Introducing Support Beacons on the OSF: Help at Your Fingertips

We’re thrilled to announce a pilot of our new OSF Help Beacons, designed to make your OSF experience even smoother! These beacons will appear in the bottom right corner of your screen on the dashboard, preprints, projects, registries and search pages. They offer targeted help guides, quick tips, and even video walkthroughs to assist you as you work.

Why Beacons?

We know that finding the help that you need quickly is critical. With the beacons, you can access help right where you need it, whether you're uploading a preprint, navigating your dashboard, or refining your search.

How Can You Help Us Improve?

We value your feedback! Each beacon includes an option to fill out a quick survey, letting us know how helpful the tool is and any improvements you’d like to see. This is just the beginning—your input will guide how we expand the beacons to other areas of OSF.

“The only real way to improve the OSF is to understand our users. We genuinely want to hear your feedback on how we can improve and better support your open science research!”

“The only real way to improve the OSF is to understand our users. We genuinely want to hear your feedback on how we can improve and better support your open science research!”

Daniel Steger,

Technical Community Manager at COS

What’s Next?

After this initial launch, we’ll evaluate the feedback and make adjustments to better serve you. Stay tuned as we bring the beacons to other pages across OSF!

Try it out and let us know what you think: https://airtable.com/apphPB2HPzC1ty7Td/pagErwWuUvOxJ0mtX/form

#OpenScience #ResearchTools #OSF #UserSupport #FeedbackMatters