Nokia Beta Labs, Shaping the future together

I see you have open this topic from our last chat http://new.betalabs.nokia.com/forum/topic/231

Well ill address archive/graduated first. As seen in this example http://new.betalabs.nokia.com/forum/topic/266 , i used the same method you used with me by providing the blog link. I also went on ahead with providing some background knowledge to the user. Some may be new and not familiar with application history also how things flow over the betalabs.

So i would suggest in the case of Archive/Graduated, such as location tagger is not the only one in the category, a brief intro, provide previous blog for knowledge.
Close the bug report option (in this case) leave open discussion & suggestion since it may be used for future development.
In the case of a graduated project there are still ongoing development, such as nokia music, photos, etc leave the bug report open.

Another example i made a post in the widsets page http://new.betalabs.nokia.com/forum/topic/232
It was just more of a request. So possibly a request counter?
I understand the project is handled by a third party, but just for future reference.

Oh yes one big request before i forget, also consider the device status application open for requests.
This is a bit of topic, but i find it an essential application for beta testers, but ill leave a full detail discussion under its topic some time soon.

Well if anything comes to mind later, ill pass it on.

To answer this question, you guys need to evaluate the future and role of betalabs first.
If you want betalabs to be the medium through which the users interact and discuss the problems they are facing with the applications and services, then betalabs is the place which should have the forums for the archived and graduated services and positives.

But if betalabs is just supposed to be the testing ground, then the graduated programs and services should not have a forum where the users post their queries which are answered to by the fellow users. Nokia Discussion Boards follow this approach, and i simply hate it. it is like a cardoned off area nokia has specificallly desgined for its users where they can come, chatter, leave and Nokia would not even look into it.

So what role do you guys see betalabs playing? Just of a testing ground or the medium through which the teams can interact with the users.

But till something concrete is worked out, this is what would be my suggestion.

For services and softwares which are going to be regulars on the betalabs and which shall see new betas coming in after the graduation of a particular version, like Communication Center, PC Suite, Sports Tracker, Maps etc, the forums should be there and even on graduation, should not be removed. Because the development on the next version would start soon after graduation, and in such a case, the user inputs for the future course of development should be considered.
But for research projects like Image Exchange, once the user feedback and reports have been considred and the project is closed to user inputs, keeping the forum open would be wasting the user's resources and hopes of expecting a reply to his answers.

For graduated/archived apps, I think we can leave the respective forums open, but mark them clearly (with pics and bold text), something like: "This app has been archived/graduated. Nokia does not follow the discussions anymore. For product support, please contact your local Nokia Customer Care or Nokia Support Discussions (graduates only)"

In any case, I think we should hide the archived/graduated links in the main forum view http://new.betalabs.nokia.com/forum.

Hmm Tommi, hiding seems not like a bad idea at all, but i also can say other wise with an example.
In the past when i needed information for "location tagger" & "Share Online" my best resource of information was reading the blogs and comments, with out the need of leaving silly questions.
So thats a taught.....

Or, Continue with your exact taught, but also include, for example "Nokia Music" i believe bug reports are still followed including suggestions. Where the same applies to Nokia Messaging, Photos...so on. So say make this also clear in the label, that suggestion are still taking into consideration, so the "bugreport" an other topic labels should stay open. In the case of location tagger, "bugreport" is no longer required, so close the topic label, but im making a guess here suggestion is still welcomed for future development.
So each project is a case by case customized layout.

I should provide you with a well clear detailed post pertaining to each project, but that would take time, an well, can be irritating to read, unless you would like that?

Hmmm, will do more thinking.....

Ok forget it....i went ahead with it.
I see the perfect place to hide the Grad/Archive Thread.
On this page http://new.betalabs.nokia.com/forum Top left corner a TAB called "Mark All Read".
Perfect, One for Grad, another for Archive. No more need to mess up the "Current" forum ( noticed how i used the same titles labeled under "betas" menu tab.

Chart out of my suggestion. Bare with me, bit untidy, but gets the point across.

