Here the user sees a mysterious pencil notification:
He clicks it but can’t figure out what it’s trying to tell him. There’s nothing different about the post he can tell.
AI-generated summary
The discussion revolves around the unclear UX of edit actions on mobile in Discourse, particularly the pencil notification that users find confusing. jidanni highlights that the pencil icon doesn’t clearly indicate a post has been moved to another category, which is only visible in the edit history. Moin points out the edit history shows the category change, but Jagster agrees with jidanni that the meaning of the pencil icon isn’t intuitive for new users. mattdm suggests clearer language like “Category updated” or “Topic moved from ___ to ___” would help. Jonathan5 notes that many Discourse features are designed to be discovered gradually, but jidanni insists the current design doesn’t resemble familiar interfaces like Wikipedia’s edit history. Stephen counters that the lack of similar complaints over ten years suggests most users aren’t confused, though the concern remains that the current design may not be clear to all.
He clicks it but can’t figure out what it’s trying to tell him. There’s nothing different about the post he can tell.
1 Like
The post was moved to another category, which is what the edit refers to.
3 Likes
Okay, but the UX needs to be changed. Something needs to tell the user that’s what happened. It’s one big mystery on a PWA. Maybe everything’s hunky-dory on desktop, but not on a cell phone.
1 Like
You can have a look at the edit history
It displays Contribute > UX → Contribute > Feature . So you can see what was edited.
3 Likes
Yes, we all can. But I reckon Dan’s idea is that an user must know beforehand what the pencil icon means. It is not so clear for newer users.
1 Like
Also, the “ux → feature” recategorizaton indicator doesn’t exactly jump out. Maybe that could be highlighted in some way?
Or even given words, like: “Category updated” or “Topic moved from ____ to _____” — I think the latter would be most helpful to new-ish forum visitors who make a post and then get an alert that a mod or admin has done something to their post, but it isn’t clear what.
4 Likes
I think a lot of Discourse is designed to be found out gradually rather than be obvious (then it seems obvious once you realise…). Having said that, I think this one is obvious enough 
2 Likes
Yeah that “ux > feature” just looks like your standard breadcrumb navigation trail menu list or something.
All I know is it certainly doesn’t look like Wikipedia’s history diff or list or anything.
Maybe the arrow could be customisable text which you could change to something along the lines of “recategorised to”.
I’m saying worldwide end users are confused by this.
You’re saying you’re confused. The lack of other topics on this matter in ten years would suggest that millions of worldwide users aren’t confused by this.
3 Likes