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Why can't Quora create a more intuitive interface? This is the worst.
technologyunderstand
technologyunderstand
Compesh is a question and answer (and debate) website, so before you make a debate, you better learn what an assertion is. I suppose you already know what a question is, and that you've typed it in the box. ;)
An assertion, is basically a statement you can make, that is either true or false.
Richer people have better health.
The question for that would be, Do richer people have better health?
And don't forget to make your assertion, match your question.
There is something unique and united about Quora's interface, that ties it to Facebook. It's that instead of having category based structures, you instead have task based structures. This influences nearly everything about the website, as it influences the way that you browse. Facebook and Quora are designed in an unusual manner for having a task based structure.
I will explain what both these structures mean.
Typical content websites work by having clearly defined categories, and allowing you to easily jump through the different tasks. I'll give Myspace for an example.
As you can see, the different sections of the website are well defined. Home, Browse/People, Music, Video, Games etc. It is category based. This is very much like how the questions are organised on Yahoo Answers. Below is what you'll see when you click Answer on the thick green bar also that says Ask and Discover.
If you try to find an I want to answer questions page on Quora, you will not find it. Why is that? Because Quora has a task based structure. (Yes I know what I italicised is a task.) To have an Answer Random Questions page, Quora would have to have a page where loads of categories are listed on one page. As Quora has chosen to be task structured, a clear listing of categories on here you will not find.
How you discover questions and topics is all a deliberate part of Quora's design.
I can also see why this is a bad thing. Quora is confusing for new users, and the Quora staff know this, but cannot do much about it, than to have a Welcome page.
Let's compare Myspace to Facebook.
Where's the navigation? Where's the photos/videos/links/games? There is no easy interface for finding these things. They're not categorised. They're kinda scattered around the place.
I've just used the Photos app by searching for it, and all it shows is a wall of recent photos. It doesn't let me browse all my friend's photos. I can't see Videos on it either like I should do. Games have to be bookmarked on the left and spread virally. I can't find the Application Directory.
When people say that the Facebook and Quora design is bad, what they really mean is that they want them to have a category based structure.
Why does Quora have a category based structure? Someone explain that to me.
The reason why Quora has a category based structure, is to ultimately have you discovering more questions to answer in the long run. It is bewildering and daunting, having you have an empty News Feed and the Find Topics/Welcome screen, but in the end it is worth it.I'll explain how.
The way Quora is designed, you're supposed to start out on the website with little interest in the questions on it, with that interest gradually growing in the future. What happens is that your field and depth of vision increases, with every new topic and person that you follow.
The website starts out not being promising, with little purpose to carry on, but eventually the Topics and people you follow, populate your News Feed, to get you addicted to Quora, in the same way you are with your Facebook News Feed, to have you login to the website every day.
Your field of vision increases your view horizontally, so that you can see many shops on the high street at once.
Your depth of vision increases your view straight ahead, so that you can see more products in the high streets at once.
The shops are the topics you're following, and the products are the people you are following.
You may also find that people are walking around with bags that they've got from stores that you've never heard of. People answering questions in Topics you've never heard of, coming up on your News Feed, increasing your knowledge in the local area.
I know that Quora is hard for new users. I stopped using it in 2009 for 2 years after I thought I'd done all I could on the site. I literally thought that I couldn't answer any more questions on the site. I came back in two years, and I found that there were loads more questions on the site. I thank those Related Questions for that. They're like billboards in the high street.
Such a high street analogy cannot work for category based structure websites like Yahoo Answers, as the mere act of browsing the categories causes both interest and disappointment. Yahoo Answers is more like the market stall. There are shoddy products, a noisy crowd, and diamonds in the dirt.
Quora is trying to be sophisticated, so to be so, it has to be designed the way it is. That's why it's hard for you to find questions you like on it.
Quora could work if it had a category based structure, but they wanted to make the website more immersive, so that's what they chose. You can blame Mark Zuckerberg for teaching his employees bad design lessons if you want.