We meant it. Let's work together
This place matters, and our goal is to keep Tumblr thriving for a long time. That means Tumblr has to keep evolving. There are things we know could be better. You probably have a list too. Some of it will be easy to fix. Some won't. That's exactly why we want to work with you.
The Tumblr User Panel will be a group of people on Tumblr who'll work with us over time to give feedback on how this place works today and where it's going. We know we have to earn your trust, and we want to change how we build features and include you more in the process. We’re looking forward to shaping this together.
If you're interested in joining: https://tumblr.survey.fm/tumblr-user-panel-interest-survey
Here's what you probably want to know:
Why a panel instead of just listening to everyone?
We won’t stop reading tags, comments, reblogs, and support tickets, but a panel helps us paint a more complete picture before we build, and go deeper than a reblog thread allows.
Who are you looking for?
A mix of experience levels, devices, countries, posting habits. People who've been here a decade and people who showed up last month.
Will everyone who fills out the survey get in?
No. We're keeping it small enough to have real conversations. If you're not selected, it's because we're balancing across a lot of dimensions, not because your response wasn't good enough. We may expand or rotate members over time.
Will critical feedback affect my account?
No! We want your feedback and criticism, and that will never result in any action against your account.
Can I leave?
Whenever you want. No penalties.
Questions before filling out the survey? Leave a comment.
Dear Staff (@staff),
Having put in my application for this user panel (which resembled less an application and more a demographics survey), I wanted to note down somewhere you could easily find what my beliefs concerning Tumblr are, as well as essentially time stamping my platform of what I currently believe in case I am chosen and that then becomes public information in the future. I will not be using a read-more in case of future user name changes or account statuses. (Desktop users, hit "K" to skip to the next post. Mobile users, apologies.)
1- The Sign-Up Process
I recently had the joy of helping a friend sign up and customize their Tumblr! I was so excited to have someone join the site, so imagine my surprise when THESE were the following notes I took about the current sign-up process:
tumblr signup email password blog username YOU NOTE THIS CAN CHANGE, BUT NO MENTION OF HAVING MULTIPLE?? follow tags?? dumps you on the dash. the dash is a three column mess with no cohesion, a floating popup for one area, and an immediate ad for Premium. in TWO locations. SHOW ME BLOGS TO FOLLOW. SHOW ME HOW TO FOLLOW A BLOG the verification notice at the top of the dash hides the discover blogs button in the ghost post at the top of the dash TELLING PEOPLE THEY DID SOMETHING AFTER THEY DID IT DOES NOT COUNT AS TEACHING. ALSO YOU DIDN'T TEACH THEM WHAT TAGS ARE FOR
Now, I may have created this account back in 2012, but I don't remember being this confused back when I signed up, or when I first showed people how to sign up in 2013-14. Granted, I have read interviews from the creator of Tumblr, David Karp (@david) and even he did not realize how users were going to actually use the site. His initial vision had been using Tumblr as simply a TumbleLog site, a place where people could outsource the more technical aspects of WebLog hosting, in order to make Blogging easier. When the site opened up, and users started spending less time on their own blog or surfing through other user's blogs, and instead used the follow feature to curate their "backend" dashboard and interact with blogs from that end, the Staff at the time started making changes so the Dashboard would be more usable. The sign-up process at the time I joined reflected this, where after entering what your interests were, new users were served a list of Blogs to follow that frequently used those interests as tags on posts, so that your dash would already have posts once the sign-up was complete.
Keeping this in mind, I would suggest that the sign-up process receive an overhaul, something akin to a tutorial. This would highlight the differences and strengths of Tumblr as a blogging platform when compared to social media sites. A walkthrough of the tutorial I would suggest follows.
Sign up Email Password DOB Pick your blog handle! Don't worry, you can change it later, and you can have more than one! Tell us what you're interested in! Please select 5 or more tags to follow. Here's some blogs to keep an eye on! [serve 15 blogs that frequently use one or more tags the user followed] [advertising opportunity] Now, what do YOU look like? [let the user pick some colors for their mobile theme, customize their blog look] [Drop the user on their dashboard] [The tutorial is not over. Remember how people used to be able to pay to pin a post to the top of a user's dash? Have a post from staff pinned to the top of their dash] [Bringing back pinned dash posts is an advertising opportunity] [Dim the site, glowing the short text post from staff] [Popup text] This is a blog post! -> [click to advance] This post here is just text, but you can also make posts with photos, gifs, and videos! -> [glow the notes bar at the bottom] This is how you interact with a post! You can reply, reblog, or like! Give the reblog a try. -> [user clicks the reblog button, opening the post editor. Glow the body of the post] Here's the post you're reblogging! You can add a comment if there's something you want to add to the conversation. Your comment can be text, pictures, even gifs! -> [glow the top of the editor] If you have multiple blogs, this is where you can decide which blog to share the post on. -> [glow the tags bar] This is where you add tags to your post! Tags make posts more searchable, so you can organize posts on your blog. Unlike comments, your tags do not stay attached to a post if someone reblogs it from you. If you have comments on a post that you don't want others to pass around, try putting it in the tags instead of the main post! [Once the user reblogs the staff post, return them to the dash.] Welcome to Tumblr!
