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Possible Duplicate:
Please make the “Ask Question” button on AskUbuntu more prominent

I'm new to askubuntu.com and when I first wanted to ask a question it took me a while to find that button.

I guess if I didn't know other stackexchange sites I would have given up thinking that there's no way to ask a question.

Is it possible to make it stand out just a little bit more?

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  • 9
    The same happened to me too. +1
    – Ignacio
    Oct 13, 2010 at 12:27
  • 3
    same.. took 10 seconds to identify where is ask question button.
    – Mohit Jain
    Oct 13, 2010 at 21:07
  • 2
    happened to me too, it needs to visually stand out from the background Nov 2, 2010 at 21:40
  • 2
    Ha, found a post on ubuntuforums where the person is asking if anyone knows how to ask a question on askubuntu. On the bright side, he figured it out.
    – belacqua
    Feb 24, 2011 at 5:03
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    I literally had to ask "How do I ask a question?"
    – smoser
    Jul 18, 2011 at 14:54
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    I also agree. It just blends in too well with the Ubuntu background; I myself spent about 10 minutes searching before I found it staring me in the face. It seems like a pretty easy fix, too...
    – North
    Dec 18, 2011 at 1:16
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    The same happened to me too. +1 Current ask button looks like some logo or slogan but functional button.
    – Mait
    Mar 25, 2012 at 8:06

6 Answers 6

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I agree. I think the ask button should sit on the right of the main navigation bar (currently showing Questions, Tags, Users, Badges, Unanswered)

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    I don't think that's a good place for it. I quite like the layout like it is at the moment. If I had to move it, I'd probably try to move it into the right top corner of the white body. (To the right of the question title.) Oct 13, 2010 at 21:10
  • Yes it currently looks good, but the same can be said about the sun before you fly into it. Design = form + function , currently we only have it looking good, not working good.
    – Mateo
    Jun 22, 2012 at 16:25
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I agree that it needs to be changed. It's low contrast, and it doesn't look like a "button"--or even a "link"--but more like a title, or something. Also, I don't get the point of all the dots around it.

Honestly, I still forget it's there, all the time.

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It took me several minutes to figure out how to ask a blasted question here. I searched meta, searched google.. OTL Somewhere between pounding a dent into my desk and a concussion I was enlightened and saw the Ask Question button focused by my newfound tunnel vision, highlighted by twinkling pinpricks of light.

I love this site. AskUbuntu is awesome. But this is a serious usability problem. The rectangle graphic it's part of is the shape of a banner ad, something my brain is conditioned to ignore. On top of that, it blends in perfectly. It doesn't look clickable. The text highlight on mouse over is a nice touch, but doesn't help you find it in the first place.

Putting a button where all the other buttons are would make a lot of sense. I expected an Ask button right after the link to Unanswered questions.

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    I was similarly bewildered. I don't know how long it lasted, but it was too long. It's good that someone brought this up. I remember scanning the FAQ for a link to the ask question page.
    – belacqua
    Feb 7, 2011 at 7:38
  • After reading the FAQ, I thought maybe I hadn't earned enough points to ask a question. Unsubstantiated by the FAQ, but still.
    – djeikyb
    Feb 9, 2011 at 0:23
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Just styling it differently so that it is more visible would go a long way.

I also upvoted Oli's answer because I think that moving it on the main navigation bar would also work.

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I think I might have seen it better if it had been on the left side (same graphic and horizontal position, but under the 'askubuntu' logo). It seems like the navigation tabs direct one's vision to the left. But on the nav bar (as Oli said) is probably my second choice. With the current design, as someone pointed out, the link doesn't do much to hint that it's a button, or clickable -- it's beautiful, but it really blends in too well with the graphic design of the banner.

If nothing else, I think this should be mentioned in the FAQ. Probably under the last line of the first paragraph :

Please look around to see if your question has already been asked (and maybe even answered!) before you ask. It’s also perfectly fine to ask and answer your own question, as long as you pretend you’re on Jeopardy: phrase it in the form of a question.

A new line would read something like "If you're ready to ask your question, click the link on right side of the header, or jump to the question page here."
As in this example, here would link to https://askubuntu.com/questions/ask .

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    This would have saved me so. much. time and frustration. If I wasn't enamoured with Stack Exchange as a system, I would have dusted off my keyboard and left.
    – djeikyb
    Feb 9, 2011 at 0:22
-1

I also found it a little oddly placed the first time, but this may be due to plenty of experience with SO and beta sites, as it is placed differently.

As more sites leave beta (and get their own unique designs) and we get more users who don't have previous experience with Stack Exchange, this should become much less of a problem. To compare, an example of the former is the photography site, which has an even more drastic change to the page heading layout.

I'm not saying we shouldn't ask to change it, only that the problem probably feels exaggerated to us now.

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    @roger I had never asked a question on a SE site before, so for me it wasn't the fact that the button/link here was different , it was more that I didn't for sure that any such link existed. Also, looking at the photography site (and I don't know if this has changed since this was posted) the ask question link there is quite obvious because it is in the same place as the other controls . It is in a block, in line with the users, tags, etc.
    – belacqua
    Feb 7, 2011 at 21:12

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