Took a few seconds to find how to get back to chat on SO. I quickly found that it was hiding inside the StackExchange drop down along with Blog and Log out. Having these links inside the "site switcher" seems a tad out of place and calls for concern personally.
Any ideas for an alternative to these objects location?
I started writing this as a comment to @Chris in the above question, but I felt it would be better as an answer.
Now onto some specific items:
Problem: I don't like the log out link being in the Site Switcher.
In the mobile-first world we live in now, space is becoming tighter and tighter. In the previous top-bar, we were burying better content about the user's community and network involvement for a link used sometimes. It is important to provide easy access to a log out for users, but it doesn't have to demand primary position in a website utility bar.
If your argument is that the current location of the log-out link seems a bit unintuitive, then I agree with you. I wasn't personally involved with this project. I know the team that was and I know they worked hard on it. Yet I do agree that with the suggestion in this thread that log-out functionality typically is associated with the user and not within a Site Switcher. Stack Overflow is a bit of a different use case because of it's relationship to other Stack Exchange communities, but it's still a valid point.
I don't think it should hold a primary position within a utility bar, but I also don't think it should be buried within a user setting page or placed in an unintuitive place. Moving the link one click away in a logical place is a fine solution .
Problem: I didn't think to look under the Stack Exchange logo for the Stack Overflow blog and chat links.
Yes, I would agree that the blog link here doesn't make a ton of sense, but I would also say that having a blog link in a utility bar makes less sense. This bar is about the user and their activity. The blog is about Stack Exchange and what it's doing. You might be interested in the blog, but it's not directly about you. So, again, why should that have primary placement in the bar?
The problem with its current placement is that I mentally make the association that the "blog" link next to Stack Overflow (or any community name) will take me to a specific community blog. It just takes me to the Stack Exchange blog no matter what community I'm on. That's a miss.
I would suggest removing the Blog link from next to the respective SE community. If you want to visit the SE blog, you could click on the right-sidebar Bulletin announcement area or go to the footer for it. Again, it's not a primary action. It's content about Stack Exchange from the team that they want to share. It's not about your activity as a user. Another solution would be to maintain a place for it in the Site Switcher, but have it associated more with the Stack Exchange website. Where and how this would be done would have to be explored.
The Chat links make a lot of sense being where they are now in my opinion. For those people who want to more actively engage, it's a great place to go. A lot of people though just want to come ask, answer or read questions.
StackOverflowchat, how does a tab calledStackExchangemake logical sense to look in there for a SO feature? At that point, we mine as well hidehelpinside the SE tab if we are complaining about too many objects on the top-bar.SEtab wouldn't be my first thought to completing certain tasks (including logging out). As a site switcher I understand why one would click the SE tab. Obviously with a few seconds of sitting around using the bar you understand where things are quickly. but for a new user, it doesn't exactly call for automatic intuitive understanding.