Place to Post Feature Requests

Allen

Bad idea, UserVoice is not a good place for discussion even if you could find a particular request. Why flood UserVoice
with requests when a lot of them are resolved in the current forum without needing an official vote.

Does UserVoice support screen shots or videos used sometimes to better describe ideas?

WinsomeWorks

Allen wrote: »

Bad idea, UserVoice is not a good place for discussion even if you could find a particular request. Why flood UserVoice
with requests when a lot of them are resolved in the current forum without needing an official vote.

Does UserVoice support screen shots or videos used sometimes to better describe ideas?

I completely agree, Allen. You've listed multiple reasons why UserVoice isn't a format that works for the types of discussion and/or demos like videos & screen shots that are needed for the background discussion. Also, that format is even worse than it ever was with the time-lag that goes on there. I have a comment waiting for approval since Nov. 4 in the section about Stats: http://feedback.smugmug.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/813995-not-counting-the-user-when-viewing-checking-his-ga Another thing in that forum is that it's harder to go look at examples (of people sites) w/o going off that site, etc. Moreover, so many Smuggers don't even know it exists, and therefore simple numbers of votes over there often don't really reflect the true needs of the community as a whole. Furthermore, my thought in recent years, after seeing how certain things have gone, is that more weight should be given to the opinions of those who are paying for Pro (or at least Power & Pro) sites, at least in certain areas.

leftquark

I've moved these 2 posts out of the "Requests for Moderators" forum so we can have a better discussion here since the topic moves beyond the original threads scope.

UserVoice isn't perfect but its sole purpose is to do Feature Requests and handle the discussion and voting. DGrin is a place to hold discussion and it's not built around being a tool for Feature Requests. Yes, we have used the forums as one way to do that but a better experience will come from the tool designed to solve a given problem. For example, I could hit a nail with a shoe but it'll be a much more pleasant experience if I use a hammer instead.

Analogies aside:
- As of last week we've gone through and moderated all the comments and Feature Requests in the queue (as long as it wasn't marked as spam). Our moderation queue currently sits at 0.
- We have assigned one Product Manager to be on call for the UserVoice each week. You should see SmugMug product responses in a much more timely fashion now (and a much better response rate than you were getting here on DGrin).
- We've begun, and will continue to, merge similar topics and get the overwhelming number of feature requests down to a more manageable number.
- Attaching screenshots / videos in DGrin is currently a horrible experience and doesn't work. You can post links to screenshots or videos just as easily in UserVoice.
- Many SmugMugger's don't know that DGrin even exists -- it doesn't even have "SmugMug" in its name and the Support forums are at the very bottom. Our help documentation, Support Heroes, and DGrin posts will point users to the UserVoice.
- Looking at statistics for UserVoice vs. DGrin we actually see more traffic at UserVoice than here on DGrin. UserVoice has had over 11,000 unique visitors in the last 30 days with an average of about 370 users per day. DGrin, on the other hand, has seen only 250 users per day for only 7,500 visitors per day (not necessarily unique).
- UserVoice has 231 active threads while the DGrin feature request forum has been nearly non-existent (9 active threads).
- We also agree that the sheer numbers of votes for a given topic don't necessarily reflect the true needs of a community. To try to combat this we've switched the main page view from "Top Ideas" to "Hot Ideas". This should help give us a better sense of what the currently important items are.

With that said, I don't think UserVoice is perfect. There's still a lot of work to do:
- Continue merging duplicate ideas
- Continue our trend in the last few weeks to respond and approve comments quickly
- Provide status on topics when we can
- Work with the UserVoice team to better utilize the tool

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

Furthermore, my thought in recent years, after seeing how certain things have gone, is that more weight should be given to the opinions of those who are paying for Pro (or at least Power & Pro) sites, at least in certain areas.

We've built SmugMug as a tool for passionate photographers, not just professional photographers. Historically, though, we've released many pro-centric features - the pro's get all the features when we release them while other account types do not. When developing new features we try to put some weight into features that can be used by all account types, pro's included. As a (Pro) customer myself, I came to SmugMug because it allowed me a place to customize my site to make it unique and mimic me, displayed my photos in a beautiful manner, and also allowed me to run a business. While there might be improvements to make it even better, it's definitely meeting the needs of what I've wanted it to do!