my reaction to the new forum

[Richard Burts]

I am a long time participant in the forum and really would try to like the new changes and hope that it will turn out to be better. But there are several things that frustrate me at this point.

- there were several threads posted in the period shortly before the changes to which I wanted to post responses. But I can not find them. I have a URL which would have gotten me to the thread in the previous version of the forum. But they all return an error that it is not able to find what I am looking for. I regard this as a major challenge for the continuity of the forum.

- perhaps related to the previous point - I am seeing several posts whose content is several years old. There does not seem to be any current addition to the thread. So I am confused why they are showing up in the forum. Is this an attempt to re-introduce old content to the forum?

- Notifications seem to work very differently. In the previous iterations of the forum if I responded to a thread I received notifications when anyone responded to the thread. In the current version of the forum I get a notification only if the original author has responded. It makes it much more of a challenge to follow discussions.

- In previous iterations of the forum there was an option to browse discussions which would allow me to see the most recent posts accross the various forums. I enjoyed that and found it very useful to find discussion in forums that I do not normally track closely. I do not find that capability in the new forum and I miss it.

- there are LOTS of formatting options in posting a response - almost all of which I do not need. But there is no option for spell check. Perhaps many of you type better than I do. But I was pretty dependent on the spell check function to avoid embarassing typo issues and I miss it !

- it seems that performance of this version of the foum is much slower than the previous version.

HTH

Rick

[Erick Bergquist]

I agree. Long time user of the forums and this latest redo is worst user experience on both the web browser and mobile app. Can't easily find discussions like before. The iPhone app keeps prompting for credentials. When I get to the discussion area of interest when I exit reading a post to gol back to list of all posts in that discussion area/group it takes me back to main entry page. Just seems cluttered compared to before. Hoping they are reading this and improvements are made.

[David Dube · Accepted solution]

I wanted to make sure you're login experience is in reference to the Communities within the Cisco Technical Support mobile app, as opposed to the Communities within mobile Safari... right?

Admittedly, the app was faced with a bit of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario. You'll notice if you are logged in to Cisco.com and you transition to CSC within a web browser, you are not automatically logged in. If you tap on login, you're automatically logged in without having to enter in your credentials.

We had a similar scenario within the app. The alternative to having a similar experience as the web ennvironment, we could redirect people to their Profile page when they first get into communities - if we went this route, you would be automatically logged into CSC. An added bonus was that you could immediately see all of your recent discussions/activity. In fact, this is how the app was set up initially after the CSC redesign.

However, we recently ran usability studies with a number of people, and redirecting people to their profile page instead of CSC home was extrememly disconcerning/disorienting to the user(s). So we switched it back to CSC home. 

Certainly open to feedback around this... given the current options, would you prefer to land on your profile page or the CSC home page?

Regards,

Dave

[asafayan]

I'm a long time user of the forum and certainly no luddite.  I'm perfectly happy to enjoy a new interface and welcome improvements to any GUI I use.

In the case of the new forum interface - I can no longer interface with the forums as readily as I used to. It is no longer my first stop when troubleshooting an issue - which is what I do for a living! : )

For a while I thought it must be me - but from the reading these posts - it would seem that it is not easy to navigate for others as well.

Amir Safayan

[Jon Marshall · Accepted solution]

It must be me then

Either i am -

1) truly a real luddite

or

2) a very basic user of the site

or

3) perhaps because i only really use the discussion pages

or a combination of all the above but i can't see how the new site is harder to navigate.

It takes just as many clicks to move between forums as it did on the previous site as far as i can see.

I appreciate there are a number of bugs/issues at the moment so i'm not saying it's perfect but i'm struggling to see why everyone is saying it is worse in terms of navigation.

Like i say though it could just be me.

Jon

[Dan Lukes]

1. Cancelled concept of "incomming links". If you are searching for a solution of particular issue then navigation is worse with new UI. Computer generated Related content can't be considered replacement for cloud-of-links created by community experts.
2. So many place wasted by graphic on the page. On the page with list discussion I need to press PgDn to see even topmost item. I consider it "harder to navigate"
3. Not speaking about so low speed and broken caching. Yes, both of them are known bugs and I will be solved sometime in the future. On the other side, casual community members are not volunteer beta-testers so we should not be surprised that even known bugs will create bad feeling about navigation. 

If I will be asked to vote, then the navigation in the new UI is not better ...

Just my $0.02

[Steve Fuller]

Jon Marshall said:

or a combination of all the above but i can't see how the new site is harder to navigate.

It takes just as many clicks to move between forums as it did on the previous site as far as i can see.

In my view it's so frustrating browsing around the site.

For example, I've gone to my favourite forum and found nothing of interest/questions that I might answer on first few pages. I browse through and reach page 3 or 4, click on a post as the subject sounds interesting, but find it wasn't quite as the subject had suggested. I then click the back button on my browser to continue browsing.... and I'm at page 1 of the forum.

Given the continuing performance issues with the site it can then take minutes to reach where I'd previously got to.

Regards

[Jon Marshall]

Hi Steve

I then click the back button on my browser to continue browsing.... and I'm at page 1 of the forum.

Agreed, that is a bit frustrating although i'm not sure it has been reported as a bug.