KEY: N.D=Nokia Discussion link. X=close the topic. K=ok Topic stay open. (My personal addition hehe :D) R=request, just a one time click return to betalabs request) B&C=Previous Blog & comment for refference

.....................Archived: With Tommi's suggested Intro, plus previous Blog & comments link available

..................................................................."BugReport"....."New Discussion"......."New Review"........"New Suggestion"........"Request"
....................Advertising Power Download ........x..........................x.................................x.............................x..............................x
(Graduated) Enhanced Calculator.......................x........N.D(if available) or B&C ..............x.............................k...............................x
....................Nokia Headline................................ x.......................... x................................ x............................x...............................r
....................PC Phone.........................................x...........................x.................................x............................x..............................x
....................Nokia Text Messenger.....................x........................B&C...............................x............................k...............................r

..................Graduated: Tommi Intro
............................................................................."............................".................................."............................"................................"
....................Nokia Photos....................................k..........................N.D...............................k?..........................k!................................x
..................Widsets..............................................x...........N.D & Widsets site.......N.D & Widsets site..........K! .....K!(personally would like to c widsets back)
...................Nokia Communication center 2..0.....k+N.D...................N.D.................................k?......................k+N.D............................?
...................Nokia Messeging..............................K!...........................K!.................................K!.......................K! K!...............................x
................... Nokia Music PC Client .....................K! ..........................k .................................k ....................... K! K! ..............................x
................... Nokia Maps 2.0 + Loader.................x............................N.D..............................x............................x.................................x
................... Location tagger................................x..........................N.D+ B&C.....................x............................k...................................x
................... Nokia Download Store...................NO..........................CO..............................MM.........................ENT.......No Thx :D (sorry guys)

How about it guys???
Now thats what i call a filter........

I see you've been busy!

I am glad you have the motivation to put so much effort into developing the service. For that I am truly very thankful.

You've answered my question in a much wider way than what I was expecting :) that's very welcome.

I do find your approach to the problem very interesting. I guess communicating all this to the user will be very difficult. At least I am still quite confused and confusion was what got me to ask for opinions. Sadly, there probably isn't an easy way out of this...

Yeah no prob at all. Thats me!
So what have you come to so far?
What questions do still remain for you?
Would this image help out a bit....
http://share.ovi.com/media/Snowy.NokiaBetalabsSc/snowy.10164

Keep it Active. Address Todays Questions. Most Importantly Keep it Tidy and Fit Comments to its Attended Topic. I Welcome all Questions!

To achieve the desirable functionality, the forum needs a larger reconstruction than I anticipated. We have already started the process to achieve something like what you suggest there in the picture, let's see when we get that implemented. Fairly soon I would say, though. Might not be this or next week, but soon. Same goes for the application specific forum view. Such a categorisation buttons for Bug reports, Discussions etc will be placed.

I would again like to ask you to take a moment and reconsider.

Take your own post in the Share on Ovi forum today - http://new.betalabs.nokia.com/forum/topic/304
"We advice users to use Share on Ovi's own Support Forums for discussion and giving feedback."

This is what we want to achieve. That users stay here for discussion about the beta softwares and services, and for the graduated softwares, use the respective solutions offered by nokia. Starting up a forum here for those services would be non-sensical! As it is the developers or people from Nokia are not going to address the issues or moderate the forums for the graduated app i suppose, it will be a users only discussion. So let them head over to Nokia DIscussions Boards where they might be able to get the help from users from all over the world and from a larger audience. Over here, we would be having a smaller userbase as it is.

As for archived services, should we offer a discussion forum? Services / softwares are archived either since they have served the research purpose, or they have been incorporated in some larger software or it turned out to be a failed experiment. In all the cases, where does betalabs see its involvement in the service's future? Either it will release as a new beta, for which there will be a forum, or betalabs won't be involved. So what is the purpose of giving the users a ground to discuss?

Lets keep betalabs to what it is - a beta lab only :)

Submitted by Ilkka on Wed, 01/21/2009 - 12:21.
To achieve the desirable functionality, the forum needs a larger reconstruction than I anticipated. We have already started the process to achieve something like what you suggest there in the picture, let's see when we get that implemented. Fairly soon I would say, though. Might not be this or next week, but soon. Same goes for the application specific forum view. Such a categorisation buttons for Bug reports, Discussions etc will be placed.

Thx Ilkka, its good to see where are on the same page, and for considering my suggestions.
I am very happy to hear "Same goes for the application specific forum view. Such a categorisation buttons for Bug reports, Discussions etc will be placed.", will take its form.

