=][= Experimenting with Feature Redirect Icons =][=

[Brother Tyler]

Many of you will recall when we added redirect links to various features of the community, such as the Blogs, Clubs, etc. More recently, we added similar links to specific blog categories in the various faction forums. For example, there is a link directly to the blogs in the Dark Angels category from the Dark Angels forum. Likewise, members can go straight to the blogs in the Orks category from the Orks forum. Our goal is to give these features more visiblity, facilitating use of those features by the members of our community, especially where they are superior to the discussion forums.

 

As we continue to work towards increasing the usage of the community's other features, we determined that the appearance of the redirect links may be a contributing factor to their underutilization. We are looking at a number of elements in the redirect links to see if some combination of them may be a contributing factor. Among the items we're considering are the link names. Where our forum names typically have the plus sign at the beginning and end (e.g., + AMICUS AEDES +), the redirect links lack the plus signs. The element we're experimenting with first, however, is the icons.

 

 

When these redirect links were added, you would see the following icon to the left of them: 

 

Where the skull icon that you see next to forums tells you that there are unread posts in that forum, the red helmet indicated that it was simply a link to the feature. Unlike the skull, which doesn't appear when you have read all of the posts in the forum (or when you have marked them all as read ), the red helmet is always visible. The red of the helmet (along with the red text when using the dark theme) may cause the links to blend in with the rest of the site, so we're looking at alternatives.

 

With the redesign of the achievement badges, we have icons for each of the features; and since these redirect links go directly to those features (or sub-categories within), we had ready-made imagery (though a little tweaking was required for each). So our first experiment uses these images. Depending on which theme you use to browse the site, you'll see one of the below:

 

 or 

 

You'll see the blog icon used for the links to blogs in each of the [sub-]faction forums, and you'll also see the Calendar icon (not shown) if you look at the + EVENTS + forum.

 

Our hope with these is two-fold.

1. The images might stand out a bit more than the red Primaris helmet, helping to increase visibility for (and clicking by) our members.
2. The images are similar to those used in the [upcoming] achievement badges, reinforcing the imagery for each feature.

We're interested in your thoughts on these images. We have discussed some other ideas and we may experiment with those, too (especially since I expect one or two of them to come up as suggestions from the community).