Feature Update: Profile pages
As mentioned, we’ve been working hard behind the scenes to update profile pages on the website (coming soon to an app near you!). Profiles are really important, particularly for a mental health community. Its a place to express ourselves and how we form connections with each other - which makes it easier to lift each other up.
7 Cups has evolved a lot over the last few years and our profile pages haven’t kept up with many of the new features. This update is focused on bringing profiles in line with the rest of the site and in harmony with the many different things you can do on 7 Cups. We’ve also received many suggestions and feedback over the years - which we’ve compiled and reviewed, and has influenced how we’ve designed and built the new pages. We hope to do more with profiles in the future 🙏.
So whats in this update?
The layout now reflects the 3 column approach we use for much of the site. The benefit of this is you can see most a of users profile on larger screens without scrolling. The central profile section focuses on your key data - streaks, points and level - and we’ve tried to make it easy and quick to read. The badges section now also includes a counter so you can see how many badges a user has.
The biggest change is when you go to your own profile. There is now a private section that only you can see which is the home for your journal and activity timeline. The activity timeline tracks most of the key therapeutic activities you can do on the site, along with your assessment data (e.g. PHQ9 or flourishing measures) and previous journal entries. Our hope is that with greater visibility of your own data and behaviour, will come greater understanding of what most helps you.
In future updates we would like to add a space for pinning your favourite quote and maybe the ability to customise some of the colour of your profile. Also a little warning that we will eventually need to strip back the coloured text I know many of you love using - it makes profiles hard to read for those with eyesight problems (and it doesn’t translate to the app well) and we want the platform to be inclusive for everyone.
The new profiles should be released this week and we hope you like them!
@Jon7Cups
i love the look of it I do like the traffic light colors to show if I am around or not.
Question the my impact is on the public side can users see who I have chatted with over time ? I would think this would be private ?!
@SunShineAlwaysGrateful Hi there, yes that is also a private page just showing up in your own view
@Jon7Cups what happened to the logo displaying the country the listener is from? i'll really miss that. it sometimes helps to chat with someone in my country specifically. that can build better rapport and can really aid in certain conversations. now i won't know where anyone is located.
@fearlessWriter78
yes I loved that too
@Jon7Cups
Unfortunately, the new layout doesn't work well for
me. It is much harder to read the information, it's crowded and overwhelming
and if the primary function was to reduce scrolling, my profile page still has
a fair amount of scrolling so I'm not sure what has been achieved here.
I
have a few feedback points:
- The data/stats is really hard to read all in one block compared to the old layout. The data also isn't in a consistent place, for example if someone has multiple languages, it pushes the rest of the data on meaning that the information is in a different place on each profile.
- The categories aren't as easy to look through as they were - it used to be a simple hover over and scroll but now it's a button to expand and scrolls the whole page which is minor but less user friendly. What could be useful is the ability to order the categories as my most usual category is at the bottom of the list and only viewable if expanded. It would also be nice to have the topics listeners select as 'Don't take chats for' topics displayed on the profiles.
- It's much harder to see the difference between a Listener profile and a Member profile as the M and L are quite small and not very clear and I liked the different colours per level, now it's all just grey.
- The private section - wasn't this already available? because I know I've seen the activity tracking before and it's great, I'm just not sure it needed to be moved to the profile page because I don't often visit my own profile.
- The flag icons for country seem to have disappeared on the profiles, is that a deliberate decision or something that can be fixed? Because that is quite important when communicating with team members across time zones.
I agree with the above comments that we would really like to keep the colours on our profiles to give a little bit of identity and creativity.
Positives - the badge count is cool.
(Also if anyone happens to have a screenshot of my old profile, please can you send it to me because the changes are already live and I didn't get one before it updated 😔)
@Lou73
Here you go:
I promise, I'm not a stalker who photographs everyone's profiles lol. The earlier layout is still live on the site beta.7cups.com
Haha thank you so much @Mahad2804 ! I totally forgot about beta 😂🥰 And I actually have notifications with colours there too!
