Navigating HealthUnlocked

[AussieNeil]

Introduction (For a quick menu summary, page down to HU Menus in a nutshell)

Our CLL Support community on HealthUnlocked, is the online support forum for the UK based charity CLL Support: cllsupport.org.uk . With about 19,000 members, we are the largest online international community for those with CLL/SLL, carers and others interested in this chronic blood cancer. Over 4,000 members are active per month, with most active members checking what's happening at least every couple of days.

We are just one of around 700 health and well-being communities on HealthUnlocked en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hea... , so you are likely to find other communities of relevance to your personal health and well-being interests here: healthunlocked.com/search/c...

Most of us access this community via a browser app on our smartphone or tablet e.g. Brave, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc. There will be some differences between the menu presentations, along with the location of sections of the various HU web pages on desktops and laptops with full sized displays and the smaller smartphones and tablets.

The HealthUnlocked Dual Menu system

Most of us come to this site after reading our emailed Daily Digest and selecting a post of personal interest. That view just shows us the post of interest, any replies to that post, plus Related and Pinned Posts. Other pages are accessed through the Site and Community menus.

- The HU site top menu

The home location on HealthUnlocked: healthunlocked.com has just the one menu bar on a PC/Laptop, which is split between the top and bottom on a smartphone or tablet. This HealthUnlocked site top menu (from left to right) provides access via the icons for Home, Search (all of HU), Profile, My hub, Chat (Private Messages), Post, Alerts, Menu. A yellow dot containing a number may appear to the right of Chat icon. This just shows how many unacknowledged Chats (Private Messages) you have waiting from other members in all your HealthUnlocked communities. Click on the Chat icon to go to your Inbox, then either click on the Home icon to return to Newsfeed to see what's been happening in all your communities, or the My hub icon to go to a specific community. Similarly, a yellow dot containing the number or responses (Likes, Replies to your posts and post of yours that others have saved) appears to the right of the Alert Bell icon.

The top menu Home icon healthunlocked.com presents you with a choice of following the latest activity (Newsfeed), Exploring more of HU or providing a view of your Saved posts. Newsfeed is the best way to see the latest posts and replies to earlier posts from all of the communities you follow. (Newsfeed is a constantly updated web page of any activity - new posts or replies to existing posts, in any of the communities you follow). At busy times, screen refreshes will see posts quickly moving down the Newsfeed display as new replies arrive.

Please take the time to complete your profile (via Update profile on this page or healthunlocked.com/profile/... ), as it enables others to check your relevant background and provide you with better replies to your questions.

My hub allows you to switch between the different communities you follow, plus you can select the blue text to switch from '+ View all my communities' to '+ Find a community' to search for (unlocked) posts of interests anywhere on HealthUnlocked. healthunlocked.com/search/c... Note that you can use filters to more selectively find posts of interest.

- The second community menu (below the community banner)

When you go to a specific community (e.g. via My hub), a lower community menu bar provides access to community specific locations of (Community) Home, Posts, Members and About (see below for more information on these). Above the community menu bar, you can select 'Write' in the blue box to write a post. On a small display device, More gives you access to About and Polls. (Selecting the tick box to the left of 'Write' is how you leave a community.

How to Write your Post (detailed instructions):

support.healthunlocked.com/...

A community banner separates the two menus. (The banner helps you quickly recognise which community you are in if you follow more than one community. Also, each community can slightly change their community page layout, so other communities may have slightly different layouts). Most of us are only members of the CLL Support community, so we'll see the 'blood cell' menu banner above our community menu.

On the community Posts page healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo... you can filter posts by Latest, Unanswered, Popular, Pinned, Recently active and Polls.

The Pinned Post tab is a particularly important section of our community, as this is where we keep our most helpful posts for ready access. Check it out here: healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo... See also: How to find previously posted answers to your questions: healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo...

One very useful way of searching for past posts in a given month is via the Calendar option, which is available on the Posts page.

