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STN end user interview in 2008

Liam_Finn1
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

We the end users were invited to a 2 hour meeting via webex with Symantec to show them how we use the environment and also so Symantec can show us some of the new website look

 

Yes we did show you how we use it and also demonstarted to you other sites we found useful and other site layouts we found easy to navigate

 

What we were shown was just the silver buttons on the top of the window and a slightly different version but in blue.

 

I know I was not asked about the new forum layout because if I was I would have said NO.

 

I, as did others, give my opinion on how we would like it to look and we were told that our suggestions were helpful and would be taken into consideration

 

The truth is we spent two hours on a call and all our explinations as to how and why we use the site as we do and also any suggestions we offered were ignored.

 

Why even bothering asking the end user if you are going to ignore them and just go your own way.

 

If this is how it will work I'll just go create my own forum and then make it available to the users here so they can actually get some work done because this is wasting our time.

 

Anyone interested PM me and we can have our own forum up and running over the weekend

4 REPLIES 4

caroatikea
Level 2

Wow... talk about flaming.  Maybe it's just a major generation gap, but I don't get why everyone is venting some pretty obvious upgrades.   Naturally, I'm putting myself out here for being attacked by my IT colleagues in other companies, but seriously... half of these complaints about the new community of not being able to find things is because you guys are so used to old fashion web architecture. 

I must say... at first I was a little shocked.   I guess I missed the announcements, and I only used STN a little in the past, but the new design came as a surprise to many others too.   Shame on you guys for not preparing us for the consolidation of this Juice.  But don't take these people seriously... everyone hated the new Facebook UI last year (I was one of them) and now I understand how much more powerful it is because I learned it.  I understand why you guys couldn't have possibly done *everything* we usability participants recommended, but here are my major issues that you need to fix immediately:

 

-Page loads (the threads load crazy slow)

-Read / Unread threads

-Comment Threading!  D'uh.

 

So anyway.. I like the new forums.   Here's why:

Before, with STN, all forums were only in one exclusive board. I used mostly the SEP11 forum board.  And when I wanted to submit issues to STN, I had to pick only one board, even when the issue probably should have been on several boards. 

The new Connect forums remind me  of Gmail, which I love.  There are no folders, there is just an inbox and "labels", so I can see all my emails, or filter my email with a label, a search, whatever.  

Those of you who can't appreciate the power of flat architecture are probably also not Gmail users... admit it.. you guys drag emails into folders huh? Old skool.

Car:0 )

Liam_Finn1
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

 

Hi,
I'm the guy you have called an old man :) on the forums when you said "Maybe it's just a major generation gap"
Well I'm not old, at least I don’t think I am
 
I believe that most people are frustrated that they can’t find anything. And these are valid issues. What use is a forum if you can’t find data on it?
 
I will also agree that for some they don’t like change.
I don’t believe I fit into that category. I'm all for a nice new sleek interface, I believe it has great potential BUT they have committed the cardinal sin of forums, they made it unusable. If you are going to make changes so drastic then fine but they should be implemented in phases. Just imagine what would happen if tomorrow your country decided everyone was to drive on the other side of the road. It would cause uproar amongst the people, 70% of them would not know which side to drive on every time the turn a corner...do I get in the left or the right.
 
Now add to that if at the same day they change the side of the road to drive on they change the color of the traffic lights so red was go and green was slow then yellow would be stop. Combine all this together and you get mayhem
 
This is what has happened to the forums.
This is why people are angry just like the population of your country would be angry.
 
Yes I agree over time people will get used to it, and yes Symantec will slowly make changes to make it more users friendly.
I also believe that if I implemented change like this to the 100,000 users within my company I would be fired because no one would find their data.
What they should have done is if they want to make a complete switch over either do it in phases OR go BETA on the site and get the feedback from the community to fix the issues before a go live.
 
I still think that this should be put back into BETA phase and the old environment returned until they can get the bugs out of it.
 
There is little consistancy in the filter menues some time you can see your product other times you cant.
 
When you search you get items belonging to completly different product
 
Tracking items is a pain in the butt.. you have to leave the forum to track a forum item instead of just placing it in a feed on the right  side of the window or even if you could meke them all RSS so you can add it to your own RSS app to track
 
The large font is way too big it is wasting space that should be used to display the full subject line
 
The inability to see the number of views and the number of new responces is really bad.
 
It needs major work and all this work should have been done offline not in a live environment.
 
It is a bit like selling a backup software to backup your data and then telling the customer we are still working on the restore part so for now you cant restore..
 
 
 
 
 

caroatikea
Level 2

You sent me a PM and posted the message here.  Anyway, I wrote you a PM.  I agree.  Should not have went online in this state, as things (you mentioned the filtering) are still not working consistently.  They better fix 1) speed and 2) loading data (for menus and such) or I will join your side of the fence. 

Car:o)

Liam_Finn1
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

You are always welcome on my side of the fence Caro

 

As they say the grass is always greener in the other side of the fence :)

So climb over and have a look