CUNY Academic Commons

This is easy to do.

How does it relate to the Feedback slider on the right? I mean, I know how it relates technically (ie, not at all), but it should be clear to our users how this is a different feedback mechanism.

Boone Gorges wrote:

This is easy to do.

How does it relate to the Feedback slider on the right? I mean, I know how it relates technically (ie, not at all), but it should be clear to our users how this is a different feedback mechanism.

great to hear that it is feasible.

I'm not convinced that it has to relate to the feedback button, which some people might not even notice. I see this as a bit of useful redundancy, ie., the buttons can be in two different places on the page and can offer two different ways of reaching us.

Having said that, I'm open to feedback. Do you have ideas about how they might relate?

I don't necessarily think they should relate. I just think it should be clear that they are meant for different kinds of feedback (assuming that they are, in fact, meant for different kinds of feedback). For this enhancement, it might mean saying "Email the Commons team" or something that indicates that this is different from the public, vote-up-and-down UserVoice tab. Another possibility is to integrate something into the Contact Us page that already exists.

I guess I'm just wary of adding something to every page without either being clear about how it's new and needed, or without taking away something that it duplicates. Whiz-bang buttonry does not a beautiful site make :) That said, I'm willing to entertain the idea that I'm overthinking it.

Now is when it would be nice to have a UX specialist on our team. One thing I'd say about the feedback tab is that it does pop up the "suggest new features" page first instead of the "report a bug," and I've found that people are much more likely to use the Commons email address to report bugs than to use UserVoice.

So, I'm on board both with having "Email the Commons team" as the pre-populated text in the box AND adding this to the Contact Us page.

I'm no UX expert by any means, but here's my two cents.

The reason Academia.edu uses the AJAX form at the bottom of their site is they do not have a Contact Us page. CAC does. Like Boone mentions, too many call to actions can distract the visitor. Perhaps all that is needed is to install one of the many, popular contact forms from Wordpress.org on the Contact Us page?

A few other things to note:

• Academia.edu also utilizes UserVoice much like CAC. However, on their site, they have a link called "Feedback" that links directly to their UV forum.

• What do you guys think about linking the existing "Feedback" button directly to the UV forum instead of the lightbox popup that appears currently? One could argue that the current lightbox popup is confusing. We could also mirror the verbiage that Academia.edu is using on UV and add a link to the UV forum on the Contact Us page as well.

• FYI, Uservoice also has a built-in contact form. Click on the link above, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "Contact CUNY Academic Commons". A lightbox contact form should appear.

Raymond Hoh wrote:

I'm no UX expert by any means, but here's my two cents.

Thanks, Ray, and apologies for the late response.

The reason Academia.edu uses the AJAX form at the bottom of their site is they do not have a Contact Us page. CAC does. Like Boone mentions, too many call to actions can distract the visitor. Perhaps all that is needed is to install one of the many, popular contact forms from Wordpress.org on the Contact Us page?

If memory serves, we used to have a contact form on the site, but we removed it due to security concerns. Perhaps the form plugins are better now or we were being overly cautious. In either case, I'm absolutely fine with putting one back in.

A few other things to note:

• Academia.edu also utilizes UserVoice much like CAC. However, on their site, they have a link called "Feedback" that links directly to their UV forum.

I'm not a fan of that setup, actually -- it seems better to keep people on our own site; I think that the pop-up works well. I do wonder whether that pop-up should show the "Report a Bug" contact form first, instead of the feature ideas. . . .

• What do you guys think about linking the existing "Feedback" button directly to the UV forum instead of the lightbox popup that appears currently? One could argue that the current lightbox popup is confusing. We could also mirror the verbiage that Academia.edu is using on UV and add a link to the UV forum on the Contact Us page as well.

As above, I think that taking people to a new site is more confusing that throwing up a pop-up. Do you disagree?

• FYI, Uservoice also has a built-in contact form. Click on the link above, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "Contact CUNY Academic Commons". A lightbox contact form should appear.

Yes. As mentioned above, we might look to see whether that form can appear first on the pop-up. I should look at he UV settings . . .

Matt Gold wrote:

Just FYI, this is what one sees when one clicks "Give Us Feedback" on UserVoice itself. I like the layout here; we might want to customize our own feedback tab a little more . .. .

This would be better, because the existing popup is not really "Feedback" related like the button says, but more of a feature request form like you mentioned above.

If someone could pass me the login, I can take a look at customizing the popup; I'm pretty sure there's some configuration options on UserVoice.

Thanks, Ray. I'll send you the account info via email.

Awesome. Looks fine to me. Thanks, Ray.