Under a Post, you have the options to 'Reply', 'Like', 'Save post', 'Report', or access more options via 'More v'. These options include being able to edit or delete the post if it is yours, or provide Sentiment feedback.

On the My Feed page you'll find 'News Feed', 'Explore' and then 'Saved'. 'Explore' gives you access to communities and members who have similar interests based on your profile, along with programs and resources HU think you would be interested in based on your profile and needs assessment. If you save a post, you'll be notified about any replies to that post. Saved posts are accessible from the News Feed page called 'My Feed' at the top left corner of the HU menu. To clear a saved post from your list, access your saved posts via the My feed menu. Simply select the 'Saved' button under a saved post to toggle it back to 'Save', meaning it is no longer in your list of saved posts. Note that it's currently not possible to remove a saved post from your list, if replies to that post have been turned off.

Under your replies, you can also change the font of selected text via the Bold, Italic and Underline symbols, or notify a person about your reply via the @ symbol or add emoticons via the smiley face. The final picture icon enables you to include images in your replies.

Selecting Members, gives you access to three views of our membership; Most contributions, New and Admins and Moderators and Similar to me. Selecting a member enables you to read what that member has decided to share about themselves as well as their recent activity. Please take the time to update your profile, in particular sharing your country of residence here: healthunlocked.com/profile/... On this page you can '+ Follow' a member to be notified of their new posts or send a member a private message by selecting 'Message'. Importantly, this the recommended way of sharing contact information for your privacy.

Using Members search. Type in a few characters from a member's username, then press the Search icon to the right. You should see all members that match that string of characters, including the person you are after. You can then select their name and you'll get the same profile page I covered above. Type a few more characters to reduce the number of matches if you get several pages of members listed.

The Polls page is again much the same as Posts with the difference that you just see a listing of previous polls. (We haven't used this feature for a while, because the polling feature is limited and it is not possible to lock poll replies for viewing only by our community members.)

Editing posts/replies

After posting: healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo... , you can edit your own posts and replies at any time by selecting the 'More v' below your post and then selecting 'Edit'. Likewise, via the same 'More v' access, you can delete your post. Note that HU indicates when posts/replies have been edited by you, a member of the moderation team or HealthUnlocked Staff in a note at the bottom of the post/reply.

Copying links from posts and replies to share them

You can find this action in the 'More v' drop-down list. By selecting this option, the link to the post or reply will be copied and you can then paste it into another post on HealthUnlocked. See: healthunlocked.com/blog/pos...

Reporting posts/replies

This post covers the many ways you can assist in keeping our community members safe: healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo...

Please report any posts/replies that you find concerning, e.g. for spamming, inappropriate or inaccurate content, via the Report button below the relevant post or reply.

Cookies Settings on HealthUnlocked

healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo...

How to Edit your profile, profile picture (avatar) and profile background

healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo...

How to Leave (un-follow) a community

healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo...

HU Menus in a nutshell

Top menu

- Home icon: Access to Newsfeed - the latest posts and replies from all the communities you follow

- Search box: Search all of HU for unlocked posts. (Search within a community after selecting it via My Hub - see below)

- Profile icon (with your assigned avatar image, which you can change). Access to your Health Interests, User Info, Bio, posts, replies and connections

- My Hub icon (9 dots in square): Toggle between a view of all your communities, plus HealthUnlocked's latest, and the means to search for other communities of interest on HU

- Chat (paper glider): access to your private message page

- Post: write a post to one of the communities you follow

- Alert Bell icon: Turns yellow to alert you to a "like" or "reply", or if someone has decided to follow you

- Menu Dropdown list to access Account settings, Email (notification) preferences, Needs assessment, Help and Log out.

This post from HU explains how to use their Help Systems and how to ask for Technical Support: healthunlocked.com/blog/pos...

