If I am in the Betalabs forum for example and wish to return to the graduated forum it would be nice not to have to click on Forum and then on Graduated. Ie have one click to go from a graduated forum app forum to the graduated forum instead of two.
mbrett
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018
What do you feel would be the best way to solve this? Would it be for example that when you press the "Forum" tab, it would show the same category that the application is that you are currently in?
Or perhaps an additional button somewhere?
Your first option may well be the cleanest option. I quite like the idea of it returnnig you to the relevamnt forum rather than the Current forum.
Also if I am browsing new posts in the forum and select one of the threads, it would be nice to have a button or link at the top of that thread that permits me to go to the show unread screen again for that app rather than having to either return to the forum page and click on the unread posts link for that app or go to the app forum and click on "show unread". Would just make things a little smoother for browsing unread posts.
mbrett
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018
We've identified this issue and will get back to it eventually. We were thinking of having a "next" and "previous" buttons by which you would be able to go trough the filtered posts. How do you think that would work? Unfortunately, because of limited resources, this has been postponed to be developed at some point early in the second half of 2009.
These should work quite well, but some sort of return to Unread may also be helpfull.
Also whilst I'm on this sort of topic a User Homepage of sorts in the forum would be nice. By this I mean somewhere where the user can go and see and access their recent posts and applications of interest. Now I think about it it could be a Possible expansion on the current User Info page accessed by clicking on the username. Possible merge of this page and the main forum page when logged in.
What are your thought?
mbrett
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018
We've had something very similar in mind. There are plans to do a kind of user specific "newsfeed" that would contain user relevant updates. Eventually, such a feed would be visible in the front page as well as in the user profile, containing notifications of continued feedback threads, interesting application updates, blog posts and so on. Practically everything the user wants to follow, all in one place.
But this is the long term plan. The short term plan would most likely include primarily the forum content, but this is most likely the most difficult thing to follow anyways.
Thanks
Sound good.
Hope you guys don't get your wings trimmed like the Share on OVI guys accordnig to the thread Jamaal posted in the Share on OVI forum yesterday. It's a sad day, although the Reuters reporter's reference to Share on OVI competing with facebook seems a little puzzling as they do different things. I accept the similarities to Flickr, but not facebook.
http://betalabs.nokia.com/forum/topic/2294
mbrett
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018
How abuot trying the following.
In the grey bar below the tabs at the top of the page you have a location string:
Graduated>>Nokia Beta Labs>>Forum>>If I am in the Betalabs forum for example . . .
It may appear illogical, but the simplest method may be to change this to:
Nokia Beta Labs>>Graduated>>Forum>>If I am in the Betalabs forum for example . . .
This way the user can return to the App forum (Forum), The Graduated Forum (Graduated) or the Application Page (Nokia Beta Labs). I beleive this would be more useful that the ability to return to the Graduated page on the BETAs pages.
I realise this is just my opinion, but I like it.
mbrett
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018
I'd guess that for the majority of users, the breadcrumbs are most usable, when they represent a logical structure or a path. Thus "Beta Labs" => "Graduated" does not seem very logical for me, and I am afraid more would complain about this. So, I hope we can find a better solution.
To make things a bit more complicated, we've made a decision not to put much emphasis on the forum itself, meaning, we don't want to highlight the forum, but instead, highlight the different means of feedback (made possible by the forum). Since people use it as a regular discussion forum, it seems to result in some issues:
- people go to Forum and end up in the wrong section. This might not happen as often, if they went to the application page and clicked on some "give feedback" button instead.
- people post to the forum with multiple different types, and wrong types too. They find a place where there is a lot of discussion and might not have the energy to figure out how it all works. This might not happen if we encouraged users to "report a bug" or "give a suggestion" or "discuss" from the application page instead.
Also, we are planning to downsize the part "graduated" and "archived" betas play here. We wanted to keep them alive so far, but have now realized there is seldom any valuable discussion there and don't see it feasible to channel discussion to those places.
We do see the need for continuing the discussion when it comes to internet services for example, but we might want to find another way to do that. So, in the foreseeable future, the "graduated" and "archived" might be hidden someplace else.
