Merry christmas and happy new Beta Labs beta!
Tue, 2008-12-23 12:12Ho-ho-hoo!
As an early Christmas present, we are proud to give you a sneak peek to the renewed Beta Labs website! This is a splendid opportunity for you to really affect how the service will look and work in the future. The site is currently in early beta, so again, be prepared for some rough edges. But we were just SO eager to get it out there before Christmas! It's been a long and rocky road, but we're finally getting there!
We are planning to replace the old site with the new during January and we would really appreciate your feedback. So if you want to have an influence, check out the site and post your thoughts, suggestions, bug reports and reviews on the forum. The new site is linked to Nokia Account, so you can use that to sign in. We know it is far from perfect, but we wanted to give you the privilege to see it as early as possible.
So, hope you like the direction we are taking the service. Please, check out the site and discuss it on the forum -your actions have a direct effect on our work in January. An please do it before Sunday, as we probably will need to close the forum then for a week.
Comments
Like the new *beta* Beta site :D
Merry Christmas and Happy Hogmanay to all :D
Feedback: Nokia shouldn't be in caps in the page title, and Beta Labs have a space between the words. All page titles have this.
Other then day, pleasing design, I like that you lost the picture headers for Applications (some cubes) and for Blog (the speech bubbles)
And dare I say, the site looks more like a lab now :P
Merry Christmas! I had a great time reading this well written article. In fact, I had a great time browsing this whole site. Nice site! Regards, AJ
P.S.
1. Just noticed that my comment is closely related to comment 11.
2. I seem to have a "My Nokia" account and an "Ovi" account. When I asked on the beta labs logon page for a reminder of my password, I was given just the one for my "Ovi" account. Not directly a beta labs issue, but looks like there's a need for Nokia to unify and merge multiple accounts that apply to the same person, or to encourage/enable those of us who have them to do so, preferably without losing the history of our contributions unedr the different user-ids.
Very nice, what a wonderful set of stuff you have given us to play with over the holiday!
Since we are now logging in, a cool feature would be to have bata apps in which we are participating (because, honestly, I don't try every single one, sorry!) float to the top or become a part of an "alerts" section or something else to make them noticeable. A small thing, but might be helpful.
In any case, it looks very nice.
The current technical maturity classification is not really apt.
Consider this - Some known issues & Many known issues.
They do not imply that the "Some known issues" beta is stable or more matured. Literally, it just says that as of now, there are only some known issues. It relates to the after effect of the maturity, does not directly talk of the maturity.
And for "Many known issues", its just another beta for which many issues have been reported. Gives a feeling that the users have found many issues.
Instead, something which actually talks of the maturity would be a better approach. So, something like a rating of the maturity on the scale of 1 to 5, or a classification like - "Stable", "Highly unstable" (Maps 3) and something for the "Still needs a little ironing" section.
nokia account, sign in, forum, works well on the mobile browser. Lets get things cracking an put the show on the road!!!!
Hopefully there will be more integrated support from the beta team in the forums Tommi ;)
Id suggest the forum(sign in) for alpha testing(hard core users) beta for the open public. Use a portal that was done done for mosh available in download where feedback is sent via sms, including age an gender. The portal shows only beta content. Dont want the same issuses that came with maps 3.0. Keep the portal open for feature suggestions an improvements an leave the bugs to the forum contributors.
Just ask yourself why google has done so well with thier beta service. Its easy, not buggy on the front end, and i cant stop hearing about even if i tried. In the end it becomes seamless integration towards graduation an widely adopted.
I understand some of the programs here are for research, but the ones that plan on rolling out as a service could be applied.
Anyhow, merry xmass to the whole beta team :)
it looks better!
Oh, goodie-goodie. Beta of a beta of a beta ;-) Looks nice from the start, it deserves a post (during one of the recovering from xmas food poisoning sessions). Cheers, Rfb
I've not even checked it out yet, but I have to say, kudos for 2 things already:
1. Giving us a sneak preview before it's completely finalized (not that I expected less of you guys)
2. Supporting Nokia Account out of the box.
Now, off to check out this beta.....
Looking good guys ! Merry Christmas to y'all too :D !
Testing the Beta Labs Beta Blog Comment feature. If this gets published then its working.
Good JoB Guys.
Like Rick Said, Nokia Account out of box.
please fix up the blog as well :P
Regards
Ani
It has not been possible to leave a comment on the beta site while logged in. I have been able to leave comments in the past.
Would this be an issuse regarding the user log in or the site?
I like this new site, and I like the fact that you have offered us an opportunity to shape it at this beta stage.
One thing that is much needed for regular visitors, is to be able to find easily the programs that have been recently updated.
Currently new apps are highlighted, but there is no easy way to check for updates to existing apps, whereas in fact to regular visitors, updates may be just as significant and interesting as new releases.
Solution:
1. On the Home page, have, in addition to "Latest Releases" and "Most popular" add a "Latest updates" column.
2. On the "Betas" tab, have a separate column for "Updates" (initially populated with the "Released" date), so that the column can provide a true picture of which apps have actually changed recently (either because they are new OR because they have been updated).
3. Possibly, also, for registered users, allow people to register as users/testers of particular apps, and then as a result, receive emails as and when those are updated.
Requires horizontal scroll from a Nokia Internet Tablet. 800px wide should be doable without much hassle, just letting the body shrink.
Love teh look and feel of the new beta site guys.