Mid- July! Campfire Onboarding for new members/Guests & Noni Update
HI Everyone!
I am writing to share an exciting update we have been working on! The goal of this update is to ensure that every new member or guest who visits our site feels connected to our community, understands what we are about, feels like they belong and gets connected to a caring, supportive chat. There are three changes we are going to implement in our hopes of reaching this goal! To explain these changes, I am going to walk you through the new user experience since this is primarily where these updates will be experienced.
When a new guest visits 7 Cups, they will see the main get started page (like usual)! When they click get started, they will be brought to a second welcome page. This is the first change! This second welcome page will further explain who we are:
-----> 7 Cups is a place full of people who care for you and who also struggle
-----> When you are lonely or need someone to talk to there are always people here
-----> We also have therapists and self-care steps you can take once a day or any time
The last part of this page will invite the member/guest to Come sit around the campfire and get a sense of what its like to chat with caring folks on here. A campfire is a place for people to gather in community building, sharing and support.
If they agree to move forward, they will brought to a campfire page. This page will show a rolling mock group support discussion. The member can watch as the chat scrolls through.
Heres quick mock-up Krink made to explore the idea:
...and here is a more developed mockup our visual designer Ryan made (we are still discussing making it lighter in color and other adjustments to the final design):
Whenever they are ready, they can move on to the next stage. This is where we have our second change!
Noni is about to get an upgraded role in our community! Many of us know Noni from chatting with her while we wait to get connect to our listeners. Noni is a friendly bot, whose goal is to provide additional information and support to you as you wait for a listener. Up till this point, Noni has not had a super active or present role beyond what I have just outlined. But today, this is going to change. Noni will become a more thoughtful and caring bot to us all. After the campfire, the individual will be brought into a chat with Noni. Today, you only talk to Noni when you are requesting a listener (or her sister Sophia when you are seeking a therapist). In this chat, Noni will ask the new user if theyd like to talk to a listener, and she will also be able to offer the option of talking to a therapist, or a third option to choose from: continuing to just talk with Noni, A friendly bot.
If the member/ guests selects to chat with Noni, they will be able to engage in a friendly and supportive chat with Noni. We have written a script for Noni to encourage this supportive conversation. Our goal in adding this is to provide additional options to guests/members who are struggling. Did you know that around 40% of guests/members who make a general chat request never exchange 1 message with their listener? There are many reasons for this, but one is fear. We want to give those folks who are not ready to chat with a real person the opportunity to still get help and feel like they belong. This is why we are introducing the option to chat with Noni only.
Noni will continue to suggest talking to other people, visiting the community, group chat, self-help, etc., and will be able to respond (at first in a limited way) to questions.
In additional to the third chat option, the third change is that Noni will become a persistent presence in your conversation list. To start, this will just be for members/guests. However, down the road, this may expand for listeners too. As a persistent presence, Noni will be present if the members would like to talk to her. Noni will offer kind and supportive messages to members and some suggestions on activities to try around the site. Members can talk to her as often as they would like.
We are very excited to share these three updates with you! We think they have a lot of potential to increase support giving and making more people feel like they belong at 7 Cups. We are still ironing out some of the specific details with these updates, so stay tuned for more information to come in the next few days/ weeks, as we have it.
@Laura
that sounds a nice idea! Can't wait to try it! Thanks for the updates!
@Laura
Wow! Awesome!
Well done Krink and Ryan!
I love this :3 I am glad to see Noni getting further involved T_T xD
Wasn't she getting a face a while ago?
@Joe2017 A face for Noni?? Omg, I hope not! That would be freaky! Sophia the Bot is scary enough with a face :c
@Erica
But the faces were really nice Erica T-T I think a talking tea cup is slightly more scary xD
@Joe2017 But but but, a talking tea cup makes more sense than some random person with EXTREMELY white teeth. I would never want to talk to Noni if she became what Sophia looks like... I find it freaky! Especially if it's a teen. Like, Noni would like an oldie and then the teen could be confused. Talking tea cups are the new thing ;)
@Erica
Good points..... BUT. ultra white teeth means you can look at them and see a reflection of yourself. it's a free mirror 3:)
Idkkkk I'm just not feeling the talking tea pot D: I'd like to see a cartoony face teen noni to be honest xD
@Erica
I hope there's an option for the guest/members to change Noni's avatar image if they find it scary. Even if it's a cute dog or cat face it could be unwelcome to someone that has a phobia.
I'm super excited to hear about this update! I think it'll be a fantastic addition the site
@Laura I can see how these changes will help in SO many ways. As one of the over 50 years crowd here I feel like this will help diffuse anxiety and help guests to understand our purpose better. Perhaps giving new listeners a better first experience. Thanks!
@Laura That's really cool! + yeah I totally agree with the fact that a lot of people don't even send more than 1 message it can be bothering for the listener sometimes ^^
Excellent idea @Laura
looks great!
These updates seem very exciting! Can't wait to see them in action!
@Laura
Whoops, hit the send too soon!
My question is about the campfire mock chat. When the member decides to join us at the campfire, will the chat be similar to what was shown in this post? I see the 'chat' is all about redirection- "Come to this room for this discussion, join me here for this topic" and so on. Or are we planning on having a mock chat where a member says "Im having a rough day" and someone else chimes in and so on and so forth ending in a listener reaching out directly?
I fear that if we present that a chat will send you in many directions, that we are not showing HOW we are truly. If I were looking to speak with someone and wanted to get a feel for thie site beforehand, I'd want to see someone engaging the member to show the support THEN seeing that someone cared about me enough to directly reach out.
I know that members really do go to rooms to find out about discussions being held elsewhere, but I feel its a little impersonal to show a redirective chat as an example.
@AndHerNameWasCassandra
Fixed your typos!
@Emily619
Thank you!
@AndHerNameWasCassandra
No problem!