I would like a reply to the "Reply" issue

Well, yes, there is that too! It's all rather ridiculous.

Indeed The amount of people who think reply isn't working is astonishing but reply does exactly what it's supposed to and made some sort of sense before they added the ability to quote posts.

The most astonishing thing though is the fact we're years down the road and still getting wishy washy we're looking into this and testing this posts from HQ. It's very clear there's not much happening with regards to resolving the issue. If they've not fixed it by now then I am incredibly sceptical they have any intention of doing so.

I don't know why we need Reply AND Add Post. It all just adds to the (understandable) confusion.

Reply is working as it's meant to (adding a post to the thread). The problem is, people think it does what the - now hidden - quote button does. All they need to do is swap quote in the drop down for reply beneath the posts and it should resolve many issues.

I have seen many organisations take all sorts of approaches to ‘test’ things that somehow sidestep user research or completely ignore it.

Often more senior people apparently just know what users need and can test things in lieu of them. 🙄

Not sure what you mean by "pure IT terms", there are so many different kinds of testing that they could mean, unit testing, regression testing, exploratory testing, usability testing... Maybe they've been doing some A/B testing?

I do think reply could be a bit complex, how is it supposed to work? Could be threading, or a link to the thing you're replying to, or just mentioning the person you are replying to, for example.

In pure IT terms it really should though.

What sort of tests do you think they mean?

I agree there are other tests that don't require user input. But how do you figure out what the best option is for the largest majority of users, if you don't actually ask those who use your site?

‘Tests’ could mean all sorts of things. It doesn’t necessarily mean user testing.

You do know that they'll probably call it something else just to confuse us, them and any one else who may in the future be tasked with supporting the Talk boards 😂
Because you can never have too many things called different names but essentially are the same thing

You would think it makes sense to do some user research and reach out to those who use the site to help with improvements. But way back in November when HebeMumsnet posted

We're going to run some tests to figure out what the best option is for the largest majority of users

Lots of posters offered to help with the testing, only to be met with silence.

I was first to reply to the OP (although I know plenty have suggested the same thing in the past) and said I wish they would just move the quote button to where reply is. Yet here we are months later and Mumsnet is still ignoring the most obvious solution.

Maybe they’re doing some rigorous user research and iterative design to make sure they get it right.

MN Admins & coding team were quick enough to be able to bring in the "Thanks" option but they can't get this issue that has been hanging around even longer that I don't know what, sorted.

I mean how difficult is it to swap the location of the "Quote" option and the "Add Reply" option around?

Seriously - how difficult would that have been to implement?????

Just swap them around. The 'functionality' of these two options would move with them but the Quote would be where Add Reply is and Add Reply would be hidden under the three dots.

I cannot fathom how MN are making this out to be a bigger issue than it really needs to be.

You need to turn the sound up on your device, it’s making a groaning sound to me. 🤣

Right, this is really weird.
The Reply button has returned.

Baffled.

Yeah, nothing has changed.

I still have the useless button sitting there doing less than a bloke with man flu lying on the sofa wearing the dressing gown of doom...

Desktop hasn't had a reply button for a long while (if ever). It's called "Add message" on desktop and is on the far left. Does the same thing, but the wording makes a bit more sense. Still a stupid place for it though.

Sorry - you'll have to click on the whole image to see what I mean.

This is what it looks like for me now: