I am a huge JomSocial fan. I use it all the time and enjoy almost every minute. But like any website and application JomSocial’s usability too has room for improvement. The mistakes aren’t huge but they are easily fixed.

1. There are empty fields on the profile page.
   Empty fields on the front end is neither attractive nor necessary. It’s best to show only the populated fields.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. My links appear on other people's profiles.
   If I am logged in and looking at someone's profile, all my tabs appear at the top of the page. But it makes little sense to mix my stuff with theirs. When looking at someone else's profile, I should only see the buttons and links that concern them.
   
   
   
3. The username on the mini profile that appears in the search results does not link to the profile.
   The link should lead to the profile. The image links, but that's not enough.
   
   
4. On the date, only the month field is a drop-down menu.
   The site would be more user-friendly if all the fields were drop-downs. I should also be able to select the date format.
   
   
5. Some of the profile default values are unusual.
   The default values on an application should always be those that people are most likely to use. On a social site, few people will want to post their cell phone number on their profile, for example, so that shouldn't be mandatory.
   
   
6. Mandatory fields are not marked with a red asterisk.
   Mandatory fields on the profile are marked with a black asterisk on the left but it would be better if the asterisk was red, and on the right. It’s not a biggie but it would be better.
   
   
7. Mandatory fields on the photo album are confusing.
   It’s not clear which fields on the photo album are mandatory. It turns out that the description field box is mandatory, but why should it be? Only the album name is really necessary. Every time users are forced to enter unnecessary data, they become frustrated and have a poor experience.
   
   
8. The email "To" field is confusing.
   When composing a message, it’s not clear whether I should enter a username or an email address. Nor is there any indication of which fields are mandatory. For example, I can’t send a message with no body, but I’m not told of an error.
   
   
9. There’s a Reset button for the Search field.
   I discussed this issue on "10 Top Button Usability Mistakes." Reset buttons are always wrong. People click them by mistake and find they have to enter all their information again. In this case, they’d only have to rewrite one field, but it’s still unnecessary.
   
   
10. Group numbers should link to the members list.
    When looking at the list of groups, the number of the group’s members should link to the list of members. And the image of the group should link to the group's home page.
    
    

And that’s it. It wasn't easy to find these mistakes, which is a good sign, but fixing them will be easy too and take JomSocial to the next level. It is a great community extension for Joomla and I can't wait to see how it evolves and improves.

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Comments (7)

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We're on it
written by azrul, February 25, 2009

We just fixed 80% of all the issues here! Great feedback, as always!

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Great!
written by Merav Knafo, February 25, 2009

It's great the you guys are paying attention to users feedback and act on it fast. That makes me love Jomsocial even more! I'm looking forward to the upcoming release.

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written by Mustaq, February 25, 2009

Thanks to Merav Knafo and Azrul too for removing these "annoyances"

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Top ten
written by Barkley, February 25, 2009

There's one more that would be very helpful... the search option in the profile (where you can click on an item and find other people with similar answers) doesn't work for every field.

This is a great list and it's good to see that the folks at JomSocial are already working on it ... They provide fantastic support for their products!!!

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written by nic, February 27, 2009

Excellent list, and great to hear it's getting fixed. The only quibble I'd have would be having your own menus appear when you are viewing other people's profiles - it's how facebook does it so is fine by me (unless I'm misunderstanding you). It would be great to be able to put that menu in other places as a module position, but that's maybe a step far.

The only other usability request I'd have would be to remove other members' details/changes/news from the activity feed - I only want to know about me and my friends.

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Thanks!!!
written by Anupama, July 09, 2009

Its really new learing for me...

Thanks for sharing this excellent info about usability testing....

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UX Strategist
written by Karuna Venter, September 01, 2009

Appreciate the list, though I don't agree with all of it. On #4 - do you really find it more usable to scroll through a long list of years, all of which start with 19--, rather than simply typing in the one that belongs to you? (Same goes for days and months.) I'd challenge that statement to a quick usability test to see which one feels easier.

And #8 - the email "To" field is confusing? It's an established design pattern that people expect to work a certain way - either entering the email address or the username should yield the same result. Over-explanation will complicate the form and isn't necessary...unless this is a special email form that works differently than Outlook, Gmail or Facebook.

- KV

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