This group is buried on the front page...
Whoever updated the forums should consider how long of a list there is now. I recall before it was a page or two, but now its this long bulky list that just makes it hard to find things in.
Customization is way at the bottom, yet I would argue getting customers to switch from acad to bcad is about the topmost priority there is, with customization being that bottleneck.
The list should be a compact set of names, post counts so people can tell what is active, and that is it.
CAD Managers watch for how support goes when choosing cad platforms so this should get attention IMO.
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A bigger issue IMO is that almost all existing posts were lumped in 'tips-and-tricks' sub-forums. In most cases this makes no sense.
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Given that topics often overlap as well as evolve, it would be useful to follow the example of stackoverflow, where users can add up to five tags to categorize questions themselves.
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Right. I think the bricsys forum is in its first stages. Modern software purchasers know a well attended set of support forums are a big deal when choosing software. Autodesk actually majorly messed up their forum attendance by going web only (from nntp where you could use your own news reader), and never really recovered. I'd sure like to see bricsys get a good forum platform going where its easy to read (compact) and shows posts in a treeview so long threads do not get confusing. Does anyone know who is running the forum setup at Bricsys?
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@James Maeding when accessing the forum from a smartphone, you will see the Vanilla Forum logo in the bottom. That is the platform it is built on and then Bricsys Marketing is running the forum.
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@James Maeding said:
easy to read (compact)would do it, for me. I notice that forums'modernise' their look by adding masses of white space between the useful stuff. The endless categories list that James complained of first, would matter much less if you could see more of it on one page, instead of having to scroll. Even long lists can work if you can see the shape of it in one glance. It's the difference between satnav and a paper map - satnav a free-floating diagram and oracular voice that you follow blindly, the map a brilliant invention where you can zoom in and out orientate from nation-scale to street level.
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Hi everyone,
We are considering the move to another forum platform; making it more searchable, improving usability and the overall structure.
Feel free to share your thoughts on what's important from a user perspective
In the meanwhile, we are listening to your feedback and we will work on improving our current situation.
- Joachim from Bricsys
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Hi Joachim,
Having used the autodesk forums and many others through the years, the top priority should be ease of looking over many messages and seeing the reply "tree". In the old Forte Agent software, and outlook express, there was a tree view of headers (titles), then a viewing pane for the body of each.
I have yet to see that in a web based forum. Stack Overflow and TheSwamp.org are examples of somewhat linear reply trees.
The Autodesk forums do have a tree type view mode, but its useless so don't be fooled by their platform.
What I observed with the autodesk groups, was experienced people would watch them an somewhat compete to answer things first, or the best.
That was with the old treeview nntp ability... I could scan the tree of messages and pick out the ones that needed experience to answer or comment on. I could also easily use the groups as a reference for lisp programming and so on.
Then, when adesk switched to web only interface, they bulked it up with whitespace and killed the ability to quickly look over new and existing post threads. They had all this free support going and killed a lot of it right at the time they needed it as the economy had slumped.
Also keep in mind you can only do so much with mobile viewers like phones. The experienced people will be at real computers so I would treat mobile as 2nd priority. I would say that the things I want for computer viewing line up with phone viewing though, as we want compactness for both.
Glad to hear you are open on changing, and I would say such a move to a nice platform would do more advertising that bricscad is a serious competitor that even new bcad features. CAD Managers need to see long time adesk people spending time on these forums to be comfortable they are not going to embarrass themselves by switching cad's. thx0 -
As a regular poster on the Autodesk forums and Cadtutor, I would agree with James on many of the points.
Consistency is very important when you find a good layout keep to it as much as possible any future updates should improve efficiency but try to keep the layout similar.
White space is a real killer in the Autodesk forums, not just the physical blank areas but there is so much information plying for peoples attention it takes away from the subject of the questions which is why users are there in the first place.
I personally find the 'RECENT' section the most user-friendly then there is no need to dig about in different sections.
Seeing threads where you have participated is also a nice feature, the ability to mark threads to follow new content without having to post answers first would be really nice.
I'm from the days of nntp as well and being able to see which conversation is being followed in a thread makes readability much easier (being able to select which post you are replying too!) It's often difficult to follow a particular line of thought when threads are ordered chronologically
And a definite agree on mobile, whilst it is nice to be able to follow the forums on a mobile device, don't let it have precedence, when we can run CAD on mobile devices maybe, but whilst I'm working on a CAD drawing that is when I will be using the forums on that same computer/laptop.0 -
If anyone would like to speak to me dirrectly you can contact me on my Bricsys Email: rose[dot]barfield[at]bricsys[dot]com. I will be more than happy to address any concerns.
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