This tutorial version of the sign-up process covers following tags, following blogs, having multiple blogs, the difference between reblog comments and tags, and the versatility of what can be posted to Tumblr compared to other sites being more locked-in on what media they post. It fills out their dash so the immediately have something to explore, and also shows them the beginnings of how customizable a Tumblr Blog truly is.
2- The Dashboard Layout
While I helped my friend set up their blog, one of the notes I took was not about the actual process:
the dash is a three column mess with no cohesion, a floating popup for one area, and an immediate ad for Premium. in TWO locations.
Despite spending the first four years of my blog being a pure desktop user (predating the app version of the site), I eventually shifted to being a mostly app user (lifestyle changes making desktop access dodgy). Because of this, I was unaware of how the modern desktop dashboard looked, and clearly I have opinions.
Header: Tumblr / Following / Your Tags / Subbed Blogs [from Tumblr Labs] / For You / Search [All one header, sticky to the top of the page] Left Column: Check Out These Blogs [List 4 blogs, remove the follow button, remove "Explore All Of Tumblr" text] / Radar / Post Limit Checker Center Column: THE DASH Right Column: Home / Explore / Community / Activity [Remove the pop-up window. Instead, have this link click through to the activity page for the main blog, which will include messages and inbox] / Account [Keep the dropdown for blog switching] / Settings / TumblrMart Floating New Post button [Not a "Create" button]
Now I will say this: I am an Xkit user. In case you don't know what Xkit is, it is a browser extension that was created to help customize the Tumblr experience. The original extension is many years out of date, so I use the forked NewXkit extension as well as NewXkit's successor, Xkit Rewritten. Because of this extension, I do not get to see the plain dash often, and so my update to what I think it should look like may include options that base Tumblr does not have at the moment. I hope seeing me include these things, as well as giving you the option to go to the source, can inspire you to seek out what a vast majority of users see as Quality-Of-Life changes that are necessary to use your site.
Beyond that, I would like to state the design philosophy that informed the changes I made: "Slim it down. Less visual clutter. No pop-ups." Now, there are some things I removed that people may want to have available on their dash. If so, have them toggleable in the account->dash settings. Encourage customization. The only other change is to stop advertising Premium in two locations on the same page, because it just comes off as pathetic tbh.
3- Post Layout
If you don't want to go back to indented additions, I don't blame you. They break a lot of custom blog themes, even if I prefer my blog theme to have them. The dash is not the place to break posts. However, the recent proposed change has the same problem as indented posts, just in a different direction. The vertical stretching of the post as a whole that was caused by each comment having its own note count was very much counter to the design philosophy I stated back in the dashboard changes section.
To propose some changes, however, there are ways I think posts on the dashboard can be improved.
Combine the notes count
Remove the reply button
Have a setting for the quick queue button from Tumblr Labs
These may seem like simple gripes, but they would ease both the visual language and the use-case of the site. Queueing posts is one of the things that makes Tumblr unique, a strength of it being a blogging platform instead of a social media app. I firmly believe that something as simple as an actual quick queue button could be as revolutionary as when the post interaction buttons were moved from the top of a post to the bottom. (Yes, they used to be at the top. Yes, you can put them back there with Xkit.)
4- Site Terminology
They're blog handles, not usernames. They're replies, not comments. I don't know what your internal style sheet is for how to refer to different site features, but those are the original terms and I highly suggest you return to them. It causes a lot of confusion for older users when you post about comments, and instead of reblogs with comments on them you're talking about replies.
5- Monetization
Right before Yahoo bought Tumblr, there was a department at the company that was in charge of corporate sponsorship and advertising events. I highly suggest researching what that department was like and how it functioned, because they were so good at their job, Yahoo cannibalized the department for other areas of the company. If you could find a way to re-implement their methods, it could help pull the site into the black
Beyond this return to form, bringing back the sponsored pinned posts, letting companies pay to be a suggested blog for a set of interest tags on sign-up, and the variety of events such as Ask Time should have manpower put behind them.
In Conclusion,
I wish you well with implementing whatever changes you believe the site needs, and I hope that you will not change things for the sake of change itself. I do not believe in "Idea Guys", because they will only ever be interested with whatever they think up as an individual. I instead put my faith in the Investigators, who find out what everyone else thinks and synthesize an answer that has the highest chance of making the majority happy and the minority not botherered
Sincerely, Zephyr
