I've been trying to write some more letters to orphans, but the things that frustrated me a bit in the past could still be improved.
I think the history of an orphan should be more clear. I take an orphan for example:
Aylin Elizabeth Ramos Medina (06991060)
She has been written a letter by us and she send back a letter in reply. Someone has written her a new letter, and although that letter is genuine it's not a response to the letter she has send. This is disappointing to me, because she won't receive a reply to her questions this way.
The reason that this is happening - in my opinion - is because not all information is in clear view. To me, the process is as follows now:
I went to the 'Sponsored Orphan List' to see which orphans still need writing.
Aylin was one of them.
So next I went to the 'Inbound Letters' list, to see her new letter (something that Dale - the one who wrote the latest letter - probably hasn't done. He probably saw that a letter needed to be written and send a letter based on her bio and not her letter).
After that, I started reading her letter and started formulating answers to her questions. But instead of that, I should have gone to the 'Outgoing letters' tab, because only after I wrote my letter, I found out that there was there was already a letter that was written by Dave (although I don't think it a good letter, because he doesn't reply to the questions that Aylin asked), but it wasn't approved yet.
So. I suggest a couple of 'improvements':
-Maybe in the 'Sponsored Orphan List', there should also be a column that shows if an unapproved letter is already written,
-Maybe there should also be a column that links to the latest inbound letter?
I'm not sure how to improve the flow of information here, but to me the whole proces is a bit frustrating at the moment, because I feel that I have to take too many steps.
Or maybe we need a page that shows the following things (just an idea):
Name - Biography - Latest Letter - Needs written (TRUE/FALSE) - Unapproved letter in pool (TRUE/FALSE)
Just trying to find a way that works with less steps than is required now
Yes, this is actually a suggestion that I have also made in the past. When a user writes a genuine letter to an orphan, this user gets 'linked' to that orphan, and it's expected that they write a letter when there is a reply (maybe there could also be a notification system if there is a new letter). I think this is also important, because a personal letter, from someone that you have bonded with, holds more value than if an orphan gets a reply from someone else every time she answers some questions. If I were a child, this would be confusing to me. That's another reason why I think one-on-one letter writing would be better.
If there is not a reply for some time, then the orphan can be 'free' again for someone else to further the communication.