Looking at talk from a UX point of view it feels very “build board” like. Being that its a wall of text and images. Sure that’s kind of its function in one aspect but its also meant to be our community online as well.
To help with that feeling of community I propose we add the following into talk:
Member Engagement
These plugins help build a sense of engagement on the site instead of having talk feel like a blank wall it would feel more like being at the space with the membership around. This goes a long way with members engaging others. The Trust-Level Avatar Flair and User feedback plugins are there to help the community moderate itself. While the discourse etiquette plugin helps with moderation of posts.
While there are plugins that provide a built-in chat feature to discourse many of us have choosen to use discord as the official text/voice chat system for our community. Pros and Cons about that aside these two plugins help integrate that system into talk.
AD login integration
Number one complaint as of late is having too many logins, personally I use lastpass to store all of them and not bother caring about new logins but since we’re wanting to make sure members are able to use all the tools and resources available to them then this plugin helps bridge that gap between our AD logins and talk.
UI Improvements
The UI for Talk is rather well done but there’s a few areas of improvement. First off is searching. Either one has to manage a bookmark folder on thier browser which doesn’t sync normally with other devices or constently search for old posts. The saved searches plugin allows for us to save previous searches for later review. This would help committee members find needed resources quicker and help guide new members to areas of talk they need while getting up to speed.
The topic ratings plugin gives members a way to vote on quality of posts. Currently either a post just gets flagged or is dragged out by internet lawyering / trolling. This gives members the ability to rate a post for its content thus helping keeping talk a helpful community.
