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20I wonder if this would make a good series of questions on ux.stackexchange.com ;)– DavidPostillCommented May 25, 2016 at 20:11
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16Nice study! One small nitpick: Your expectation that they will see and use the help was wrong. I have never seen a first time user wanting to start with the help. They didn't see it because they weren't looking for it - but if they had seen it, they wouldn't have clicked it anyway. "Being read first thing by a new user" is not the purpose of the help, and so the topbar does not fail.– rumtschoCommented May 25, 2016 at 20:13
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4Funny you mention this, I just met with a few other CMs to discuss some testing I want to do regarding helping new users. Not necessarily with some of the items you mention, mainly with asking questions.– TarynCommented May 25, 2016 at 20:14
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4Another thing worth noting... on some sites, specific tags have popup-notices with additional "help" text for that tag... unfortunately, the popup often goes unnoticed due to the fact that it is poorly placed and may never pop up at all since it appears after focus is removed from the tag entry bar... and the next point of focus is, inevitably, the "Post this Question" button.– CatijaCommented May 25, 2016 at 20:16
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2related: Ways to give users some specific education about question quality and topicality– gnatCommented May 25, 2016 at 20:23
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8@rumtscho That's funny- My first reaction to finding Stack Overflow and wanting to ask a question was, "Oh, this looks like it could help me. What are the rules for this place?" followed by finding and reading through the help center. :)– KendraCommented May 25, 2016 at 20:24
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16@gnat As someone who only uses "smaller sites", I find it disappointing that that's the opinion. Smaller sites have fewer users who can help moderate the site and those users can become overtaxed with dealing with those problems that could potentially be reduced with some UI tweaks.– CatijaCommented May 25, 2016 at 20:36
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3Give some thought to the title. I didn't expect this at all after reading it. Perhaps "usability issues for new users" or something similar?– user1228Commented May 25, 2016 at 20:38
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4@Catija this approach is likely a remainder from ancient times when it was expected that every smaller site eventually grows big and will reuse large-scale solutions that work at Stack Overflow. "8,000 questions about bicycles a day, why not?" This theory was officially dismissed a year or two ago but you see, some of its idiosyncrasies are still with us– gnatCommented May 25, 2016 at 20:45
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3I would be curious if you were able to repeat this study with an A/B study like my suggestion what the outcome might be.– enderlandCommented May 25, 2016 at 20:49
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6@Peanut I might do, but my aim here wasn't to study for the sake of doing studies. It was to get data about how I can solve HR's problem, primarily - the rest of the network was a bonus.– ArtOfCodeCommented May 25, 2016 at 21:02
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5Did any of your test users create accounts, or was this all based on the "new visitor" version of the site? I'm particularly wondering about closed questions, which I thought were always filtered out in the not-logged-in view. If they created accounts, though (or maybe only if they registered?), they'd then see all those on-hold questions pop up.– Monica CellioCommented May 25, 2016 at 21:26
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3@Monica the one who posted on HR ended up with an unregistered account, which did indeed see all the on-hold questions pop up.– ArtOfCodeCommented May 25, 2016 at 21:29
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4One solution might be to filter questions that have been closed or put on-hold if you have 1 reputation point. Avoids the "why can't I answer" question at least– RamhoundCommented May 27, 2016 at 22:39
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5Unstated but critically important: Stack is not a recommendation engine. So if 50% of questions are closed, this is unfortunately evidence that the underlying topic does not match what the engine is designed to do. You should look at Slant.– Jeff AtwoodCommented Jun 10, 2016 at 2:20
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