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.
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.
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.
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.
For me, too often, it works the other way. I try to use it as a search box, but if I type in a phrase and hit return (as I'm accustomed to do with search boxes elsewhere), it instead tries to add a question. I wind up having to use the arrow keys to select something else in order to make it do a search.
(This is with Ubuntu Lucid's stock FF3 on Linux, if it matters.)
But keep in mind that all users are new users to begin with, so don't underestimate the value of optimizing design for them.
As far as the existing "solution" of conflating search and adding a question, I give it an F. It has tripped me up before. I suggest going back to the drawing board.
> 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.
It fails.
When I type a word that matches a topic and hit "enter", it sometimes goes to that topic, and sometimes it goes to the "add question" pop-up.
When I type a word that does not match a topic but matches the body of some answers, it usually goes to the "add question" pop-up when I hit enter.
I have not been able to discern how it decides which of these it is going to do.
While I was experimenting with it, it got stuck in a state where it always went to the "add question" pop-up. I could only search by clicking on one of the suggested search results.
If they intended this thing to discourage asking questions before searching, then someone goofed, and their testers are non-existant or incompetent.
Why not call the box 'search', which is what new users should be doing at first anyway? If they find nothing then offer to help them formulate a question.
The very last thing I want to do is sign up all my facebook friends and then ask a dumb question as my first action. The odds that I have a great question at the point of registration are pretty low.
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...) . 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.
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.
"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, ...)
From Quora's perspective, that puts them on the path to being the next Friendfeed -- not a good outcome for the investors who valued them at $86M last spring.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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."
Blaming the user when a website doesn't properly convey its message is the 'clear communication' problem. If Quora is smart, they will follow up with some more users with targeted questions on these issues, and if they are common complaints for new users, then they should fix them.
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...
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... :)
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)
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.
"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.
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.
He writes that the UI is unintelligible, and that the creators haven't (even) created a fall-back resource such as an FAQ.
I share his exact sentiment; everything about Quora's front-end is horrible. It boggles the mind how oblivious the Quora team seem of the site's shortcomings - and it's the main reason why I personally thing that they are destined to fail.
Odd. While I found that there were lots of different kinds of pages, I found the site engaging. When I visit a Q&A site, I very rarely visit other questions, because when I go there for a question, I go there for the question. Once it's answered, I'm done.
But with Quora, I viewed question after question for fun.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