I am definitely not saying the site is working as well as it could do but i just got a bit frustrated with all the criticism which made it sound like the site was just unuseable which it really isn't.

There have already been significant improvements since the original rollout but to read a lot of the comments you wouldn't know it. 

Still, everybody's opinion holds equal weight and in this forum at least i seem to be in a minority

Jon

[Daniel Bruhn]

Steve,

Agreed, clicking the back button should take you to the search page you were on.  I will circle back with the team and get this addressed.

Thanks,

Dan

[Daniel Bruhn · Accepted solution]

Hi Rick,

Answering your questions inline below:

- there were several threads posted in the period shortly before the changes to which I wanted to post responses. But I can not find them. I have a URL which would have gotten me to the thread in the previous version of the forum. But they all return an error that it is not able to find what I am looking for. I regard this as a major challenge for the continuity of the forum.

All migrated content should have redirects.  If some aren't working please email them to me so we can investigate.

- perhaps related to the previous point - I am seeing several posts whose content is several years old. There does not seem to be any current addition to the thread. So I am confused why they are showing up in the forum. Is this an attempt to re-introduce old content to the forum?

No, in the new site if anything changes to a post including "edits" the discussion is brought back to the top of the forum.  This is likely what you are seeing.

- Notifications seem to work very differently. In the previous iterations of the forum if I responded to a thread I received notifications when anyone responded to the thread. In the current version of the forum I get a notification only if the original author has responded. It makes it much more of a challenge to follow discussions.

All notifications aren't working as expected.  This is listed in the "known issues" document.  We hope to have them all working shortly.

- In previous iterations of the forum there was an option to browse discussions which would allow me to see the most recent posts accross the various forums. I enjoyed that and found it very useful to find discussion in forums that I do not normally track closely. I do not find that capability in the new forum and I miss it.

Have you looked t the "answer questions" page?  This is driven by your "interests" which can be found in your profile.

- there are LOTS of formatting options in posting a response - almost all of which I do not need. But there is no option for spell check. Perhaps many of you type better than I do. But I was pretty dependent on the spell check function to avoid embarassing typo issues and I miss it !

Agreed, I miss this as well and we are working on adding spell check to the WYSIWYG editor

- it seems that performance of this version of the foum is much slower than the previous version.

We are aware some pages aren't optimal.  Performance fixes are ongoing.

Be assured all of the things you have mentioned will be addressed.  Just as it did with our last platform migration 6 years ago there will be a transition period.  We are working day-and-night to make the nessesary changes and hope to have the critial bugs fixed shorlty.

Regards,

Dan

[Rob Huffman · Accepted solution]

Hi Dan & Dave,

I wanted to say thanks for your responses and for your continued hard work on resolving the issues related to the new CSC site! I've seen many improvements over the first two weeks on the new site and I'm sure there will be many more to follow

Cheers & thanks!

Rob

[Kjetil Ree]

Richard says: "[...] I am seeing several posts whose content is several years old. There does not seem to be any current addition to the thread. [...]"

This bothers me a lot as well. Replying to old posts (thinking that they were new) is a waste of time.

By the way, how do I quote another post these days? I couldn't find the button, and had to fall back to copy/paste to quote Richard!

Regards,
Kjetil

[Erick Bergquist]

Dave,

I primarly use the forum site to look at and search through discussions. I've become use to the new UI on a desktop PC (getting to the discussions), but through the iOS iPhone app I'm still getting the feel of the new way and clicking the = then directory then waiting and choosing topics, etc where as the old way I just went to Support Community and picked my topic of interest and saw the discussions. It's like that part of the iOS app now launches safari within the app instead of building a list of the posts (discussions). 

When I do pull up the Directory category of interest, I don't see discussions but a half page of tags then a box then need to scrolll down to see a few discussions/posts. Three columns and the text is wrapped more then the previous design. Sometimes the response time is not great loading the web page and when I use finger to scroll down to the posts sometimes my finger hits a tag and it goes to that page instead. 

Again, just my thoughts. Everything needs improvement and it works and awaiting improvement with updated versions.

Thanks again for adding the TAC Hot Issues to the Feeds in the mobile app. That was something I had suggested earlier on.

[David_Mitchell]

New forum is hopeless. can't view any of my posted questions/discussions, can't view any of my old posts and i am getting notifications of post updates from posts i have never had involvement with which were posted years ago!

I am very suprised to see so few comments against Richard's post given his status in the Support community and this may be an indication that the posts are not getting updated when responded to, or perhaps everyone has gone elsewhere for the technical support and discussions!

This was by far the best site for all things Cisco and now it's one of the worst!

Sorry, but that's how strongly I feel about this...

[Richard Burts · Accepted solution]

My post has certainly generated a lot of response - and I am gratified at that. Some of the responses have focused on negative aspects and some have focused on positive aspects. I hope that they have all been useful to the CSC team.

I would like to follow up my post by saying that I am seeing progress. Some issues are, I believe, fixed and some are better but not yet completely fixed, and some are still waiting on solutions. I would say thanks and offer commendations to Dan and the CSC team for their continuing efforts to fix the issues and to keep this community as one of the best that is out there.

HTH

Rick