Looks like new coding was deployed without regression test
The Actions gear and views count moved from below the Avatar to a new position below the subject line
The comments button is not anymore a button and just became a link
Hi Jurgen,
Please see my latest reply here (generally speaking):
https://answers.sap.com/articles/145150/new-question-design.html
And I will share your input with our UX expert.
Regards,
Moshe
Hmm, it's a lot less confusing now with the collapsed comments, but I wonder why they choose to do the "Comment on this question/answer" as a link when there is no other comment and as button when there are already comments present. Why not stick to one kind of UI thingy?
IMO the tag needs to get to another place, too. At the moment it's at the end of the question, but IMO it needs to be at the top. Maybe above the title? Or next to the timestamp and view counter. Maybe go "tagged with:" and then just put them there in a list.
I don't think taking the Actions menu of the question to another place makes a lot of sense. The space under the avatar is now really wasted. Why not use it more instead of less? oO
Putting the timestamp and view count under the title, that I like.
The up/down voting of a question is now at the top, too. So finding that takes some getting used, too.
And my last thought about this: with so many changes, why not publish a dedicated blog about this? I'd love to mention Jerry here...
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Some good ideas going on here, some others I really don't understand. Bit of a hit & miss again.
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Regards,
Steffi.
I agree with you, Steffi: 'Comment on Answer' / 'Comment on Question' UI should be unique. I don't see any functional reasoning to differ its design as a function of present comments. And, I believe, it should remain a button, and not a link.
Hi, Steffi:
I definitely plan a blog post. I generally wait to make sure that these release notes are fully up to date -- and the features work as planned. (For example, there are a few items in the March 1 notes that were actually deployed overnight...even though they are dated the 1st. I was waiting for confirmation.)
As a next step, I write up the highlights, grab some screen caps to illustrate (which is another reason why I wait for a feature to be rolled out -- so I can check it out on the live site and pull a pic), and run past my colleagues for confirmation. So I should have something live by Monday at the latest.
Best regards,
--Jerry
Hi, Jerry
In order to find your comment (I see you commented after refresh of tag page using sap.com) I have to make 3 extra clicks to open hidden comments...
Finding a comment to a question where several answers have been given became even more annoying. This 'collapse' feature could have been released at least with the feature of direct link to a comment from the recent update.
Eli - if you use Notifications and get notified "X left a comment on your post" then pay close attention to where you are clicking. Because almost every word is a different hyperlink. "X" will take you to the profile, the word "comment" will open the actual comment and the rest (which is largest, unfortunately), will just open the post with the comments hidden.
Update: clicking on the "comment" does not seem to work if the comment is hidden behind "show more comments". It just opens the main question in such case. This is FUBAR...
clicking on the "comment" does not seem to work if the comment is hidden behind "show more comments". It just opens the main question in such case.
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Yep, that's one of the old bugs. It works and leads you to the comment, when it's not to deep in the hierarchy.
Aah, there you are, guys, and I'm discussing it all by myself in the Coffee Corner. :)
Did some answering/commenting today and I'm quite a bit confused by the new changes. An option to roll-up comments is very helpful but the rest is just - oy... Actions/views were on the right-hand side on SCN before (and still are in Discussions). Was it changed to make the question page more like the blog page? But the avatar is still on the right, so it didn't free up any space.
The addition of the "Comment on this answer" as a link looks very odd and is mildly confusing (there is also Reply that seems to appear haphazardly now). Not sure this is very helpful.
To be honest, UI just looks more messy now. Why can't someone with UI skills at SAP review such changes before they are implemented?
"An option to roll-up comments is very helpful" - the option is OK, but to my mind the question has to be opened with expanded all comments by default.
I agree with you. Or it should be a setting in the user profile. For example, when a question is already answered long time ago and someone finds it in Google, all the "what did you mean?" comments might no longer be pertinent. But for the open questions I'd prefer the comments to be opened. And since I mostly look at such questions that how I'd set my preference.
And all this could've been avoided if comments were not introduced to begin with...
Have you noticed that avatars are missing in comments?
On the positive side - it looks like they applied some restriction for minimum width for nested comments:
https://answers.sap.com/questions/106239/index.html
Too bad that they did not fix the missing comment option in IE11 and Firefox (which is one of the many reasons why I misuse the comment/answer option).
@Steffi: there is just one tiny problem with chronological sorting of answers - the accepted answer is always shown at the top, no matter how you sort (reported 2 months ago).
That's it! The avatars are gone in comments! I was thinking that something changed, because the comments looked so streamlined now, but I couldn't figure out what it was. D'oh!
- "Too bad that they did not fix the missing comment option in IE11 and Firefox"
I know what you mean in general, but I use IE11 and see "Reply" (the new "Comment" under each comment here). Or did that start at a deeper level of comments?
- "the accepted answer is always shown at the top, no matter how you sort"
Right, the accepted answer is at the top. I don't mind that (was the same in old SCN), if it would also be visible at its chronological place.
BTW: I wanted to reply to your comment and now had the comment box and the answer box in front of me, putting my reply to you in the answer box (thinking it was the comments box). But I'm having the flu at the moment, so maybe it's me and not the design. ^^
EDIT2: I'll steal your idea of using the bullet points as additional visual help for quotes.
For me the problem starts after level 7:
https://answers.sap.com/questions/106239/index.html
I am using Windows 7, 32-bit (I doubt that this is related to my OS, I tried it a while ago on another laptop with Windows 8.1, 64-bit, and I had the same result).