Hi @Lou73, thanks for taking the time to review the new profiles and for compiling and sharing your feedback. I'm sorry that it doesn't work well for you. You have shared some great suggestions (particularly like the idea of a list of topics you don't take chats on) and we agree that the longer stats section can be improved. There is plenty we can do to make the profiles even better and hopefully you'll like future versions more.
@Jon7Cups I looked and do not like at all but it is what it is.. Looks so messed up and not organized well at all.Plus I am Ocd and I do not like changes well at all.. 🌞
But ya know what it is cool and I will roll with it because changes happen and there is not a thing we can do about changes except say how we feel and move on.
It is all about helping people and not by looks . 💗
7cups still offers so much help for people all over the world! I hope it continues and grows even more so do what ever you need to do .
Peace and Love , Prayers, Tye 🦋
@Jon7Cups I understand the importance of inclusiveness when it comes to the platform but stripping the use of colorful text is a change that just saddens me. Getting rid of the ability to incorporate colors in OUR personal bios/profiles is to strip individuals of a way to express themselves in an already limited way. Everyone who knows me knows I love colors. 🌈 is life and colors bring me happiness. The use of colorful texts allows me to express my creativity and personality. Please reconsider removing this ability. I'm really sorry if it bothers people's eyes but self expression is soooo important for people like me. I read everything you wrote and I'm sorry I'm so strung up on just this but please don't remove this for me and others like me who use our profiles as a way to express who we are. 😞
@Jon7Cups I am on my phone and I absolutely love the face-lift for our profiles. I'm a creature of habit but this is one change I like. I think it looks pretty and I love it looks wise, but please don't take away colored fonts. I love my rainbow 🌈 text in my profile and use it because that's a way to express myself. Please can y'all reconsider keeping it and not take it away in the future. I have got to have my pretty colors.
@Jon7Cups
I guess the update is alright, but needs more work,
Like:
1. Feedback/Reviews and other details appear right at the top, so that we don't have to scroll much. I appreciate that a lot.
2. Inclusion of the path timeline through Public/Private tabs. A great upgrade! Neat and nice.
Dislike:
1. Removing the two columns for statistics. The new pile of text is a mess. Earlier it was better organized, and my eyes knew where to look for personally relevant numbers/details such as people helped, progress path steps, languages, the 'listener since' date, number of chats and so on. This new centre aligned pile is unappealing and hard to read, as due to variable details, the placements of these statistics will be different with different profiles (for eg. someone speaks multiple languages, or omits gender... leading to the labels being at different places). So it's not something we can get used to, I feel. Very inconvenient, I'm very unhappy ☹️ about that. Hope you organize them in columns again!
2. Removal of colours in the future update. I don't use them much in my bio, but I have come across numerous profiles that have put their heart and soul into customizing their profile quite creatively, and made it easier to read. There are many profiles that have a confusing amount of colours and bad formatting too... but if we use colours to emphasize different sections, just as the like/dislike sections in this post for eg, it can be solved. I can understand the not translating to the app well thing though, I have no idea about the challenges for the app, so I understand why you might be thinking of this decision.
Questions:
1. The emojis can stay in the profile bios, right? What's your opinion on making a guide that suggests what a good profile should look like? Create some formats maybe?
2. How are colourful forum posts seen in the app?
Unrelated but 3. What makes the app freeze so much(Android)? Many listeners in the LSR prefer to only use the website for this reason.
Thank you! 😊
Hi @grimsmark8, thanks for sharing your thoughts. Definitely more we can do to make the profiles even better. Some quick answers to your questions:
- Coloured profiles and forum posts are difficult to read on the app. Over a 1/3 of users are on the app, so thats quite a few people who can't read them right now!
- Yes emojis are great and encouraged. We actually recently expanded the library of emojis on the site so you have more to pick from.
- Guides are great for the 10% of users that will read it. But doesn't work for the other 90%.
- We don't know why the android app freezes. Would love to fix that.
Thanks for updating us!
I'm excited to see the new changes in action. I'll definitely miss the colored text in the bios, but of course, we want things to be easily accessible and inclusive! I'm excited to see a section for a favorite quote as well, I'd love that 😄
OK thank you for all help and support and for this profile to read. Thanks all here.
I am just a click away.Xx
I don't like it. It is difficult for the members too. Sorry!
