if they so wish. messages. In its current state, the tumblr messaging system has several issues. The most prominent of these is that whenever a user answers an “ask” that they receive, the message is automatically erased from their message archive. If they choose to answer the ask publicly, it is posted to their blog and dashboard, and can then be catalogued via the use of tags. However, if the user answers the message privately, it is then sent back to the asker, and the user has no way of accessing the message again should they need to. We suggest changing the messaging system so that all messages are archived, giving the user the option to reference them later, or delete them if they wish. Another issue with the current messaging system is that all messages appear in the user’s ask box in the order that they were received. This causes the message archives to be very unorganized, and makes it difficult for users to find and reference old messages. By implementing a cataloguing system, users could organize their messages by sender, date, or any other number of categories, much like an email inbox. Finally, there is a character limit on all tumblr messages. This poses a problem because unless a user has the submit option enabled for their blog, there is no way for users to send messages exceeding 500 characters. Instead, they are forced to send multiple messages, which can get confusing and clog up inboxes. Removing this character limit would make communication between users much easier. Tumblr Content and Usability Report! 7 notifications. Whenever a user creates or reblogs a post, they receive notifications on their dashboard anytime someone else likes, reblogs, or comments on that post (Figure 5). As tumblr has a wide network of users, some posts can get upwards of 100,000 notes. Each of those notes will show up on the original poster’s dashboard in the form of notifications. This means that any user who creates a popular post will have their dashboard “clogged” by notifications, possibly detracting from their tumblr experience. Figure 5: Notifications as they appear on the dashboard. Currently, there is no way for users to disable notifications, but allowing them to do so on a post-by-post basis would prevent the annoyance of clogged dashboards from popular post notifications. tracked tags. When users wish to stay updated about new posts concerning a certain topic, they can track the tag pertaining to that topic. In order to access their tracked tags, users must navigate to the search bar on the dashboard, at which point a drop-down list of tracked tags appears (Figure 6). This makes accessing tracked tags more difficult than necessary. Allowing the tracked tags to appear as a list on the right side of the dashboard, underneath the blog stats, would make them more accessible to users.