In the same thread another user reported the same problem even with Google Chrome, which I cannot fully verify at the moment, but I can confirm that the comment option is missing also in the latest Android version for Google Chrome. It seems, that for some people this option is shown, but I have not been able to find any workaround for the problem, or even a confirmed OS/browser combination, which I can try in VirtualBox. So far I have tried Windows 7 with IE, Firefox and Pale Moon (including one portable version); Windows 8.1 with IE and 2 versions of Google Chrome (an old installed version and a portable one); Linux Mint 17.2 with Firefox; Android Jellybean (modified) with Google Chrome and Firefox; Android Marshmallow with Firefox - no luck.
If one can consider the number of OS/browser combinations, where this comment option does not appear, it is really strange that the problem was not identified during a string test or at least in the QA environment.
Maybe it's a permission thing again? I remember Jürgen and me creating comments at a much deeper level than 7 (trying to show off the "1 letter per line" bug).
PS: It happened. Just posted this as an answer on accident. -.-
EDIT: Just saw Mynyna's reply to this issue here: http://answers.sap.com/comments/144767/view.html
Which leads to #yetanotherbug (I think it was also reported a while ago) - the share link to the hidden comments does not work properly:
http://answers.sap.com/comments/144767/view.html
this does not open the exact comment page, but goes to the top:
Sadly, the issue with missing comment option is still unresolved for me...
Next time I will try to create an answer and convert it to comment for a level below 8, other than that - I am out of ideas.
You can't, as far as I know, because you can only add those converted comments to answers, not to comments on answers.
Yes, unfortunately you are right. I tried also with my old P-user - no luck. Tried with my S-user - same result.
I wonder if it has something to do with Karma credit values - Vadim participates a lot more than I do.
I have requested the Q&A SME to auto hide he "submit your answer" box from the bottom of a post. Currently that confuses users into thinking that they are posting a comment (but are actually typing in the answer edit box). I proposed that the answer box should be hidden unless the user consciously presses the "submit your answer" button and only then should that box appear. This would force users to use comments as intended (or at least would help towards that goal). I don't think there is an idea for this in idea place but please feel free to share your thoughts on this.
Best,
Sajid
Hide everything :) Please don't implement a lot of changes. The usability of the site is going to death...
Considering that several months have passed since the comment/answer distinction was introduced and that people still don't use the functionality in the way the SAP team tried to design it, it is probably safe to assume that the auto-hiding of add answer box will also not work out well. It will only raise more complaints that the site became even more user-unfriendly.
Why is this drive to force people into using comments/answers? From what I can see, it only results in additional costs for development and bug-fixing. Maybe it is time to cut your losses and use just a 'reply' option?
"use just a 'reply' option" - at the beginning of the discussion about comment/answer distinction I raised a concern that the current Q&A engine is simply not designed to use simple "reply" :)
I completely understand that this is not an easy decision. One can only guess how many dependencies are there and which functionalities might need to be adjusted - such redesign would be definitely expensive. But compared to all this bug-fixing, the delayed gamification (some members hope that it might bring a few regulars back), the wasted hours to prepare explanation blogs and record videos... I wonder when it would become more expensive to keep on fixing the initial design flaws than to start exploring something different...
Thank you all for the valuable feedback. I've collected all you raised. Moshe and I will take further steps to optimize the current interface. Regards, Mynyna
"The comments button is not anymore a button and just became a link" - not only for question comments but for the first comment to the answer.
And the comments tree is collapsed by default - ABSOLUTELY unacceptable!!!!
collapsing comments is a feature and was indicated to us in the Advisory council and is based on the idea https://ideas.sap.com/D37950
and quite many discussions from 2+ months ago
Sorry, but the idea was mainly about comments to questions! Now I have to click-click-click... to read the discussion!
I am more curious how an idea with 11 up-votes gets implemented in a way, quite different to the original. The idea from Jürgen's link mentioned a user setting, which I don't see anywhere.
There were quite a lot of discussions to get rid of comments/answers distinction, which did not materialize. There was an idea for a flat view for Q&A, which also got some attention and support - nothing came out of it.
Is this all about the low-hanging fruit? No budget and resources for actual improvements, just for whatever the original platform provides out of the box?
In the idea is also this part:
"Maybe it's also a good idea to have the same for answers - to browse through answers more quickly - if You want some details on comments - just expand this section."
Looks like they took a lot of ideas and put their own spin on it. I hope this is not the end result.
Maybe... or maybe not :) You have to perform extra clicks in order to view discussion - "good" support for people answering the questions...
I'm all for having a chronological order back with comments and answers in one line or better yet just one kind of reply. But I don't think this will happen.
I'll do a happy dance when I can set my own default order for posts and not have it by "votes" anymore...
Expanding the comments is tiresome, I agree. But I feel like this will make comments be used less, so maybe that's another way to getting back to only one kind of reply (answers) and when you choose "sort by oldest" you got the old chronological order back. So I'm not too sad about that.
I'd say users are misusing 'Answer' option more frequently than that of 'Comment'. 'Answer' is widely used by the person who asked the original question, responding to others, while it's not an answer at all. If there is an idea to get to one type of feedback, which I strongly support by the way, then there should be no half-measures; it would only get things worse.
I'd say that this hiding of the comments will likely lead to the comments' demise and eventual death of natural causes. Don't see many people going through the trouble of all the expanding. Much easier to just use the answers, which can be sorted, at least.
I agree with Vadim. It should be a feature and definitely not applied by default.
Making 'comment' as a link would imply more fake 'answers' as the link is not noticeable enough.
New place for 'Actions' doesn't bother me personally. But, the new comments management certainly does.
Also location of the "Comment on this answer" button is strange - after all comments to the specific answer. Easy to press this button insted of "Reply" to the last comment.
Also, without filling any details click on "Submit your answer". Next, you will never get other person comments collapsing tree.
