Discussion groups accessibility and usability

K

Kevryl

These user groups could be more user-friendly in several ways. In particular,
my experiences are:
1) Very difficult to find from Microsoft's Home page. Can a clear, direct
link be put on the Home page?
2) Every time I sign in, I tick the "save password and email address" box.
Never yet has it worked on any computer I have owned. Are others finding the
same or is it to do with settings on my computers? If this is the case, a
link button ("if this doesn't work") placed next to the "save password..." to
instructions to make it work would be helpful.
3) Every time I have clicked the link in a reply notification email, it has
taken me to a page within the user-group environment andgiven a message
"unable to find the discussion group". There is a "\Sign out" button, but no
"Sign in" button, yet I'm not signed in as I discover on navigating to the
group in which I posted.
4) Signing in interrupts and sometimes loses a post. A "Please sign in
before writing your message" message within a "read only" blank message
window would save needless lost time.
5) Navigating to a post from a few days ago can be VERY time-consuming,
particularly if the poster has forgotten the heading he used and cannot
"search" effectively. (7) below would fix this.
6) Even with my broadband connection, navigation between pages and into
messages is very very slow.
7) THIS ONE IS A REQUEST: Can we have a "My User Groups" page (similar in
philosophy to "My E-Bay", where all posts submitted by the user, together
with its resultant thread is easily accessible? This would make things SO
much more efficient for the user. "Watch" groups of interest could also be
registered in here for quick and easy navigation. Presumably, the speed of
the service is affected by the load, ie number of users logged in and
downloading. This suggestion would cut the time each user is logged in and
therefore, presumable use Microsoft's sever resources more efficiently?
8) ANOTHER SUGGESTION: Is there a way of making the user group page less
busy, so that (for example) message headings are visible in their entirety?
Inability to read a complete message heading without clicking and loading it
makes it difficult and time-consuming to see if there's already an answer to
a problem.
9) ANOTHER SUGGESTION: Message tags, or key words that a poster could assign
could be very useful. For example, if I could search for, say, the key word
"Error 12345" I could list any postings containing this key word and see what
it means and how others fixed that problem. It would be especially useful if
the poster we re able to attach multiple tags so that any of a number of
relevant searches could list the post.

Thank you for your patience in reading this lengthy post.

Keith


----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
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click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...-81faf3348425&dg=microsoft.public.office.misc
 
K

Kevryl

G'day Alan. A somewhat strange response. First time I've heard an MVP refer
to Internet Explorer (i'm on version 6) as a "quirky web interface". I think
Bill would shoot you *grin*.

What gave you the impression I am using something "quirky"?
 
A

Alan Edwards

Hi Kevryl

No, I didn't really say that.
It is not Internet Explorer that I am calling a "quirky web interface"
but the web interface you are using instead of a newsreader.
I can clearly see what you are accessing the newsgroups with and it is
not a proper newsreader.
I use Agent myself as a newsreader but you most likely have Outlook
Express installed.

Bill won't shoot me. I am not the only MVP who dislikes and won't use
the web interface. He can't shoot all those who detest it.

Please consider a newsreader. I believe you will have a new experience
with a short learning curve. I don't have the time or patience (and I
am a patient man) for the web interface. It is far too slow and (dare
I say it again?)...quirky.

....Alan
 
K

Kevryl

G'day Alan, thanks for your reply. My former message was a little cheeky,
though all in fun. I admit to being a little mystified by the esoteric
terminology of "web interface". You see, although I have recently taken to
clicking the dynamic link in a program (are we afraid to be specific in
here?) that views my email on the server before downloading it, it opens
straight up to Internet Explorer and everything else is done therein. The
reason for doing that cuts back to one of the issues I raised - the
difficulty in finding these lists from the Microsoft Home page and the fact
that IE bookmarks still don't book mark a specific lis - only the home page
for the listings.

This morning, I waited until downloading the email and clicked the link in
Eudora (not the quirky web interface you were referring to - oh, and my
apologies there :)), and yes, it found the page immediately (though still
didn't have me logged in).

On the few occasions I have used someone else's Outlook Express to send an
email, I have found it so clumsy and un-intuitive that it has put me off
using it myself - that plus all the security issues that I have heard about
with it. I have stayed with Eudora - a product I have used happily since c.
1996 when it was issued to me under university license.

Having said all that, I have only been using the "quirky interface" during
recent times, but most of my initial post concerns issues encountered ever
since I first started to use these forums, accessing the page through
Microsoft's home page and using only IE.

I'm not well-versed in accessing news groups, and because I have always
navigated to these lists clumsily thru Microsofts home page, have never
thought of them as a "
news group" per se that could be accessed with a news reader, but simply a
Microsoft page. I wouldn't have a clue as to how to access them as a "news
group" in a news reader. The URL above - about 8" long doesn't look like
anything I've seen in Outlook Express in New Group listings. I've
occasionally used Outlook Express to look in at news groups, but again I find
it is very unintuitive and have never had time to devote to looking for a
tutorial and going thru it. One day...

Gone are the days when all these programs came with user manuals and
interactive tutorials.... *sigh*.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers Keith
 
K

Kevryl

PS: Thanks for the URLS, they will be helpful and I'll take your advice to
invest some time in learning about Outlook Express as a news reader.

Alan Edwards said:
Hi Kevryl

No, I didn't really say that.
Click to expand...
[...]
 
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