Confusing

Do you have reviewers who look at the website? Could be some people on the spectrum who can do this for you.

Wep page writers can sometimes be a little unappreciative of how the menu, and the help sections, and the sequence of steps to reach information is arranged. What looks good to a software writer may not mean much to the end user.

A lot of websites are nearly unintelligible, as anyone looking up a utilities (gas, electricity etc) or a local authority website can testify. For example "contact" invariably leads to "Frequently Asked Questions" which I find baffling - do people really ask these questions or does the webmaster think them up? You can never find a FAQ to match your needs, nor can you find a simple form or email address on which to write the question you want to ask.

On some software systems where the end user's understanding is more critical, teams of reviewers are engaged to work through the menues and point out the idiosyncracies, the dead ends, the places where some useful explanatory information is needed to help people make decisions, or a summary of the next few steps to help people anticipate the route they need to follow.

As I've pointed out, the NAS site contains information such as video clips and personal experience mini-essays that the Moderators keep giving us links for. But try finding these yourself from the home page, and you need to be clairvoyant to work out a route through seemingly unrelated choices on each menu level.

Get some people with good asperger logic to have a go at the website and this discussion site. Perhaps have a section on here where people can point out anomalies or mysteries or dead ends on the website.

There are a lot of very clever, very perceptive, very analytical and very perseverant people on here!

Hi, I'd just say quickly that many people describe similar problems using the website and the current forum software.

It's something we are currently beginning the process of addressing again and any feedback on changes or what you would like to see would be a great help. 

The problem is often more to do with many different needs across the NAS that the website has to address, from advice to parents, diagnosis advice, press statements, advice on local services, fundraising requirements, school services, research findings and much, much more.

I've worked on a number of websites with similar issues and trying to find a way to bring together 1000s of pages and 100s of services is never easy. It often means that everyone feels a website isn't for them. There isn't an easy solution but over the coming years it's the NAS will try to find a solution - something your insights can only help with. 

And we'd always be honest in admitting that the historical legacy of the NAS means twork older content tends to focus on parents exclusively, which hopefully the Autism in Maturity project will improve. It'd be wonderful to have the resources to do this quickly but we have to work with what we have I'm afraid

That's good, the way you have what I have said in there too. I hope I have worked out how to do this correctly. 

Scorpion0x17 said:

I sometimes get the feeling that the NAS isn't actually for us, the people on the Autistic Spectrum, but rather appears to be run largely by, for, and to meet the needs of, neurotypical parents and carers.

I deffinatly agree with you there. I have never thought about it like you have but noticed it however seeing it written like that I really know what you mean. I think I can explain why this is though. From my very limited knowlage about autistic people the 'steryotypical' (I hate to use that word because everyone is affected differently) autistic person is a young boy who is unable to speak and understand the world. Often young meaning under 10 and someone who is lost in their own world. 

I therefore think that this person would be unable to use a computer or any website and maybe their is no point in making it something he could use. But, as we have proved not everyone who is autistic is like that. I deffinatly feel in the minority as someone with autism on the national autistic society's website! I know I am always too logical but no-one can tell me that now.

Hopefully that makes sence. I really struggle to explain things. 
Amy
 

Amy said:

A bit of both Scorpion0x17

I found the fourums were confusing at first and it took me a long time to work out how to make a post at first. I had to ask someone to help me how to fill in the profile too. 

Don't worry - most people find forums confusing at first, but the more you use them, the more you get used to them - but, having said that, and as I said before, I read and post to various forums a lot, and I initially found these forums a little confusing.

Is their anything else in the community section other than these fourums?

Not really - you can look at a list of members, and a list of some other autism related websites, and that's about it.

Which I think is a real shame - one of things I had hoped when I first came on here was that it might provide a way of meeting other people like me, in real life, rather than just being sat at home, by myself, typing messages to faceless and largely anonymous blocks of text.

I sometimes get the feeling that the NAS isn't actually for us, the people on the Autistic Spectrum, but rather appears to be run largely by, for, and to meet the needs of, neurotypical parents and carers.

I did mainly mean the whole site though. I struggle to find any information and so I ended up having to send in a question about it. But even doing that was very hard and again I had to ask someone to help me. 

I agree with you that it is hard to find information because the structuructure is confusing or not sign-posted.  

Yeah, it's a good illustration of the differences between an autistic and a neurotypical mind, in very generalised terms - neurotypicals, it seems, like lots of shallow information pools, all jumbled up, and presented at once, with little to no coherent structure - the autistic mind thrives on coherence, structure, and in-depth singular information streams.

A bit of both Scorpion0x17

I found the fourums were confusing at first and it took me a long time to work out how to make a post at first. I had to ask someone to help me how to fill in the profile too. 
Is their anything else in the community section other than these fourums? 

I did mainly mean the whole site though. I struggle to find any information and so I ended up having to send in a question about it. But even doing that was very hard and again I had to ask someone to help me. 
I agree with you that it is hard to find information because the structuructure is confusing or not sign-posted.  

Do you mean just the Forums, or the wider NAS site, Amy?

If you mean just the forums, I don't find those confusing, but then I spend a fair amount of time reading and posting to numerous forums, so it makes sense to me.

The only slightly confusing part is the way it doesn't correctly indicate which sub-forums have new posts.

But, if you mean the wider NAS site, then yeah, I tried looking around it for information a couple of times and then just gave up - and I'm very web-literate!

There doesn't seem to be much in the way of a coherent structure to the site, or if there is it isn't very well sign-posted.