User section in new notifications menu

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AI-generated summary

In a UX-focused discussion on improving the user section in Discourse’s new notifications menu, carbonrich shares user testing insights: users struggle to locate the user section and profile page. Suggestions include making the user section visually stand out, reordering items so Preferences appear near the bottom (with Log Out clearly differentiated, perhaps in red), and adding a direct Profile link. Visual examples are provided. Canapin offers a design mockup using bt n-primary styling. Lilly questions whether “Pause Notifications” needs such prominence, noting most users rarely log out. chapoi appreciates the feedback and commits to further consideration, encouraging the conversation. The thread reflects collaborative, user-centered design thinking aimed at improving discoverability and intuitiveness of core user functions.

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I’ve been doing some user testing* and have noticed that several users struggle to find the user section in the notifications menu, and their profile page.

Some very minor suggested tweaks that I think would help with this (from what I’ve witnessed):

  1. The user section gets lost amongst all the other sections a bit, and could do with highlighting, it just needs to stand out a bit more I think.

  2. Once you open the section, one user said they’d expected to see the Preferences (“Settings” in their terminology) at the bottom of the list, that seems to me to be more common / intuitive. Log Out at the absolute bottom seems fine, but it would be good to find some method of differentiating a little, making it red or similar.

  3. Finally, I think it would be helpful to add Profile as a specific link in the User section to help people get there directly.

E.g. of #1 but not the one…

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E.g. of #2…

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*For a larger website that has a Discourse forum ‘attached’.

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As a btn-primary, it would look like this with default colors:

image
image1369×732 57.4 KB

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does “pause notifications” need to be that prominent? i never use this so i’m asking as an honest question. i like the idea of the more prominent user tab. pretty sure most of my users never log out.

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I like this feedback a lot. Will have a think on it further, thanks for opening the conversation about it! :raised_hands:

5 Likes