IMO this will greatly help reduce noise in a natural fashion.
May require more work and customization on your end but will pay off in the long run. I hope.

I could come up with at least one purpose for having a forum for an archived application: some archived applications are still there for you to download, even though we are not maintaining them. A forum might be a place where users could share knowledge and provide peer-support for issues. In case an archived application provides to be very popular even long after its archival, it would be perhaps nice to know? I guess there isn't a point allowing bug to be reported, but I don't see it absolutely mandatory to pull the plug on all discussion, unless it is seen confusing and unnecessary by many.

Valid point.

Infact, i was thinking over what about graduated apps like Nokia Maps which make a reentry to the betalabs with new versions.
So i guess we do need forums for the graduated apps as well. Though there should be a notice pointing users to the official channels of discussions for prompter replies and so that betalabs does not become another nokia discussions board.

Just thought I should re-surface this one after a long period of dormancy.

We still need to have a sticky at the top of each graduated application forum pointing users to the proper channels of communication for each app post graduation.

Still probably worth having a sticky at the top of each archived app forum explaining that the app is no longer supported and the forum will only be observed by a limited number of users, but development and development overview has ended.

mbrett
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018

I've added a sticky on at least the Nokia Messaging forums, which were still getting quite some feedback. Lets see if the feedback dies there too. If so, I wonder if we should close the feedback channels after graduation/archival almost completely - it's mostly just confusing I suppose.

There is some useful info in there.

With regards to the Graduated apps I accept that they should be supported elswehere by the App teams, but this does not always work that well. I also accept that the proper route for dicsussions on the graduated apps should be the discussion forums, but there is useful info here.

With regards to the Archived apps these forums are the only place users can ask other users for help or advice, or even post aditional feedback that could be utilised by the design teams if the apps were to be revived at any time. I seem to remember it being mentioned somewhere that this was possible, in the longer term.

Also: The Nokia Messaging Stick is not sticky. The Nokia Messgaing for 5th Edition is OK though. Also I would suggest that you make both posts closed to posting replys so that they are kept clean.

mbrett
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018

Darn, I suppose I missed the checkbox afterall. Sticky now, and commenting disabled on both.

I agree, there can be useful information there and I'm not in a hurry to close the forums as long as they are used.

When they do end up being closed, it may still be useful to leave them as read only of turning the useful info into FAQs on the Archived Beta Pages.

mbrett
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018

i still like to see graduated programs to stay open by the community and project team. After all they most of them still evolve and are service based, so always new bugs are to arise an improvement should be heard.

It only makes sense if updates are still coming out.

Personaly i see graduated as only stable for official release. Thats my view.

Well i would like to hear what the project managers have to say for each project.

Although i do agree user support should be taken up elsewhere.

For example ovi share made a mistake with their latest update.
It did not work with the community and recieved much backlash for their update. Many users hate the update and find it not user friendly anymore.

So all work done here in the part was just tossed in the bin.
Its my lost but who was the biggest loss, beta labs. It was a mistake to keep it "all" internal, some kind of balance should be worked out.

Archived apps only have support via the users within the archived forum, but the graduated apps could be supported via http://discussions.nokia.co.uk/discussions/

I accept that it is nice to get support for all your betalabs apps past and present in one place, but if you don't check the discuddion forums aswell as the betalabs forums you don't get the full story when it comes to the graduated apps. I know that Davis Fields form the Messagnig team read the discussion forums as I have received a response from him there after he advised me that that was teh best plac to post issues and suggestions post Messaging's graduation.

The frustration can be when you are advised to contact Nokia Care as I have not had many solutions from the teams there in the past. They have been able to provide lost activationcodes for N-Gage games, but when it has come to technical issues there responses have not solved my problems.

mbrett
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018

from my understanding nokia discussions is only a user support community forum with no nokia support.

They even have a pretty little nokia logo next to their name.

mbrett
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018

ive seen the same, but just hall monitors, on the most. Hehe

Do they have Prefects ans a Head Boy and Girl too?

Seriously. There are a number of hall monitors, but as I said previuosly I have seen Davis Fields from the Messaging team communicating with users on there.

mbrett
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.018

To my understanding, Nokia Discussion is still a peer support forum, and Nokia employees there are exceptions to the rule.

davis fields is bad ass! :)

what do u guys think about the example i gave on ovi share?