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!
Hey @Jon7Cups thank you for making this thread. I appreciate all the hard work you put in behind the scenes for Cups!
I do have some feedback that I would like to give on the new lay out of the profiles.
- I definitely do like how there are now 3 "columns" which are cohesive with the layout of the site overall! I think having the written reviews at the top is important because I know that when members are looking for Listeners, that is often something that they want to check out first.
- My main constructive feedback would be how bunched up the stats are on profiles. I definitely think this is something that could be tweaked and still stay with the lay out of the three columns. I believe if you kept the structure of the stats similar to how they were laid out before, this would be a lot more accessible to people. As a leader in this community and a mentor, I often look at other Listeners stats to get information that I'm needing. Number of chats, when they were last active etc. How the stats are currently laid out is very hard on the eyes and takes longer for me to find the information that I'm needing.
- I know the "stars" are also important for members. Most members, when looking for Listeners, will look for Listeners with 4+ stars. How that is also laid out on the profile, is very hard to see. Your eye does not naturally find it.
For now, those are the main points that I wanted to address about the current layout of the profile page.
However, I did want to address the removal of color from profile pictures. I do understand that accessibility is important. However, I do believe individuality is important also. Many Listeners use colors and emojis on their bios to show their personality. I have personally heard from members that they enjoy the color on bios too. In terms of the colors that are hard to see, I do have a solution for that. I have seen people on the forums use links to an "easy to read" version of their threads when they use color. I think if we incorporated that into the bios, then there would be no reason to remove color and it would allow people to still have fun, while also allowing people to be able to easily read what is being said on bios.
My concern about how "professional" Cups is becoming is that the "fun" is being removed. I know that some members (teens specifically) have a hard time reading blocks of black writing. That's why they will usually swing by to Listeners who have fun looking bios. I do think that this should definitely be thought out and seriously considered before implementing.
@beck1 thanks for the thoughtful comments. We definitely don't want to remove the fun! One thing we are doing is making navigation easier for newbies that struggle to get around the site - and don't find the listeners and content that is helpful.
No decision has been made yet on colours (clear that its an emotive topic). And I applaud the various suggestions, flexibility and collective problem solving in this thread. Collectively, we can choose to leave it as it is - and lock out users with accessibility needs and app users from connecting with the rest of the community - or try and find a solution that balances out the different needs the community has.
Funnily enough, the stats section is my least favourite too. Like with everything on the platform, we hope to improve it soon.
I'm surprised about your comment regarding stars. Its now one of the most prominent parts of the profile. Perhaps we mean different things?
@Jon7Cups
i agree with the others on the clumpy-ness of the stats. Tho it's smaller and compact making it easier to look at, the alignment makes it harder to read.
Also, i don't see them like follower counts or view counts like from other sites. My 7cups numbers, i always felt somewhat shy about because it's about my mental health.
I'd prefer the 1st thing a profile viewer sees is my dumb bio; that's me. not how depressed i was/am or how many compassionate pats on the back i got.
The emphasis on the progress titles (member levels) from before made points look more positive (compared to seeing numbers).
''Hopeful Heart''
"Pacing Forward"
"Aiming High"
More proud of having that under my username haha :')
I like the community updates box tho :)
@Jon7Cups
Hi Jon!
A "nice to have" feature for the Profile: be able to "Follow" certain people by clicking a "Follow" button on their profiles. And then receive a notification every time they create a new thread (not just a post). So I would know there is a new thread for example by Fristo, Glen, Sun, Heather, Joy and other people I follow. Those might even have a dedicated notification box on the dashboard. There should not be "likes" stats (how many people follow someone).
BTW, I feel that "My Path" is a private thing, in contrast to posts, chats, etc. There was an option to disable showing it in the previous profile version. I would like it back.
The "Daily streak" in turn, might create friction with people who send low-priority PMs to Listeners. In my case, I receive many PMs and I answer them in a certain priority order, not "first in, first out"
So someone might feel upset knowing that I have been logging in recent days and not answered their PM yet. I would prefer showing the "Daily streak" to be an option like was the Path in the previous version.
About the design, I would put in the first row (where Streak and Cheers are now) the easiest to understand indicators, like listener level, nr. of ratings and reviews, etc. "Cheers" is opaque for most users, I think, and "listener level" includes it, so it's redundant. There might be a link to the listener level order page explanation to further facilitate its interpretation.
I maintain my previous comments about not truncating the Bio section, taking out the word "Bio", and adhering to W3C accessibility standards for font colors across the site, but not eliminating color altogether (which has proved a controversial issue).
All the best!
Marcelo
@HealingTalk
I like the idea of being able to follow someone but it has its own cons. 🤷
@trueconfidant123
Like it might facilitate harassment in the Forums?
@HealingTalk It may symbolise bias.
@trueconfidant123
If by "bias" you mean "popularity" my idea is that my "Following" mark in someone's profile is invisible to others, and there are no statistics on how many people are following them.
If I follow you, when I see your profile I will see a "Following" text. But no one else will see it when they see your profile. They won't know whether someone "follows" you or not. Even if they are hundreds. Hundreds or zero followers will look the same for everybody.
I already can search the forums periodically looking for "trueconfidant123" to see if there is something new from you, but this system would make it much easier.
Or by "bias" you mean something else?
@trueconfidant123
Ah, sure!
No, no count.
Just a tool for each one separately to know when someone whose posts interest you, posts something new. Like searching with the "search" functionality, but much easier.
It might increase engagement in the Forums, I think, as it might make it easier to find threads that interest each one, in which they would have a motivation to participate and post.
So, benefiting more from what's written daily, increasing readership of threads, and promoting activity in the Forums.
But no popularity contest at all.
@HealingTalk Fair point. Thank you for the clarification.
@trueconfidant123
You are welcome!
@Jon7Cups
Thank you to you and the 7Cups team for working hard on these updates! Here are some of my thoughts regarding the new profile arrangement:
- I like the arrangement of the information on someone's profile into 3 columns! It makes it easier and more organised to read.
- Unfortunately information about the listener such as "No of Ratings/Reviews, Gender" etc look very messy and hard to separate when put in a long list. The previous two column layout was much neater and easier to read.
- The badges and awards section needs to be separated by types of badges or organised better, as it is quite messy in it's current state.
- I am disappointed to hear that we can no longer change text colours in our bios, as this was a simple but effective manner of making them aesthetically pleasing as well as drawing attention to specific parts that are important, such as chat topics we cannot take or what our online status means.
I have no feedback/suggestions other than the above. Thank you!
@Lunaire00 You're exactly right! I never thought about the badges but the other day I was on my nominating people for badges spree, and I went to their page to see what they already had and didn't. Even if the badges were in alphabetical order then I feel it would have been easier for my eyes to find it within seconds. Thanks for mentioning the badges because it never dawned on me before. ♡
@Jon7Cups
Awesome, really looking forward to it.
On profiles stats, what does Current upvotes mean? Is it the same as Forum upvotes or different?
@Myosotis17
i think it is the same as forum upvotes
On member profiles Forum Upvotes and Current Upvotes are both still appearing, sharing the same value.
Also on member profiles, sometimes the number of forum posts do not show. I just saw a profile where I know they have multiple forum posts, they are not very new, and it does not show. There is a forum/current upvote.
@AffyAvo
Hi, I have passed the first concern on. For the second, can you send me a screenshot or link me to a profile where the number of forum posts isn't showing?
I’ll have a look at the profile again. I notice the bio feature was easy to access and maintain.
