Please share your ideas and feedback about TuDiabetes!

Hi TuDiabetes community,

Moving toward the end of the year, we at Diabetes Hands Foundation (the parent organization of TuDiabetes) are starting to reflect on the progress, changes and experiments we've tried on TuDiabetes in 2012, and we'd really like your input.

Here are some questions we have:

  • What do you like about the site and the community?
  • What do you use the site and community for? (news, support, education...) Can you think of ways we could better serve that purpose for you?
  • Do you have ideas for new things we could try, or functions we could add?
  • Have you attended any of the live events we broadcast on the homepage? Why or why not?
  • Do you feel the homepage is user-friendly? If not, how do you think it could be improved?
  • Do you use the open chatroom we enabled last summer? Why or why not?
  • If you receive the bi-monthly TuDiabetes newsletter: do you read it? Do you find it interesting and/or informative? How might we improve it?
  • Is there something you would like to see more of, or less of, on the site?
  • Anything else you would like to share?

Many, many thanks for your thoughts and suggestions! They truly are invaluable to us :)

■What do you like about the site and the community? I get great feedback and new ideas. These people have helped me out of some serious problems with their expertise.
■What do you use the site and community for? (news, support, education...) Can you think of ways we could better serve that purpose for you? Support. After having Type 1 for 50+ years I am pretty educated and do not think that any cure will be for me. ■Do you have ideas for new things we could try, or functions we could add? No.
■Have you attended any of the live events we broadcast on the homepage? Why or why not? No. Mostly, I am not into the newest thing.
■Do you feel the homepage is user-friendly? If not, how do you think it could be improved? I wish you would get rid of the Featured Discussions. On the Type 1 forum,, the "Work wants me to get my CDL" has been up there for months. I do not know what purpose that serves, except in the general forum for posts like this one. ■Do you use the open chatroom we enabled last summer? Why or why not? No. Not interested.
■If you receive the bi-monthly TuDiabetes newsletter: do you read it? Do you find it interesting and/or informative? How might we improve it?
■Is there something you would like to see more of, or less of, on the site?
■Anything else you would like to share?

Couple of things: my cursor is not visible when I make corrections, which is a real pain. Please, spellcheck!! I think your IT could be updated as adding links, photos etc.is very old school. Mostly IT stuff that could really be improved.

I do want to thank you, as this sight has been important. I have only met one Type 1 diabetic in person in my life and having a forum of people has been educational, helpful and made a huge difference in my life.

Hi Emily, I find it easy to say that TU Diabeted site is thee best site I have ever been on. Friendly direct help that for me has prooved enormously helpful. One critcism - I am in UK and regularly try to donate but the online donation form cannot process UK donations. It seems to get confused as I dont have a state code. If you can fix I am happy to donate to this great great cause. Regards, Chris

Hi Emily.

With regard to your first two questions, why I like the community and what I use it for, I answered to the best of my ability in jrtpup's "Why I participate in this community".

I do attend the live events that you broadcast on the homepage whenever possible if they are topics of interest to me. If I must miss one that I'm interested in, I watch the video later if it's available. You have had an excellent range of topics.

I find the homepage to be very user-friendly. I'm not very computer savvy, so if it were not user-friendly, I wouldn't be here!

I tend to lurk on the chat more than actually use it. Just a quirk of mine to be more comfortable writing things in my own time. Please keep the chat though! It is sometimes very helpful to people to get help or an immediate answer to a question; I wouldn't hesitate to use it that way.

I do read the newsletter, but I tend to find things it talks about on my own, so I don't spend a lot of time on it.

The forum and the blog remain the most helpful to me in solving problems, as you would expect. I do also appreciate making friends and being able to communicate with them on the PM inbox as well as on their Pages. Different groups are important to different people; I wish we all used them more.

I can't think of anything I don't like!

I think the "Contact Us" button is very hard to find. I think it should be available on every page. Can we think about placing it in the "About Us" section on the bottom of pages?

I love this site. The biggest suggestion I have is for TuD to make an improved, stand-alone mobile app. The current mobile capabilities (which I realize were a recent improvement) are through a web browser, and it's still a little buggy and hard to use on the iPhone.

I would love to see a TRUE stand-alone mobile app for the TuD forums, as well as further improvements in mobile access. More folks than ever are using mobile devices as their sole means for communicating with others, and this is especially true in places outside of the U.S. and Europe. Mobile devices have changed the landscape for accessing information in many countries, and I think TuD's mobile access can provide a HUGE service in places where medical care may not be as advanced.

Thanks so much for all the great feedback, Spock!! It will all be brought to our team :)

Many thanks, Chris. I'm so glad the site has been useful to you! I'll have our business manager (the other Emily :) take a look at that donation page.

Thanks so much for the feedback, Trudy! I'm really glad to hear that the site is so useful to you, and I hope to see you in tomorrow's videochat!

I agree! Thanks for pointing this out, Brian. I've added that link to the "About Us" page and will add it in some of the other help-type pages as well.

Fantastic point, MBP. I'll bring it to the team!

Chris, here's what the business manager has to say on this:

We cannot accept payments on our donation page from abroad, but if you have a paypal account, you could send a payment to our paypal address: ap@diabeteshf.org. If you do that please let me know so we can be on the lookout for it.

Sorry that's not as convenient as the donation page :(

What do you like about the site and the community?
I love TuDiabetes! First, the site is run very well; the homepage is easy to navigate, I never have trouble loading a page, and it’s easy to find whatever I’m looking for.

On a more personal level, I am amazed by how caring and informative the community is. Since my dx, this site has become my most trusted source of info on D. I’ve gotten more nuanced answers to questions from members than from the CDEs and doctors I’ve seen! I love getting the chance to engage with so many people who are also living with D- it feels therapeutic for me to learn about what it’s like for other people, to offer support, and to ask for support with aspects of my life that are hard to talk about with people who don’t have firsthand experience with D.

What do you use the site and community for? (news, support, education...) Can you think of ways we could better serve that purpose for you?
TuDiabetes is an extremely important source of support and information for me. I read the discussion forums every day and participate regularly (well, off and on). I also read the blogs regularly.

Do you have ideas for new things we could try, or functions we could add?

Nope.

Have you attended any of the live events we broadcast on the homepage? Why or why not?
I attended the webchat with Gary Scheiner and found it really informative.

Do you feel the homepage is user-friendly? If not, how do you think it could be improved?
The homepage is very user-friendly. One aspect of the site that could be improved is the search function. It would be great if the search results come up in order of date (i.e. most recent first).

Do you use the open chatroom we enabled last summer? Why or why not?
I don’t IM or use chatrooms in general, so I haven’t explored the option here, except during the webchat with Gary Scheiner. I liked being able to see all the questions and comments while he was responding.

If you receive the bi-monthly TuDiabetes newsletter: do you read it? Do you find it interesting and/or informative? How might we improve it?

Don’t get the newsletter.

Is there something you would like to see more of, or less of, on the site? Anything else you would like to share?

Thank you!!!! TuDiabetes is the best d-related site online. It is essential to my ongoing process of adjusting to life with D.