Forum Discussion

snozdop's avatar
snozdop
Super Contributor
2 months ago

New Forum feedback

At the moment I prefer the old forum. It was much more logically structured and easier to find stuff on and just browse topics. Maybe I just need to learn it more, but if something needs learning, then it's not intuitive.

I would like the option to replace the infinite scroll pages (which you still need to click a button to show more), with standard pagination. Pagination shows up in your browser history, which makes it possible to jump to a specific page of posts you've previously visited. If you lose your place in these infinite scroll pages, you have to click Show More and scroll to the bottom and repeat, over and over again. Why? It's much more tedious than just jumping to a page in your browser history with one click.

On the main Discussions index page there's no introduction to each of the 4 main sections to tell you what is in them. Lounge? What's that for? What type of posts should go in there? Same with Device Trust - what is it? Password Manager should be obvious, but it could mention that all flavours of 1Password are discussed in there (mobile, desktop, browser extension, Mac, Windows, Linux etc.). I would guess a lot of people have no idea what Passage is, and from this page they still wouldn't.

Under these 4 main topic areas there needs to be direct links to sub-sections, so for example, you can go directly to the iOS posts in the Password Manager section, rather than having to click Password Manager and then the IOS tag in the Categories box in the side panel.

I've no idea what Device Trust is! Even the Welcome to the Device Trust forum post doesn't say what it is or what you should ask in there.

There needs to be more sub-categories in the Betas section. All betas, for all operating systems, for mobile, desktop and browser are lumped together with no way to filter. How do I find posts about only the Mac Chrome Beta browser extension? I can't.

Why do the URLs not match up with the Breadcrumbs at the top of the page? For example, If you go into the Discussions > Lounge section, the URL is: www.1password.community/category/discuss/discussions/lounge - what are the extra red bits for?

Also, the URLs for Resources and Champions are /connect/ and /advocacy/ - more inconsistency.

Why is the Password Manager section not called 1Password, as that is the name of the product across all platforms that people will recognise? Inconsistently, it is called 1Password in the URL for this section! www.1password.community/category/discuss/discussions/1password

When you click into an individual post or tag, the sidebar disappears so you can't navigate directly to another tag without having to retrace your steps.

Why does the Discussions item in the menu bar have a drop-down with its 4 main sub-sections listed, but the Groups item doesn't? And why are 1Password Administrators and 1Password SDKs designated as groups and not discussions? They appear identical in functionality and UI once you click through.

That's most of the things I've noticed so far. Overall I think it's been launched too early. There's too many inconsistencies and illogical UX decisions. Because you've launched it in this state, search engines will be indexing the current content under it's current broken and inconsistent URL structure making it difficult to fix without lots of broken links (or lots of redirects).

commentary
community feedback
experience
  • prime's avatar
    prime
    Dedicated Contributor
    29 days ago

    This place is very hard to navigate. I’ll get a notification that someone replied to my post, I click on the notification, and I have to scroll looking for the post. When you sort my newest, it’s not. 

  • skatch's avatar
    skatch
    Frequent Contributor
    2 months ago

    Agreed with snozdop and appreciate their well written feedback. The new community site seems to contain more resources, but the core functionality of forums lacks the clarity and focus of the old site. It's simply harder to navigate.

  • AMonitorDarkly's avatar
    AMonitorDarkly
    Super Contributor
    2 months ago

    I hate how all the 1P platforms are no longer split and are now lumped together into one forum. It took me a bit to find the tags down at the bottom for filtering.

    Much like 1P8, things here are now less intuitive and more difficult to use effectively. 

  • 1P_Blake's avatar
    1P_Blake
    Icon for Community Manager rankCommunity Manager
    2 months ago

    Hey snozdop! 👋

    First off, I want to apologize for the delayed response - it’s been a busy stretch since launch, but I really appreciate you taking the time to share this feedback. You’ve clearly given the new forum a thorough look, and this kind of detailed input is super helpful.

    Let's dive into a few of the things you've mentioned here 👇

    Pagination vs. Infinite Scroll

    Totally get where you’re coming from on this. Infinite scroll has its benefits, but losing your place and having to keep clicking Show More isn’t ideal. We’ll pass this feedback along to our platform provider and see if there’s a better way to handle navigation, especially when returning to a discussion.

    Forum Structure & Category Clarity

    Appreciate the thoughtful feedback on this! The goal with our structure was to keep things streamlined, which is why we opted for a single Password Manager category with tags to help filter by platform. That said, we totally understand the desire for more direct links to specific sections - like jumping straight into iOS discussions without relying on tags. We’ll take this back to the team to see if there’s a way to improve navigation while keeping things organized.