Our Community menu

- Community Home: Access to Latest community posts, which you can toggle to Popular posts

- Posts: Sort posts by Latest, Unanswered, Popular, Pinned, Recently active and Polls. Also provides access to Community Search

- Members: Search for a member, or view members by Most Contributions, New, Admins and Similar to me

- About: Information about our online community, our CLL Support online community guidelines, our parent UK charity CLL Support, and the list of Administrators and Volunteers, plus a means to contact us.

I hope you've found the above helpful, but bear in mind that this post is a work in progress, just like the HealthUnlocked website. If there are other areas of the site which you'd like me to cover, or more detail on areas covered above, let me know in a reply.

Here are some more posts that will greatly help you discover ways of living better with CLL and making the most of the content gems in our community:

12 TIPS to get more out of this CLL Support forum - and help others do the same.

healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo....

How you can help maintain our community safety

healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo...

How to contact our community support team, community members, CLL Support UK and HU Support

healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo...

Online Security Starts with YOU!

healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo...

Neil

This is an unlocked post: healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo... and was last reviewed and updated on 8th February 2024

[MsChief]

Thank you Neil. I will have to print it out because there is so much information there I will need to take it a step at a time.

[JigFettler Volunteer]

Awesome Neil. What a triumph! Thank you for all your work and support. Jig. UK.

[Psmithuk]

That's a lot of work, Neil, so thank you very much.

The only thing I have to search for is how to start a new post. I know it’s silly but it catches me out every time. Luckily I mostly just reply!

Cx

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator in reply to Psmithuk]

Check out the Help Pages!

support.healthunlocked.com

or specifically: How to write a post

support.healthunlocked.com/...

The Help pages are available through the Extras menu, which you access by selecting your avatar on the top right of the first menu. I personally think the Help pages should be easier to find, particularly given I consider them fairly comprehensive and well written.

Neil

[Lilsa]

Thanks Neil, you have really opened up and clarified the way to better utilise this amazing forum. I will follow MsChiefs example and print it.

[Psmithuk]

Thank you 👍

[GrapeGrower1]

Printed! Thanks,

J.

[G_A_L]

Excellent info for beginners and those like me who are still learning about site structure.

[G_A_L]

The How To Write A Post link didn't work on my laptop.

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator in reply to G_A_L]

HealthUnlocked have just revamped their Help pages, so I needed to update the link. Try it now .

[LovecuresCLL]

I feel lucky to have found this website, Neil. I have a friend with colon cancer where do they go for help. Please advise. They told me they feel “desperate.”

[MsLockYourPosts Passed Volunteer in reply to LovecuresCLL]

Is your friend near a major cancer center. Many of them have centers to support cancer patients including support groups for specific cancers. There might also be a “Wellness Community” near your friend.

[LovecuresCLL in reply to MsLockYourPosts]

They need on line right now . What a shame the colon cancer survivors have no place as good as this . She had questions she had 6 cycles of chemo and tumor in retroperitoneum did not shrink

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator]

Perhaps someone else can suggest a colon/bowel cancer support group, presumably US based? You might get more responses to a new post. I'm sorry, but I can't offer any suggestions. Surprisingly, the colon/bowel cancer support groups on HealthUnlocked aren't that large.

Neil

[LovecuresCLL in reply to AussieNeil]

Okay thank you.

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator]

On August 20th, HealthUnlocked made the following tweaks:

1. ‘Follow post’ became ‘Save post’ and clicking that triggers an explanation what happens when you save a post.

2. ‘How did this post make you feel?’ was moved under the ‘More’ drop down as ‘Sentiment feedback’.

3. The social share actions ‘Facebook’, ‘Twitter’ and ‘Email’ were removed.

This week HealthUnlocked announced that a new look for the profile survey is on the way and recording health conditions and interests has been improved. At the moment the profile survey is only visible to new members when they join and to those visiting an empty profile page. In response to feedback about members not being able to enter their conditions, duplicates and abbreviations that often made it difficult to find what you're looking for have been removed and expanded respectively. The database now includes many more health and well being interests, such as different diets, supplements and vitamins that members take to help manage their condition or improve their well being.

