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design challenges are hard to follow

Jan Cumps

I'm posting this in members, not in Feedback & Support. I don't think there is a bug. 

personal experience: I have a hard time following design challenges. It could be helped by simplification and streamlining. What I'm struggling with (across all design challenges):

  • what is the page that defines the challenge, dates, rules, prizes (that initial post to lure in the audience Slight smile)
  • who participates
  • who blogs in what subgroup / forum / blog
  • where is the intermediate follow up on progress
  • who won (the official verdict page)

This info is available in all challenges, but you have to dig. Each one seems to follow its own logic.

Road tests seem to be more streamlined. Or easier. I usually can find my way there.

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  • Hey  ,

    I agree that these became an unwieldy mess, and for the design challenges moving forward from now on they should follow this pattern:

    - A group is created for the design challenge (though we are reconsidering this as it can in itself become unwieldy)

    - Each group has clear sections across the top on the navigation (at least on desktop) which look like this:

    image

    For these, you should find:
    x Blog - where staff that run the design challenge will post major updates, such as information about the design challenge, competitors and winners

    x Forum - where members should post updates about their participation in the design challenge, discussions around the parts, projects, and staff may also post updates

    x Projects - this is where the participant should post their final project article post, summarising their project and rounding it up and showing it off

    x Files - supporting materials for the design challenge, posted by members or staff

    x Members - who are members of the group.

    x DC - this contains the design challenge sign up information, prizes, competition terms and conditions and where you enrol for the design challenge. We are looking into ways to remove the need for this page entirely, and instead have it on the 'group default' page, but the way in which people enrol into design challenges makes this difficult from a practical, technical point of view.

    - The 'default' page of the group (such as  In Reach! – Ultrasonic Sensor Sensing Challenge ) should showcase the design challenge, where to get started, where to enrol and the current forum discussions, blog posts and forum threads.

    In the Forum, and Blog you can click to 'turn forum notifications on' and 'turn blog notifications on' to be told about when new updates are posted.

    At present, the 'in reach!' design challenge is running behind schedule and is awaiting updates from Phil and the designer (when they're back from leave).

    RoadTests are streamlined, because it's one page. It's effectively the equivalent of a 'DC' or 'design challenge' page, and all of the RoadTest Reviews are put into the same 'application' and bundled together. Those that run the design challenges haven't wanted that, and so we have the 'per group' design challenge layout.

    I personally want to 'flatten' the community a bit more so that you're not digging through the site so much to find content, and we've been waiting for resources to look at doing that (there are a lot of groups and implications).

    There are also older design challenges which have simply been 'left alone' as they were ported over from Jive to Verint.

    I understand it's not a bug per say, but it is a bug of usability, and I appreciate it being raised. We're overdue a redesign.

  • in reply to cstanton

      Thank you for the synopsis / clarification.  I agree with flattening the structure primarily because society's collective attention span has gotten shorter.   Scrolling has become more natural than clicking - especially across horizontal tabs.  While multiple pages allow more granular activity tracking, is this data being harvested and/or used?  

    On a side note, is "Blog" the best term for the Admin posts on a Design Challenge?  Maybe "Info" or "Admin" might be better.

  • in reply to kmikemoo
    kmikemoo said:
    On a side note, is "Blog" the best term for the Admin posts on a Design Challenge?  Maybe "Info" or "Admin" might be better.
    dixonselvan said:
    I second  's thought for Blog

    It's a toss up between "state what it is" versus "state its intention".

    If I had a section called 'Admin' on a page, would I assume I can click it and gain administrative privileges for the group?

    If I clicked 'info' on the page, would I expect information about the community in general, information about the design challenge?

    If I click 'blog' will I expect to see a 'blog' post?

    kmikemoo said:
    While multiple pages allow more granular activity tracking, is this data being harvested and/or used?  

    I see what you're saying, and this shouldn't get in the way of usability, and when it does, that's bad (so very bad), and if anyone's relying on doing analytics this way, it's kinda painful anyway.

  • in reply to cstanton

    Agreed, that makes sense. How about Announcements or something to signify here only officials/ staffs would say something about the design challenge?

    IMHO, Announcements (or any suitable name) - For official announcements

    Blog - For progress

    Forum - For discussion

    Project - For complete project

  • in reply to dixonselvan
    dixonselvan said:
    IMHO, Announcements (or any suitable name) - For official announcements

    This is a good one. Perhaps 'news' to be shorter? I feel 'updates' wouldn't be specific enough.

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