Visual features for the Dashboard

When I log back into Loomio after a week (like I just did today) - I see unread discussions that have new comments. I keep clicking each discussion on a new tab to see whether I contribute or not. I want to be able to be able to see discussions that I have contributed to better, ideally a way to summarize my participation from the Dashboard.

Currently I see a list of discussions and I'm not sure which one I have contributed to. Something simple like a green dot next to a discussion (that signals that I have contributed) and when I click it - it shows my comments (while Im on the dash itself) - so that I can quickly navigate discussions from the Dashboard itself to keep track of my engagement.

Im realizing that the Loomio dashboard is turning into an email-like visual. Id like this discussion to suggest features to improve the functionality of the Dashboard.

Great question, what would I like to see on a dashboard? I think I will stick with as simple as possible otherwise it is overwhelming. Knowing which discussions I have been part of is useful but doesn't mean I am less interested in ones I haven't commented on yet. Today is the big features release day as well so the dashboard may look different tomorrow!

Great discussion Varun!

I think it's really important for the dashboard/home to be super accessible since it's the first thing seen by first-time users. It'd be great to just see the top 3 (or however many) most relevant discussions semi-expanded (mini-versions of the full discussion window). As long as it's easy for people to click into their groups to see more detailed list of activity I think it'd be really powerful functionally.

Thanks Ben / Vivien - Hopefully we can have some consensus - then a proposal - a decision which may / may not lead to a feature :)

This is a really big topic.

Yes, at the moment the dashboard is just an email-like list of every discussion in every group you belong to. This is far from ideal. It's too low level.

So the question is: What could a high-level overview of activity on Loomio look like?

ok ill take a first stab - when I log into Loomio - I see 34 notifications - wow lots of activity:
1. Which is the most talked about discussion at the moment (since I last logged in)...

1. Has someone responded to a passionate plea for help on one of "my discussions" ???

2. I see someone has proposed something in a discussion that I took part it - Oooh I better participate and vote!

3. What if I could place "watches" on certain discussions - those are the ones that I would really like to be active on [Priority Inbox anyone?]

I think alot can be learnt from email in terms of informing a high-level overiview but Each one of those questions above could be fulfilled by "user-specific link"...thoughts / objections ?

In my head, 'priority-inbox' style divisions + following/watching/starring is relatively easy. What I haven't got my head around is how to do a combination of Facebook style see-everything-happening-everywhere with the email style see-subject-lines-only we currently have.

I like the idea of a mid layer list - proposals at the top, full list of discussions at the bottom but in the middle is a list of discussions that I
a) started; or
b) have clicked follow on

I think one of the balance points for us to consider is that many users will be wanting seriously simple - what is new since ai looked last, how do I find my last posts to see what happened,.
I guess the art I'd coding is to make Loomio work at many levels so if you are a basic user that is how it k
Looks and if you are a more sophisticated user you can find those tools as well.

At this stage it appears that, the "whats new since I last logged in" feature seems to have some level of consensus.

Balancing Facebook style "awareness" and email style "specificity" is a really tough thing to model. That said how about we try and assess it right now.

At this very moment - (and taking the past 3 days) into account [what is the best way to present information to a user that achieves this balance?

The current dashboard does convey this quite nicely imo -

1. I see that "Group Decision Policy" + this discussion is gathering buzz.- however I feel like seeing discussions that had more chatter. Perhaps a metric like ## comments near every discussion would raise this awareness?

2. No proposals have been raised in the past 3 days but the "previous decisions" button lets me clearly see a roster of past decisions.

So there is quite a bit of high-level info that is already conveyed very nicely but it would take a different shape as chatter increases and that can only present itself as we scale.

User specific information such as "my discussions" or "my comments" or "my vote is required" is something that seems to be the next logical thing to display.