So in the future, the breadcrumbs will most likely look like
"Maps 3.0" => "Bug reports", and if you wanted to suggest an idea, you'd go back to "maps 3.0" page, instead of the forum. This is my vision currently. For heavy users though, the current approach should still be possible.
Sorry, it's a long response with no clear answer either, but I attempted to explain what the future looks like and how it will affect this breadcrumb thing too.
When you said:
"Maps 3.0" => "Bug reports", and if you wanted to suggest an idea, you'd go back to "maps 3.0" page, instead of the forum. This is my vision currently. For heavy users though, the current approach should still be possible.
Are you saying that in you example (above) there would be 3 forums (Bug Reports, Suggestions, Review) for Maps, possibly with the breadcrumbs reduced (No link to forums). Discussions would be removed, I assume, as it is very forum biased. Does this mean the Forum tab would also be removed.
The importatnt thing for me is going to be how heavy users get from one forum to the next. The way in which this is done could cause some to assume a reduced interest in comunication with the Betalabs user base. As you are fully aware there have already been complaints in a number of Forums about a lack of interaction. May I just say that in some forums this has been greatly improved and accept other (Maps for example) have extremely busy teams with people like Kee desperately trying to keep up with the extremely busy Forum when he gets the chance.
Finally I will be interested to see how you promote one method over the other without making the Forum access method (heavy users) more unwealdy, thus disuading it's use, displeasing the heavy users.
Appolgies for the long winded response.
mbrett
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018
I hear your point and I agree, there's no point in "disarming" the heavy users. Therefore, I believe we should keep developing the forum keeping the heavy users in mind, while trying to channel more mainstream users to send feedback trough the application page.
For example, we could have "read reviews" section there, which would only show Amazon-like reviews with a link to the comments and a possibility to add your own. Also, there would be a "report a bug" section, which would only contain the bugs, etc. This way, we would be able to limit the participation a bit for mainstream users, while keeping the tools for heavy users the same.
I'll continue this a bit later. Tell me what you think!
I think that may work pretty well, but the main problem is if/how you then control access to the forum pages.
I'll give it some more thought.
mbrett
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018
I hope we don't need access control to the forum, but instead just not display the "forum" so prominently, as it is not the "discussion forum" aspect of it, that we want to promote, but rather the feedback giving that it enables.
What I am trying to do is make it simpler how a user "reports a bug" or "suggest an idea", etc., which does not require him to first end up in the forum, see a lot of miscellaneous, often confusing discussion threads and having to decide which of the multiple buttons to press. All this by preserving the so far traditional "discussion forum" look for the heavy users.
Do you intend to loose the Forum Tab then?
Will this be moved to being more of a hyperlink/button on a page, therefor not advertising the forum, but maintaining its access?
This could work. The issue then is how you advertise to the heavy users, where the access has gone. I myself will just create a bookmark to the forum and access via that.
mbrett
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018
Perhaps, something along these lines yes. Haven't worked out the details yet. I'm still considering other alternatives too, for example having a "default view" and a "discussion forum view". I'm not sure how this would work in practice, but kind of like "basic" and "advanced" views.
Would this be done via a hyperlink at the bottom of the page somewhat like the "show mobile version" link at the bottom of the main page?
ie. hyperlink to toggle between "default view" and "discussion forum view" the hyperlink would therefor change depending on which view you were presently in.
mbrett
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018
Yes, perhaps like that (or a toggle in the profile page). But I'm not any more completely sure if the benefits would be higher than the costs caused by added complexity. :) Hmm... I need to think about this for a bit longer.
Would be nice to have a spring clean of the forums at the same time.
Some are worse than others, Maps and Sports Tracker being teh worst two I think.
Maybe some sort of rule could be used. If last viewed is more than 2 months ago archive. The old posts could be held in an archive, but I accept this may comlpicate things even further, but maps, for example has 1582 comments at last check and sports tracker has 1020. I'm sure these could be reduced somehow to make the forums somewhat more usaeble again.
Maybe even creating a sub form for each one called "OLD". All posts could be put in there or "last viewed before" could be put in there at the point at which you do the changes we've been discussing. This way it would be easier to identify the new/existing issues and discussions and somewhat avoid getting bogged down in old ones. The data would still be available for reference though.
mbrett
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018