Site Feedback: best default opening page

Site Feedback
1

I thought it was time to do some user testing and feedback now that we have a good number of members and active users, so I’ve posted a quick poll at the bottom of this post.

IMPROVING THE OPENING PAGE EXPERIENCE

You may not be aware, but there are different ways to show the topics when you arrive on the site.

At the moment, we default to a page that has a combination of the LATEST posts on the right, with the list of CATEGORIES on the left. This was chosen so that it was clear what the rang of conversation topics this site might cover, but still show the most recent posts.

Screenshot 2026-04-29 at 09.55.51
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However, it does limit your ability to scroll through slightly older topics that may slip off the bottom.

The alternative is to default to all the LATEST posts, and not show the CATEGORIES, like this:

Screenshot 2026-04-29 at 09.55.45
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You can always switch between them by clicking on the links above the listings here:

Screenshot 2026-04-29 at 10.00.47

And you can even override the site default by telling the system what you prefer in your own preferences:

Screenshot 2026-04-29 at 10.02.03
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But, what would you prefer the default to be? Please vote below, and if you have any thoughts on this you’d care to share for discussion, please reply below

  • Keep the current CATEGORIES display
  • Show all the LATEST posts instead
0 voters
2

Only 5 votes so far, but a clear winner emerging. Would be good to get a wider view on this since this is a small sample.

We could always try it for a week and then switch back if people prefer … but I only want to do that if there is a clear wish for it :slight_smile:

1 Like
3

Well, we’ve had 8 votes (out of almost 150 members) so not a large sample, but a clear bias towards switching to the LATEST page instead.

I propose to change this from tomorrow for a couple of weeks or so, and see what people make of it.

Don’t forget that if you don’t like it, you can click on the heading to change it, and change your personal default in your preferences.

4

That’s great - I was thinking about this when I visited the site over the weekend - I quite like having the categories on the home page, but for some reason, I really don’t like having them on the left, and the current topics on the right. I think it might work well if they were switched around, with most recent topics on the left. Is that a configuration that would be feasible?

5

Unfortunately not, at least not without a lot of special programming (which is not something I can do).

For the moment, I have switched as discussed (you may need to refresh your screen to update the cache), and we will gather more feedback.

1 Like
6

Cant remember what I voted for BUT the current opening page layout is much better and more user friendly.

A suggestion: could we perhaps have the catagories/Channels and topics in Bold type in the index?

1 Like