HealthUnlocked now have 6,000+ health terms stored in their ontology database but appreciate there may be some they're missing, so they have created a feedback loop. Now, when you search for a condition, treatment or a health interest from the profile survey or healthunlocked.com/profile/edit and HealthUnlocked don't have it, they'll know about it so that it can be added.

Neil

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator]

HealthUnlocked notifications

There are three kinds of notifications from HU, with the first two provided by menu bar indications and optionally email notifications. Email notifications are managed here: healthunlocked.com/settings

1) A count of 'Likes' and replies in a red spot to the right of the bell menu icon and email notification of replies if enabled. (On a desktop or laptop, you can read these by hovering your mouse pointer over the bell. On a mobile device, you'll need to select the bell icon to open a page displaying these. Hold your finger on the bell icon longer to be prompted for a new tab, so you don't lose the contents of your open tab).

2) A count of Private Messages/Chats unread in a red spot to the right of the Chat menu icon and email notification of PMs if enabled

3) Email notification if someone tags/notifies you that you have been mentioned in their post/reply by typing @(username) and selecting your name from the pick list below the post/reply box. You can't opt out of that notification in your settings.

You may need to refresh your browser page or open a new page to see an accurate count of the menu notifications

Added 4th February, 2022

If you aren't getting your expected email notifications:-

1) Check your email spam folder; they may be there. If so just inform your email system that they are not junk emails

2) Check your email settings haven't changed healthunlocked.com/email-no...

If those steps fail, email HU Support at [e-mail]

Added 5th February, 2022

To Change your email address, either select "Settings" via the top right menu "More" avatar image option or use this shortcut link: healthunlocked.com/settings

Scroll down to "Change my email address", enter your new email address twice, then "Save changes".

Neil

Last updated 5th February 2022

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator]

Now updated to include how to Edit or Report posts/replies via the "More v" option below the post/reply.

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator]

One difficulty with the HealthUnlocked site layout, is that the Pinned Post section is hard to find. The Pinned Post tab is a particularly important section of our community, as it's where we keep the most helpful posts for ready access. Check it out here: healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo...

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator]

A reminder to take the time to provide some background to your CLL diagnosis and treatment history, if any in your profile. This helps members to better answer your questions by selecting your avatar next to your post and reading what you've shared. With the big differences in treatments available by country, sharing where you live will also help respondents and you. Just select this link to update your profile: healthunlocked.com/profile/...

There's more information on how your profile is used here: support.healthunlocked.com/...

You can also update your avatar image and profile banner from the assigned defaults. Sharing your personal photo is NOT recommended, as it may be possible to discover your real identity by a Google reverse image search.

Likewise, it's NOT advisable to use a username that is identifiable with you. You can change your username to something anonymous as explained here. support.healthunlocked.com/...

Choose well, as you can only change it twice!

Here's how you update your avatar and banner images. Some of us have shared stunning photos. You can update these as often as you like. support.healthunlocked.com/...

Neil

[JigFettler Volunteer]

Just wondering how all new members could be steered to reading a post like this. Part of the new member joins experience...

Jig

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator]

HU Menus in a nutshell

Top menu

- My feed icon: Access to Newsfeed - the latest posts and replies from all the communities you follow

- My Hub icon (9 dots in square): Toggle between a view of all your communities, plus HealthUnlocked's latest, and the means to search for other communities of interest on HU

- Chat (paper glider icon): access to your private message page

- Alert Bell icon: Turns yellow to alert you to a "like" or "reply", or if someone has decided to follow you

- Search box: Search all of HU

- Avatar image: Dropdown list to access Profile, Find people near me, Your needs, Settings, Email notification settings, Help and Log out.

Our Community menu

- Community Home: Access to Latest community posts, which you can toggle to Popular posts

- Posts: Sort posts by Latest, Unanswered, Popular, Pinned, Recently active and Polls. Also provides access to Community Search

- Members: Search for a member, or view members by Most Contributions, New, Admins and Similar to me

- About: Information about our online community, our CLL Support online community guidelines, our parent UK charity CLL Support, and the list of Administrators and Volunteers, plus a means to contact us.

