Hi everyone,
I hope you don’t mind me posting here today, my name is Rachel and I work as part of the Community team here at Macmillan.
As some of you may have noticed, we have been trialling a new layout of our Community groups in the ‘Breast cancer’ group recently. This layout gives members the option to post their discussions into 3 different subgroups, or topics when posting. These topics were, ‘New here, say hello’, ‘Diagnosis and treatment’ and ‘Chat’.
Underneath the three subgroups, you can then see all the latest discussions from the whole group with the most recent activity appearing at the top. You may find it useful to take a look around the ‘Breast cancer’ group to see how the new layout works.
The reason we put these changes in place, is because we received feedback from members to say that discussion groups could be difficult to navigate, and that it wasn’t always easy to know how to post.
We tested this layout thoroughly before trialling it in the ‘Breast cancer’ group and found that users could much more easily navigate the group, and find the most useful place for them to post.
We then trialled this layout in the ‘Breast cancer’ group and gathered feedback from lots of different sources. Whilst there were some initial concerns, we monitored the success of this trial through analytics and feedback to ensure we were making decisions with the best information possible. Using this information, we found that the new layout was easier to use, we saw an uplift in new posts and more members joining.
So, we are pleased to announce that we are now planning on rolling out the new group layout across all Community groups, starting with some of our larger groups which includes the ‘Womb (uterus) cancer’ group.
This update will be happening on the 12th of January and once we start to update the group, it may take a few hours for the team to finish moving threads and ‘tidying up’. This may mean you may find the page looks a little different than expected for a while. This shouldn’t affect your ability to post or read others posts at all.
To start off with, the three new subgroups of the ‘Womb (uterus) cancer’ group will be the same as those in the ‘Breast cancer’ group, namely:
‘New here, say hello’ - A space for new members of the group to introduce themselves
‘Diagnosis and treatment’ – A space where members can connect to talk about any aspect of diagnosis and treatment.
and ‘Chat’ – A space to have more general discussions and chat to others.
We are flexible with the different topics or subgroups we create, as we want to make sure the group works best for its members. So, we would really like to hear your feedback or suggestions on what you feel might work best when the new group layout is up and running.
For us to be able to track trends and make sure we are collecting all the feedback in one place, we are asking members to email the Community team any feedback they may have about the new layout to community@macmillan.org.uk.
We can then make changes and adjust the group based on the feedback we receive. Here on the Community team we really value hearing from our members, as making the site better for you is at the heart of everything we do.
I hope that the above information is useful, and we look forward to hearing from you about the new group layout when it goes live on the 12th. If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with myself or the team by emailing community@macmillan.org.uk
Kindest regards,
Rachel
Macmillan’s Community Team
