Beauty Insider Community Feedback

[KatieBT]

Hello beautiful Beauty Insider Community members! 

We’re starting this thread for you guys to report any issues and weird things that you are seeing or ask any questions. We have a number of issues logged that we are already working on a fix for, so this is a work in process.

Some things to note as you are reporting issues:

• If you are looking for a thread and can’t find it, please post here. We’ll need to manually move some threads that got lost in the migration to their correct groups.
• If you are reporting a bug please be specific about the issue you're seeing, how you got there (“I clicked here and it did *this*”), the device you're using and which browser you're in. 

Some tips:

• If you are looking for a thread that you commented on in the old community, go to the front page of conversations and click the “My Posts” tab. This is where you will find all of your conversations activity, including your heart count.

• For more tips and information, check out the Community FAQs: https://community.sephora.com/t5/Customer-Support/BEAUTY-INSIDER-COMMUNITY-FAQs/m-p/2825445#M49862

It’s good to see you all and thanks for being patient!

Whenever reporting a bug we need as much info as possible or our tech team cannot reproduce the issue and verify it's actually occurring. If they can't see the issue they cannot fix it. You cannot overshare details, test on too many devices or share too many screenshots... The more detail the better!

[RGbrown]

@Mochapj@KatieBT

In this particular instance, "caudalie 750pt reward" is what she captioned her picture for that post. For some reason, notifications and subscription emails (I've seen it in both) seem to glitch out and use the reply's text as the thread title instead of the actual thread title from time to time. It seems to be intermittent, as all of my notifications seem to be correct for now, but it definitely happens.

[KatieBT]

@Mochapj are you subscribed to the Insiders group? 

[Mochapj]

@KatieBT I'm a member of the Insiders group, but I didn't realize there was a way to specifically subscribe to it?

[veronika23]

@KatieBT@candacebt  is there a way to hide the CS group from the main feed like it was in BT?  Just asking 🙂  Thanks so much!

[KatieBT]

We're trying to figure this out @veronika23!

[veronika23]

@KatieBTthanks so much for the update!!!

[angel7594]

I noticed today that when I change page numbers I land at the top of the main feed instead of the bottom! Thank you for fixing this!  ❤️

[Madeline7]

Agreed!  Really appreciate that Sephora is listening to and acting on the feedback here ^_^   Its soooo much better already!

[alexasteph]

I noticed that too! Plus there are more threads per page! 

[angel7594]

Yes! So much better!

[alexasteph]

I just had a weird thing happen. I wanted to post in a thread, it gave me and error message and didn't post. It was a short response so I didn't really care. I opened another thread to post and what I had written out was in the text box, so I deleted it and gave my response. Then, I went back to the main page, my response was posted in ANOTHER thread I hadn't even opened. When I deleted it, it showed in posted in the first thread that gave me an error message. I don't know if I'm explaining that well.

[TopazBeth]

Hi @candacebt and @KatieBT,

I've finally taken some time to play around on the redesigned site, familiarize myself with things, and come up with some feedback.

First, thank you so much to the whole web team -- this seems like a MASSIVE amount of work and I'm sure the hiccups are even more frustrating to the people working on the site than they are to those of us using it. I'm excited to see the post-beta version with all the kinks worked out!

First is just a comment: At least for me, replies seem to be threading properly on mobile even without changing the sort order. But only on mobile, not desktop. In the meantime, I've been using the Quote button whenever I respond to a post and that's helping clarify things a little bit.

What's bothering me the most currently is that when I click Next Page, I'm taken to the bottom of the page rather than the top. Not objectively a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it's inconvenient enough to be a low-key annoyance.

The comment previews for the threads seem to be only the most recent original post, not the most recent response. This may be a personal preference, but I liked seeing the most recent comment, even if it was a reply, on BT.

I agree with what others have said about missing the image previews on threads! I can't begin to count the number of threads I got sucked into on BT because of the thumbnails.

I also agree with what others have said about the feeling that the Top Poster rankings create a spirit of competition and envy rather than of community and encouragement.

I do like the ability to only see posts from the groups I'm in. One extra adjustment to that that I think would be nice would be for Customer Service posts not to display on the main page when browsing. There are SO MANY of those at times that they completely overtake everything else and are very often in reference to an individual order -- therefore not relevant to the community as a whole.

That's all I've got for now -- at least on points that haven't already been shared many times by others! Thank you for your hard work on this!

[veronika23]

OMG OMG OMG!!!!! I just discovered a new feature!  I can now change the title of my threads if there's a mistake or something. OMG! This is awesome!!! Thanks @KatieBT @candacebt!  This is such a great feature! Woo-Hooooo!!!!!