Neil

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator]

HU have just introduced improvements for replies; easier access to the '@' notification feature, by which you can let someone know about your reply, other than those in the chain of replies you've replied to, plus easy access to emojis 😀. I would encourage everyone to use the HU emoji set, for the simple reason that choosing one from your phone's emoji set will not necessarily display it on other devices. I often can't see emojis sent by members using Apple devices.

Several members have coincidentally reported that selecting a reply from Newsfeed or an email notification doesn't take you to the reply, only the parent post, from which you have to scroll to find the reply. I've reported this bug to HU.

Watch out for further improvements in replies soon, including one very much sought for improvement!

Neil

[Phil4-13]

Neil, appreciate your work in this communication treasure. Sandra

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator]

HealthUnlocked now supports the inclusion of images in replies by selecting this icon, which you'll find on the bottom right of your reply text box.

This has been a long sought after feature, but please use it prudently, as images will slow page loading times. Most of us use phones and tablets to access HealthUnlocked where popular posts already can take quite a while to load.

Thanks,

Neil

Include image in reply icon, found on the bottom right below the reply text box

[PaulaS Volunteer in reply to AussieNeil]

Just testing the new feature. A snow meercat!

[JigFettler Volunteer in reply to PaulaS]

Replies have photo option. Nice. J

[SofiaDeo]

I wish we had the ability to "mute" users like Nextdoor, or even certain posts. It's nice to know the in-app emojis have been tweaked; they have frozen my (Apple) device in past. Thanks for the updates! All you mods are amazing & your efforts are appreciated!

[Peggy4]

Is this available in private messages Neil or just the general section?Peggy

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator in reply to Peggy4]

Just the general section supports photos

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator]

How to reference and highlight a reply in a HU post and how to edit your posts/replies: healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo....

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator]

A reminder, you can always edit (or even delete) your posts and replies via the 'More v' option below your post/reply.

How to access the Edit menu

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator]

I'm both drawing attention to this post and sharing a work-around for a long standing bug - not seeing a reply to your post or a post you are following, but just seeing the start of the post. Refreshing the page nearly always works, saving you the time of searching down through the post, which can take time on popular posts.

How you refresh a web page depends on your operating system. On desktops, Ctrl+R (Cmd+R on Apple) works.

On an Android mobile device, pulling down and releasing the screen does a refresh.

To refresh a page on the iPhone and presumably the iPad, you select the reload icon at the end of the address bar - it looks like an incomplete circle with an arrow at one end.

HU are gradually rewriting the site code, which should hopefully eventually see this bug disappear.

Neil

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator]

Update: October 2023

After assessing the results from a trial earlier this year, HealthUnlocked have made modifications to the menu on portable devices (smartphones and tablets), splitting functions between the top and bottom of the mobile device screens (see attached). Home, Search HU and profile access are available from the top of the screen and My hub, Chat, Write a post, Alerts and Menu access are available from the bottom of the screen.

The menu on computers (desktops and laptops) remains unchanged.

Neil

My hub, Chat, Write a post, Alerts and Menu access are now on Mobile screen bottoms

[Skyshark]

How about locking old posts, say over a year old or having a pop-up "You are replying to a xx month old message".

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator in reply to Skyshark]

Locking old posts has been discussed, but given:- it's unlocked posts to which new members usually reply and it's usually an older posts, because that particular post attracted them to our community. So locking old posts would not be appreciated by potential new members looking for help. (The ability to lock posts was not possible for many years in any case.)

- not all posts become out of date, so it's not something easily automatable. Doing so would require HU development effort and there are other, higher development priorities. It would be more productive to flag a post as old when someone tries to reply to it.

- we have over 37,000 posts (between 300 to 500 posts per month), so voluntary admin time can be far better spent

Neil