Onboarding
Simplified navigation
31 supporters880 influence
10 comments · 10 people in the discussion
- Idea→
- Discussing→
- Gaining support→
- Proposal→
- Voting→
- Approved→
- Building→
- In experiment→
- Shipped→
- Measured
Problem
New members land in a dashboard of stages and don't know whether to speak, spend influence, or vote. The structure is clear to us and opaque to them.
Why it matters
If the first session feels like software for product managers, people with the actual problem leave.
Potential solutions
An experiment that opens on three questions: what we want, what we're deciding, what changed.
Proposal #19
Simplified navigation
- Problem
- New members land in a dashboard of stages and don't know whether to speak, spend influence, or vote. The structure is clear to us and opaque to them.
- Evidence
- First-week members mostly viewed the hive and left. The ones who commented had been walked through it by someone.
- Proposed change
- Test a first-run home that asks the three questions and only then reveals stages.
- Expected impact
- A new member does one meaningful thing: an idea, a comment, or a vote.
- Alternatives
- A longer tour. Tours get skipped. A different front door might not.
- Risks
- Simplifying can hide the depth that makes the hive trustworthy. The depth should be one click away, not deleted.
- Open questions
- Do returning members keep the simpler home or only new ones?
- Complexity
- medium
- Success metrics
- First-week comment or vote rate in the experiment versus the current home.
The draft is open for discussion before a vote begins.
A product specification exists for what comes after the decision. It is a brief, not code.
Hive Intelligence · community synthesis
Synthesis
Drawn from the discussion. Not a decision.
New members land in a dashboard of stages and don't know whether to speak, spend influence, or vote. The structure is clear to us and opaque to them.
Evidence
- I thought Hive was a roadmap I was supposed to read. I didn't realize I could change it until someone said so in a comment.
- The part I would spend influence on is specific: first sessions ended on the dashboard without a comment or a vote.
- I don't want another feature. I want fewer people stuck with first sessions ended on the dashboard without a comment or a vote.
Community sentiment
- Demand is specific. Supporters keep returning to the same broken moment, not a vague wish list.
- The objection is about scope. Concerns are less “never do this” and more “don’t do it in a way that drowns the problem.”
- People brought proof. Evidence comments describe real sessions, not hypothetical users.
Arguments for
- The stages matter. They just shouldn't be the hello.
- Before we build “Simplified navigation”, write the success metric in the proposal itself.
- A smaller version of “Simplified navigation” could tell us if we even framed the problem correctly.
Arguments against
- If we hide decisions behind a friendlier home, fewer people will find a vote that is about to close.
Alternatives
- Keep the hive dashboard and change only the first session. Don't make veterans relearn the building.
Open questions
- What would we measure in the first two weeks to know this was worth building?
Treat “Simplified navigation” as a problem statement: New members land in a dashboard of stages and don't know whether to speak, spend influence, or vote. The leading suggestion is: An experiment that opens on three questions: what we want, what we're deciding, what changed. Why it matters here: If the first session feels like software for product managers, people with the actual problem leave.
Community discussion
I thought Hive was a roadmap I was supposed to read. I didn't realize I could change it until someone said so in a comment.
The stages matter. They just shouldn't be the hello.
If we hide decisions behind a friendlier home, fewer people will find a vote that is about to close.
Keep the hive dashboard and change only the first session. Don't make veterans relearn the building.
Before we build “Simplified navigation”, write the success metric in the proposal itself.
The part I would spend influence on is specific: first sessions ended on the dashboard without a comment or a vote.
A smaller version of “Simplified navigation” could tell us if we even framed the problem correctly.
I don't want another feature. I want fewer people stuck with first sessions ended on the dashboard without a comment or a vote.
Whatever we do with “Simplified navigation”, the decision has to stay attached to this thread.
I keep running into this around first sessions ended on the dashboard without a comment or a vote. “Simplified navigation” is the name I would have used.
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