I dislike Quora for a number of reasons, many of which are described in that presentation:
1. Quora make it hard to begin accessing content when arriving from Google search results for the first time.
2. Seems to be filled with pointless echo chamber people like Scoble and cliques of so called "thought leaders"....I have a hard time understanding the point of Robert Scoble and self-appointed "thought leaders". I hate to use the term, but there's a lot of "circle jerking" going on in Quora with "famous people".
3. Even when I did sign up with a throwaway account, everything about their navigation and page layout is hard. Questions and answers are jammed into a narrow sliver of content area. On a 24" 1920x1200, with a browser window occupying just half that width, it looks crap.
4. When I last used Quora (about two years ago) it was hard to just randomly leap around looking for interesting content. there didn't seem to be a 10000 foot view of what I can look at and randomly dip into.
5. Dark patterns.
But then I was spoiled by Stack Overflow which allows me instant access to content which is well laid out and easy to comprehend and consume. Yes, SO may have 6.5 million+ questions, but their tagging feature alone (including tag synonyms) makes it a piece of cake to see just the stuff I want to see, but also hop around. I truly hope SE's philosophy of zero friction user onboarding, easy access to content and sensible moderation constraints burn Quora.
I short, I just can't bring myself to use Quora, I really did want to, I truly did, but everything about the way they operate is hostile/icky. As someone who, after suffering years of internet loonies (on usenet, mailing lists, phpBB), and can appreciate the need for well managed and curated content, and constructive and intelligent discourse, I find Quora has failed to engage me on so many levels.
I also don't know a single person in my circle of close and near friends who bother with Quora (both technical and non-technical clever, and internet savvy people). They too are fatigued with the whole "gotta sign up to see our content" thing.
Quora isn't any better than Experts Exchange which I stopped using even before SO came on the scene back in 2008. It's just a high-falutin' incarnation of EE, I truly hope Quora fails.
3. Even when I did sign up with a throwaway account, everything about their navigation and page layout is hard. Questions and answers are jammed into a narrow sliver of content area. On a 24" 1920x1200, with a browser window occupying just half that width, it looks crap.
...
But then I was spoiled by Stack Overflow which allows me instant access to content which is well laid out and easy to comprehend and consume.
I would point out that Stack Overflow also has a fixed-size content area. It is a bit bigger (660 px vs. 485 px), but at 1920x1200, you're looking at 25% vs. 34% of the screen for the Q&A which will look rather empty. Plus the font size is actually larger on Stack Overflow so the information density is probably about the same.
I rarely go to Quora myself, but it has nothing to do with stylistic choices.
Yes agree mostly, but somehow SO's layout hits my visual comprehension sweetspot pretty good. I guess my only complaint would be this which I raised a while back, but was poo-poo'd:
1. Quora make it hard to begin accessing content when arriving from Google search results for the first time.
2. Seems to be filled with pointless echo chamber people like Scoble and cliques of so called "thought leaders"....I have a hard time understanding the point of Robert Scoble and self-appointed "thought leaders". I hate to use the term, but there's a lot of "circle jerking" going on in Quora with "famous people".
3. Even when I did sign up with a throwaway account, everything about their navigation and page layout is hard. Questions and answers are jammed into a narrow sliver of content area. On a 24" 1920x1200, with a browser window occupying just half that width, it looks crap.
4. When I last used Quora (about two years ago) it was hard to just randomly leap around looking for interesting content. there didn't seem to be a 10000 foot view of what I can look at and randomly dip into.
5. Dark patterns.
But then I was spoiled by Stack Overflow which allows me instant access to content which is well laid out and easy to comprehend and consume. Yes, SO may have 6.5 million+ questions, but their tagging feature alone (including tag synonyms) makes it a piece of cake to see just the stuff I want to see, but also hop around. I truly hope SE's philosophy of zero friction user onboarding, easy access to content and sensible moderation constraints burn Quora.
I short, I just can't bring myself to use Quora, I really did want to, I truly did, but everything about the way they operate is hostile/icky. As someone who, after suffering years of internet loonies (on usenet, mailing lists, phpBB), and can appreciate the need for well managed and curated content, and constructive and intelligent discourse, I find Quora has failed to engage me on so many levels.
I also don't know a single person in my circle of close and near friends who bother with Quora (both technical and non-technical clever, and internet savvy people). They too are fatigued with the whole "gotta sign up to see our content" thing.
Quora isn't any better than Experts Exchange which I stopped using even before SO came on the scene back in 2008. It's just a high-falutin' incarnation of EE, I truly hope Quora fails.