design challenges are hard to follow

Hey Jan Cumps ,

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:

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.

cstanton said:

x Blog - where staff that run the design challenge will post major updates, such as information about the design challenge, competitors and winners

Phil has decided to upend this with the smart spaces design challenge and only use the forum

I've slapped his wrists for changing mind at the last minute, but at least the updates are only in one place on that occasion, we'll see how it pans out for the future.

cstanton said:

x Blog - where staff that run the design challenge will post major updates, such as information about the design challenge, competitors and winners

Phil has decided to upend this with the smart spaces design challenge and only use the forum

I've slapped his wrists for changing mind at the last minute, but at least the updates are only in one place on that occasion, we'll see how it pans out for the future.