[angel7594]

My apologies in advance if this has already been asked or addressed, but will we be given the option to have our photos in a private album like in the old BT? I am reluctant to post photos now, and am also concerned that I haven't seen an option to delete photos posted on the gallery. Does the option to delete photos in the gallery exist @KatieBT?  

Thank you for providing a space for us to share our concerns Katie and Candace! ❤️ ❤️

[mishanyc]

I'd really like it if the threads had a few photos posted in the thumbnails.  I loved scrolling by and seeing photos of makeup, empties and other things.  The photos were inviting and kept me interested in what was being posted.

[TopazBeth]

---

mishanyc wrote:

I'd really like it if the threads had a few photos posted in the thumbnails.  I loved scrolling by and seeing photos of makeup, empties and other things.  The photos were inviting and kept me interested in what was being posted.

---

I strongly agree with this!

[ElleElleG]

Tamara76 wrote: 

What Works Well in New BT (BIC):

1. It is easy to tell if you have already hearted a post! Yay!   Sephora heard us and vastly improved this feature!

2. I love the notification feed because sometimes I get delete happy in my email and worry that I haven't responded to someone - The notifications feed makes it super easy to see who has responded to one of my posts

3. I like that I can see a full list of mods and can tell which Mods are online in the Customer Support Thread in case I need help

4. There seems to be less spam (and omg, it got bad that last week of Old BT)

5. I love that I can see the content of PMs in my email notification - that way I can tell if someone is trying to reach me urgently so I need to log in right now, or whether it can wait

6.  I like the idea of an auto-save feature, even though it doesn't seem to be fully functional yet (?)

7.  It seems like the community now has better exposure on the Sephora site so I have seen a ton of newcomers in the last week (Welcome, y'all!!!!) - I know there are legitimate concerns about enticing trolls, but I am super happy so many genuine beauty enthusiasts have found us! ❤️

8. The mobile UI is a lot easier to use now!

What can be Improved in New BT (BIC):

1. Threading and associated ability to ascertain who is replying to whom in any given thread, however, I am confident that Candace and the mods are well aware of this as we've all been quite vocal and am hopeful this has been prioritized at the top of the list of defects/bugs to be fixed

***I know it is recommend to change the preferred settings to "threaded" and to sort from Oldest to Newest, but even then, posts seem to show up in random order (i.e. they will show up from oldest to newest generally, but there will be some brand new posts smack dab in the middle of the thread which isn't logically ordered)

2. I would love to see the latest replies show up in the thumbnail on the BIC main page, not just the latest posts.  Hopefully this will be corrected when the threading issue is fixed (?)

3.  When I reply to a post in the middle of a thread, I am given the options to either (a) Click here to return to message or (b) Return to previous location.  When I select (a), I am navigated to the beginning of the thread.  When I select (b), I am navigated to the main page for the group the thread is housed in.  My preference would be to navigate directly to the place in the thread I was at prior to posting my reply.  This would be especially helpful in longer threads like The Party Thread or Deals Too Good to Pass Up.

4.  I wish we could still see the last few photos posted in the thumbnails for any given thread - Pictures totally lure me into threads - especially makeup pics! ❤️ 

5.  I'm still experiencing slow load time on certain pages, especially certain user profiles

6.  When I click a link to a post in a notification email (when I have been mentioned), sometimes I am navigated directly to the post in which I am mentioned, but sometimes I am just navigated to the top of the thread.  My preference is to always be navigated directly to the post where I am mentioned

7.  Autosave doesn't always seem to work - I lost a lengthy post (where I was posting multiple photos and subscription box reviews) in the middle of typing.  It just redirected me to the beginning of the thread mid-sentence and my post completely disappeared

8.  I've also had trouble posting around images and spoilers - there seem to be multiple layered boxes to type in and the alignment doesn't work (sometimes when I am typing, it seems to disappear behind another box or outside of the frame) - When I click post, sometimes it posts correctly and looks good, but sometimes it looks a wonky

9.  I've posted pictures within spoilers and sometimes they post in the spoiler, but other times they post outside of the spoiler

10. I know the mods are aware, but I really miss having my whole photo library available to me from within my profile

11. I also miss the ability to select a profile pic/avatar from past avatar photos

12.  I sometimes have difficulting "hearting" posts from my iPhone or iPad

13.  I also prefer the term "heart" or "love" over "kudo"

14.  I am unable to tell how many hearts someone has unless they belong to a group and even then, it takes several clicks to see their hearts.  This is important when vetting people for trades/TSBs/RAKS and also for ascertaining the credibility of the advice they provide

15.  I wish I could hide the "trending groups" section in the middle of the main Conversations Page or that it would be moved to the left hand rail of the page.  This breaks up the list of recent threads/posts and I really want to see more of those rather than trending groups

16.  Finally, as others have mentioned, I am still not clear on why we have followers or follow people when we can't see who is following us and can't see a feed of recent activity of those we are following