    We also hear you on the need for clearer descriptions for some sections, like Lounge and Device Trust. If it’s not immediately obvious what those areas are for, that’s something we can refine to make sure people know where to post and what to expect.

    URL Structure & Breadcrumbs

    Good eye on the inconsistencies. Some of that is just how the platform structures things, but there’s definitely room to tighten things up so URLs, breadcrumbs, and section names all match up more logically. We’ll dig into what’s possible there.

    Navigation & Sidebar Behavior

    Totally hear you on the sidebar disappearing when clicking into a tag or post. That’s something we can (and will) flag with our platform partner and see if there’s a way to improve the experience so navigating between tags doesn’t feel like backtracking.

    Menu Consistency (Discussions vs. Groups)

    That’s an interesting point! There’s a difference in how Discussions and Groups are structured behind the scenes, but if they functionally feel the same, it makes sense to revisit the naming and menu options for consistency. We’ll take a look at this bit.

    Betas Section Organization

    This is something we definitely considered when we were migrating the Beta categories over from the previous Community. In earlier versions of 1Password, where different platforms had more distinct codebases, it made sense to break out beta discussions by operating system or app type. But with 1Password 8, everything is built on a shared foundation, so separating discussions into individual subcategories for each platform didn’t quite fit the way things work now.

    That said, we know there are still platform-specific differences that come into play, and we’ll keep an eye on how this setup works in practice. If we find that things need further refinement to make it easier to navigate and filter discussions, we’ll make adjustments. Really appreciate the feedback on this!

    Launch Timing & Search Indexing

    We did a lot of testing before launch, but real-world use always brings up areas we can refine further. We’re actively monitoring how things are being indexed and making sure any adjustments we make don’t cause a mess of broken links. It’s an ongoing process, and feedback like this helps us catch things we might not have noticed otherwise.

    Again, really appreciate the time you put into this! If there’s anything specific that’s making it harder to engage in the community day to day, let us know; we want to keep improving things based on real-world use.

    • snozdop's avatar
      snozdop
      Super Contributor
      2 months ago

      Thank you for the detailed response. I'm happy to hear many of my points will be looked at and considered for future tweaks.

      Another thing I'm finding, is that lots of links from Google search results are now broken, and just take you to the forum home page (with no indication why). I know, in many cases, this is caused by your decision to ditch lots of older posts from the old forum, but there was a lot of valuable information (especially for those still using 1PW 7) in those old posts.

  • snozdop's avatar
    snozdop
    Super Contributor
    2 months ago

    So, it's a week since I posted this, with no acknowledgement that anyone at 1Password has read this feedback, or even passed it up the chain for consideration. Is it worth posting any more comments on the new forum?

    Even an answer to what the Lounge and Device Trust sections are for would be appreciated.

    How do I browse topics with both the MACOS and BETA tags? I can see one or the other, but can't filter posts any deeper than one level. The old forum had an easy to access Mac Betas category, which was quite active.

    Engagement seems to be much lower on this new forum than the old one. Far fewer posts being created, with hardly any replies, and many of the familiar faces from 1Password that regularly replied to posts on the old forum are nowhere to be seen. 

    • 1P_Blake's avatar
      1P_Blake
      Icon for Community Manager rankCommunity Manager
      2 months ago

      Apologies for the delay in getting back to you! I’ve followed up on your original post with detailed responses, but I wanted to quickly address your latest questions.

      At the moment, the forum doesn’t allow filtering by multiple tags at once (like macOS and Beta together), but I get why that would be useful. I’ll bring this up with the team to see if improvements can be made on that.

      Appreciate you sticking with us through these early days of the new forum! Let me know if there’s anything else on your mind.

      • skatch's avatar
        skatch
        Frequent Contributor
        2 months ago

        I command-clicked on the "Device Trust" and "Lounge" links in your post to open them in new tabs. It seems the new discussions platform does something funny with internal links as it overrode my cmd-click and opened the links in the same tab.

        Command-clicking external links (like your "Device Trust" link) works as expected, so maybe this just affects links to the discussion site.

  • PeteH's avatar
    PeteH
    New Contributor
    2 months ago

    I'm not sure what the point of this revamp is. The old forum had everything in one place, simple and easy to navigate, I'm now having to guess where anything is and it is not easy. Can you reinstate the old forums while you sort this "mess" out?

    • romad's avatar
      romad
      Frequent Contributor
      2 months ago

      I believe the point of the revamp is to "weed out" the long time individual 1Password users in favor of their preferred enterprise/corporate/business users (like Accel) who have tons of money.

      17 year 1Password user.