Answers and Users' Help Exchange - updated March 19, 2012

[Ableton_David]

Hi everyone - we've incorporated more changes into Answers, many of which have been driven by user feedback. There are now clearer instructions to help first-time posters get acquainted with Answers, and you can now see a list of related questions to the one that you are looking at. In addition, we've continued to make improvements to the search algorithm.

Please check out Answers again and let us know what you think!

[Warrior Bob]

The "related questions" feature is pretty great, especially when I'm looking for questions to answer. It beats clicking "more" all the time! Thanks for the updates :)

[friend_kami]

great. you fixed a search engine algo.
now fix your software instead. that's why we need the answers website in the first place..

[twisted-space]

Just been trying to look at some unanswered questions. Everytime I click back, it takes me to a search results page (with no search entered) rather than the page I was on.

I have to agree with the other comments here. The whole thing seems designed to deter me from using it. I think it should be put on the same shelf as share.
Perhaps you should focus on fixing some of the ongoing issues in Live (like missing parts of purchased live packs) rather than wasting developement resources on useless stuff like this.

David, you mentioned a link to give feedback on answers. I suspect you actually don't want feedback, 'cos I can't see a link.

[Angstrom]

I couldn't find the "feedback" link either.

I think the biggest flaw is a lack of a tag cloud, or at least some categories!

tag clouds/categories can help guide users into asking the right questions and getting the right answers. Without any structure it's quite unusable. The user must rely on the search, and they must then know what they want to ask. Imagine typical queries like :

• "why my audio not soung very gud?" .
• "where is the instruments"
• "how I make justis base"

A search methodology is not the way to assist this user.

If there were visible "hot topics" such as "sound quality issues", "audio card issues", "controller problems" ... then users would find the whole thing a lot more usable.
Tags / Categories should be the very first thing a users sees when they visit Answers. Why on earth did anyne think that "Latest Answers" was the thing to lead with?
You really think that the majority of users are visiting the support just to see what the LATEST answer is? Nope, they are coming to find the most pertinent, the most APPLICABLE answer to their own requirements.

*sigh*

tldr; I think Answers is, um, being polite, not a great solution.

[Warrior Bob]

I believe the feedback link is on each question's page, underneath the "Related Questions" section.

[Angstrom]

thank you bob, for providing that helpful answer via this, the forum.

[Warrior Bob]

thank you bob, for providing that helpful answer via this, the forum.

The irony of this had completely escaped me! Nice catch

Perhaps there's a place for both formats? The vast majority of users seem to want to have discussions rather than get specific answers to specific questions, but when there are specific questions, having everything done in Q&A format has a lot of advantages (better indexing, better history, voting makes sense, more fun IMHO).

I mean, I'm all about having great Q&A tech but we've just proven that there's a lot of value to a discussion format where there isn't necessarily a clear single answer.

[twisted-space]

I believe the feedback link is on each question's page, underneath the "Related Questions" section.

Don't know how I missed it.

[jsumners]

I'm with the crowd that thinks deprecating this forum in favor of Answers is a bad idea. As a StackExchange user, primarily StackOverflow, I find Answers to be woefully inadequate. The impression I get from Answers is that someone at Ableton uses StackOverflow and thought they could imitate it. The result is something that doesn't work even half as well as a Stack site.

Some things about Answers that make me run from it:

• The interface is squeezed into a horribly small space.
• Navigation is limited to a paginated query of every topic in the system.
• There is no way to browse tags other than finding a question with a tag and then going from there.
• It's difficult to tell what questions are recent (as in today and not a month ago).
• There's no established etiquette.

A good example of the last point is the question shown in this screen shot. Someone asked a question, an Ableton staff member asked a follow up question via the "Add an Answer" field, and then the original poster replied to him in two subsequent answers. On a Stack site this sort of thing would be modded down in a hurry because it creates confusion. A "comment" on a question would be to get more information about the question, and the "answer" would actually be an attempt at an answer. At least in this setting, the UHE forum, the exchange provided as an example makes sense. But on Answers, it makes a question look like it has an answer when, in fact, it probably doesn't.

[hernandezmaryann]

This is really a great help for a newbie like me. thanks!

[wheat]

I've gotten a lot of help from UHE over the years. I'd really hate to see it go. Right now, it's still far more robust than Answers. Please consider keeping it around. I don't see the value in ditching it.