Support/ForumUX/PRD

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Goal of project

To improve the experience of contributors and users on the support forums to make finding what they're looking for easier. This is a collection of changes (hopefully most small and simple) that will streamline giving support and make the workings of the forums more transparent for users.

Priorities

• p1: Bugfixes/missing features that can't be worked around at all
• p2: Features that severely hamper posting/moderating/use with tedious workarounds
• p3: Features that hamper posting/moderating that have small workarounds
• p4: Good to have

Bugs

• (p) p1 Thread filters shouldn't break ordering with regards to older threads bug 498105
• p1 Allow more search options for contributors (not just solved threads) bug 501880
• (p) p1 Make e-mails from support more useful to users (fix links and markup): bug 409904
• (p) p2 Allow different sortings for forum search results bug 438360
• (waiting on bug 498105) p2 Generally make getting back to your own posts easier bug 504751
• p2 Add status and icon for "invalid" = This question doesn't apply to Firefox. bug 501883
• p2 Log in on the page when replying to threads instead of having to navigate away to a separate login page bug 504716
• p2 Add ability to change thread statuses (for moderators) from a thread itself rather than from editing the firstpost or going to threadlist bug 413666
• p2 bug 444331 Make thread filters work as they should and make them more apparent, adding filter options for:
  • Threads with no replies
  • Threads with last post not by a contributor/threads with a reply from original poster
  • Threads by the logged in contributor
• p3 Make the screenshot uploader for forum posts not suck
  • Tell which attachments are accepted
  • Show an error if the attachment isn't accepted
  • Allow preview of post without just wiping the attachment form
• (p) p3 Make "send an email when someone replies" the default and/or personally set-able via user preferences and/or remember last state. bug 504753
• p3 Allow moderators to set threads as solved and highlight solutions
• p3 Add icons for "solution proposed" and "request for more info" (icons are used in the thread listing -- currently we have a lock, a check and a page)
• p3 Add status and icon for when the original commenter replies.
• p4 Make it easier for users to find their way back to their posted question by showing a post-submission page bug 505432
• p4 Improve quality of asked questions by providing better guidelines in the submission form bug 505425
• p4 Canned responses/content blocks for faster forum responses bug 416591
• p4 Pretty URLs on forums so it looks like: support.mozilla.com/en-US/forums/1/123456 rather than support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum.php?forumId=3&comments_parentId=123456&locale=en-US bug 416479
• p4 Allow spaces in linked URLs: bug 436106

UI

We need some UI help for the following:

• Advanced search page(s) - UI that does not confuse user bug 501880
  • djst: I think our focus should be to define which items/elements we think are essential to this advanced search, and have a UX guy (e.g. Neil) figure out how this would actually look like.
    • Forum search: Search terms, status (pick one or many), with posts by ____, tags, created/last posted after (date), sort by (relevance, date of last post, date of original post)
  • Proposed advanced forum search UI (needs feedback):
    • 
    • djst: The "sort by" stuff could be skipped and just part of the resulting page (e.g. click on the headings of columns to sort rather than having it in the form itself)
    • We don't show columns in search results. (I don't think we should either.)
  • Proposed KB search UI (needs feedback):
    • Needs: Search terms, language, category (Firefox 3 vs 3.5, Help vs troubleshooting), tags.
    • 
  • Why not just one advanced search with the ability to select where to search (kb, forum, both)?
    • They have such different options (most of the stuff doesn't apply to both.)
    • The main need for a "both" search is for end users and they shouldn't be on the advanced search page.
• Need help figuring out better UI for filtering forum threads. How to make it more visible but not clutter the interface.
• Design icons for "solution proposed" and "request for more info" and "doesn't apply to Firefox" and "original commenter has replied"
  • Icon is 16x16, shown on thread list: eg: [1]. Existing icons are: [2][3][4][5][6] all icons also have a _new version with a little marker indicating that it's new: eg [7]. (Optional: redesign all icons for more unified look).
• Make it easier for users to find their way back to their posted question by showing a post-submission page bug 505432
  • Should we do it as an independent page or put this info above the existing page? Potential information in mockup in bug, but could use help redesigning.
• Improve quality of asked questions by providing better guidelines in the submission form bug 505425
  • Questions we'd like asked are in Support/ForumUX/PRD/New_Question_Form. Need input on how usable that form is and how to format it.
• Need icons for the following actions: detach this post (to a new thread), move this thread (to a new forum) and lock this thread.
  • 16x16. Existing icons are shown to moderators in posts where they can make changes.