Help evaluate our Help Center!

[theljstaff]

We're currently evaluating our Help Center and FAQs. We hope you'll take a few minutes to tell us about your experiencing using the FAQs. Your feedback will help us determine what changes are necessary to improve support on LiveJournal.

Poll Help Center/FAQs

Thank you for your input!

Comments

[florahart]

So, while I think trying to find out this information is a good plan, I think this methodology is not going to prove all that useful.

I have looked for things in the FAQs many times in the last 7 years. I have usually found what I wanted eventually. Sometimes I have had to go to support (whereupon most of the time the outcome was someone quoting for me the exact same FAQ I had cited in the text of the question, which is so very annoying I can't even tell you), but in general I'm a RTFM first kind of girl. However, it isn't as though at this point I recall all the things I have looked for, when that was, how hard I had to look to find what I wanted, in what instances I had to keep trying alternate words, whether their FAQs have since been updated, etc, so answering this poll to reflect my experience is pretty much impossible, and I suspect many people seeing this poll in this comm may be in a similar boat--didn't need the FAQs this week or this month, but have before.

So. Maybe a better way to find out whether the FAQs as they currently stand are useful would be to, in addition to promoting this poll elsewhere, link to a "did you find what you needed" thing (poll, or just a free-text form, or a poll that would allow the same user to answer more than once for different instances) from each FAQ, and 1. see how many people click and from where (I'm reasonably sure that would be easy), and 2. find out in the moment what people couldn't find.

[algeh]

Yeah, I'm not really sure I can usefully answer these questions either. I've been on LiveJournal for about nine and a half years. I used to volunteer in support a long time ago. At that time, I had assuredly read every single FAQ multiple times. Since I stopped volunteering (in 2002 or 2003) I've obviously used them less, but occasionally go and try to look things up.

At this point I'd guess I look something up about once a year and it's an even split as to whether or not the FAQ is actually useful. (Most recent time I recall it being useful: looking up mobile features as I finally got a modern cell phone. Most recent time it was not useful: trying to track down that opt-out admin console thing I remembered from a few years back when a bunch of us were trying to debug the outboundlink thing and I was trying to figure out why I wasn't seeing them.)

I agree that putting a feedback mechanism into the FAQs as suggested above would be a good way to get better data. It would probably also be useful to data-mine support requests for trends.

+1!

[raven_moon]

This is exactly it!

[trobadora]

Yeah, I'm completely with you on this. I couldn't fill out the poll at all.

ETA: I just had occasion to look something up, and was utterly unable to find it in the FAQ. The only way I managed to find the link to the userpic package resizing tool was by looking for the original announcement in the news community. Not good!

[ajlordnikon]

yeah that's sorta how i feel as well. i find what i want... eventually.

[monkeedreamer]

Ditto this. Hence my suggesting in the poll that they need to seriously rework the structure of it, making search terms apply much more broadly, and/or make a LIST of each of the pages in it, in an organized manner, similar items grouped together, like most sites do.

[juldea]

+1

[ceilidh]

I was *just* about to comment with this. I should have known you would beat me to it and say it better than I was thinking of doing!

[otana]

This, exactly. I tried to fill it out, but I just couldn't.

[chendamoni]

I kept putting "Too much digging" on this survey. I cannot remember all the things that I searched for over the years, but I DO know I felt like it always took too long to find what I needed.

[dormantdrake]

[moonrise]

Yeah, same here. I cant answer the poll at all. I have looked up many different thing, many different time. Sometimes I get lucky and find what I am looking for, most the time the answers are too generic and short to really answer what I am looking for. They all need looked at and updated. The search needs made better, more keywords need added or something. They need work, but finding out what work they need wont be found with this poll.

[immortality]

This, exactly.

[marginaliana]

I agree with this also.

[bandicoot]

Agreed.

[czol]

Agreeing with everything in this comment. Also ditto to what mlady_rebecca about expanding what is covered.