---

Wonderful feedback @Tamara76!!  I would like to echo some of your points & add some thoughts of my own regarding the redesigned community:

1. Threading issues: well cited and I agree that it makes following along and/or jumping in frustrating.

2. The "Conversation Home" page is missing key features, most notably [a] the name of the  person who initiated the thread and when (hopefully this will reduce the chances of posting/asking questions in old threads that have since been updated), [b] the most recent post as opposed to the latest photo added to the thread or the most recent post from a frequent poster (some threads have new posts but the home page will display a post that's days old because it comes from someone who posts more frequently), and [c] the last 4-5 photos posted within the thread (like the BT layout).  As Tamara mentioned, these often draw me into threads 🙂

3. When going to a new page on the Conversation Home page I am not redirected to the top of the next page or the thread that ended the previous page.  I would love if navigating to the next page took me back to where I left off in the thread list and/or navigating to the next page actually took me to a new page entirely.  Much easier to browse through the threads this way.

4. I've noticed the sometimes I receive email notifications of tags but when I open the site on desktop or mobile and click the notifications bell that tag is not listed.  

5. In concert with the above point: Notifications seem to fluctuate (appear and disappear) making it difficult to follow activity on particular posts/threads.  I would also love if hearted posts weren't clumped together. For example if someone hearts a post from several days ago & two other people hearted it previously I would prefer to not see that information repeated. I have noticed that my notifications will read as if someone who previously hearted the message did so again as opposed to the new person.

6. When I try to post to a thread I often receive the following messages: "Correct the highlighted errors and try again." AND "Your post has been changed because invalid HTML was found in the message body.  The invalid HTML has been removed.  Please review the message and submit the message when you are satisfied."  I cannot tell whether or not anything in my post has indeed been changed and sometimes I receive these messages a second or third time when I hit the 'post' button again.  The post eventually goes through if I continue to hit the post button but there have been instances where the content of my post has been lost.

7. Kudos Hearts or Loves

8. I am a bit skeptical uploading photos (especially without a watermark) since we no longer have full access to our photo albums.  Like the BeautyTalk interface I would like to have the ability to see my entire Public/Private Albums in full so I can determine whether I would like to keep certain photos or not.  As of now if I want to remove an image I have to search through my post history to recall its exact location and even if I remove the image from a specific post, because I cannot check my personal albums it is unclear whether or not the image has been removed.

9. The number of hearts a person has received should be noted on their user profile.  As noted, this is critical if exchanges/TSB/etc. are to persist.

10. I still do not fully understand the purpose of followers/following.  In some ways it is very Instagram/Twitter -ish and I have seen numerous posts citing this as a feature that encourages competition.  Perhaps this feature would receive more acceptance if it was reverted back to "Friends", did not publicly list the number of friends an individual had, and that users could see who had added them as a friend and who they had added as friends themselves.  In addition to users seeing who has added them as a friend we should have the ability to remove people who have added us (particularly if there is or has been targeted behavior from that individual i.e. stalking and/or harassment both within the community and in the real world [if applicable]).

11. The Sephora App on the Android side:

[A] Posts within threads are even more out of order and there is no way to arrange them (that I have found).  For example, this Feedback thread shows a post from a few hours ago followed by a couple posts from 1 day ago, 2 days ago, etc.

[B] Posts on the home page are more out of sync than on the desktop.  Threads with the most recent posts aren't necessarily the first threads that appear on the home page

If the app is the only way an individual can look at the community they are missing out on quite a bit of information.

***Thanks to the mods for requesting our feedback!  I am hopeful that the countless input provided will be openly considered and that updates to the community will reflect the provided feedback.  

[greenchilli]

Elle, I commend you on the detailed post, and also providing real feedback. I didn't read it all, but read most. Glad to see an even keeled post...very helpful I'm sure.

[k617]

Are suggestions for new features still welcome?

I think a feature that shows existing threads asking similar questions while someone is entering a new post title would really help (kind of like a search+enter title combo field). Maybe this will help reduce the number of new threads asking a question that's already been answered/discussed in detail in another thread.

Maybe it's always been an issue and I'm just noticing it now, or maybe it's related to the new layout (and search/navigation issues) and people are asking more duplicate questions, but I seem to see way more of the same questions now than I ever did before: lots about help with oily skin, help foundation last longer, whether X palette is worth it, etc.

[greenchilli]

@k617

I couldn't agree more.  One of the best community management tool is merging similar-ish threads.  It is routinely done in all successful thriving communities.  It keeps "noise" to a minimum, and provides better responses and a wider audience.  E

@candacebt @KatieBT

[StyleLynn]

Since the revamp I've lost my desire to participate in the community, I miss the way it was.