Legend

Question

Adobe website and forums navigation

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
September 1, 2009
5 replies
10749 views

Hello!

I'm not new in here, but Adobe changes the whole website and navigation from time to time and it's not getting better, unfortunately.

Perhaps someone of the admins can clarify this:

1) If I go to adobe.com, the page is in english. That's normal. If I log in and my native language is german and Adobe knows that I'm from Germany, then it would actually make sense to switch to german after login. But it does not.

2) If I log in and select a different language (german in this case), then the website appears in german. But if I go to the forums, it's english again. This is paradox.

3) If I'm logged in to Adobe, then I'm not automatically logged in to the forums. This is paradox too. At least to me.

4) If I'm in the forums I need to click "Login/Register" and it asks me for a screen name. I know a lot of english terms, but "screen name" does not makes sense since the rest of the world would call it "nickname". It also does not ask for a password, nor can't I register. I can just set the screen name. Well...

5) If I set the screen name to something like "Nobody", while my login name at Adobe is my real name, then the top line suddenly says "Welcome Nobody". If I then click on "Your account", it loads the page again and then it shows my real name again. Confusing.

6) If I'm logged in and chose german as language and then select forums, I won't be taken to the international german forums. This is paradox.

7) If I go to "Forums" and then below to "International forums -> German", then the page appears in german and says "Foren", which is german for "Forums". But there are no forums, it is only one forum. But for what? For all Adobe products? Confusing.

😎 If I'm on that page from 7) then it's half english, half german.

This is what I could see by just browsing Adobe's pages for a few minutes. I actually don't want to know what will happen if I browse some more...

This topic has been closed for replies.

D

Doc MaikAuthor

Legend

Besides, deleting unwanted posts with direct words, like the ones from Ozzwoman9, is not OK.

Censoring is a moderator's sport, but you should not exaggerate.

Harbs.

Legend

I don't think there were any posts from Ozzwoman deleted. She tried to

post three times at the same time that this thread was being locked.

They made it through to email, but never made it up onto the forum...

Sounds to me like another Jive bug!

Harbs

A

Anonymous

Harbs. wrote:
Sounds to me like another Jive bug!

The biggest bugs are sentient beings.

D

Doc MaikAuthor

Legend

7) If I go to "Forums" and then below to "International forums -> German", then the page appears in german and says "Foren", which is german for "Forums". But there are no forums, it is only one forum. But for what? For all Adobe products? Confusing.

This is one is very annoying, at least for me. Everything mixed up here. There are so many topics in one forum. How to sort out to products?

kanguyen

Adobe Employee

Hi,

I've unlocked this thread because I believe these are valid questions to answers.

There are a few important things to note about international functionality when it comes to our Adobe Forums.

Re #1 and #2: If you would like for Adobe.com to display in your native language (let's say that's German), you need to click on "United States (Change)" at the top of the navigation. On the International Selector page, you need to select your language. Most importantly - if you want that selection to persist, you need to click on "Remember this choice".

Something that is important to note is that you must select "Remember this choice" for your language selection to carry over to Adobe Forums.

Re #3: Your login should persist between Adobe.com and Adobe Forums. I know there are some known bugs related to login, but we are currently working on some login-related functionality that may address this. John will share more details when they are available and when a launch date for that functionality has been set.

Re #4: If you are on a screen that is asking you to define a screen name, this is because you do not have one set within your Adobe.com profile. A screen name is required to be able to post content on Adobe Forums. Once you set your screen name, this will be added to your profile and you will no longer be prompted to do so.

Re #5: I think this may have to do with #4. Usually it is the screen name that is shown in the Welcome text at the top of the page.

Re #6: There is an important distinction to make between the language of the user interface and the language that a person uses to submit a post. For example, you can navigate Adobe Forums with the user interface in German, but the only place where discussions take place in German is within the German International Forum. The user interface of Adobe Forums (meaning: the navigation - not the content that is submitted by users) is available in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese. We have International Forums for France, Spain, Germany, and Japan. The content and discussions within those forums is meant to be the native language. For the majority of our forums, the discussions take place in English. The exception to this is for Japan, which has its own set of product forums.

We don't make any assumptions about what forum you wish to see - so even though you have your language preference set to German, we choose to show you all forums -- not just the German International forum. This is especially important due to the fact that we do not have product-specific forums within each international forum, so we didn't want to force people to a place where there was limited content.

Re #7: We streamlined some of the International forums when we migrated to the new Jive platform, as many of the international forums on the previous platform had very little activity.

Re #8: This is one of two situations. You may be navigating the German International Forum with your language preference set to English (again, you need to choose the "Remember this choice" on the International Selector page). Or, you have your language preference set to German, and you are viewing forums where the content is in English.

Hope that helps!

Claudio González

Legend

Hello, Kanguyen,

Yes, that does help; any sign of goodwill to us users is certainly most welcome.

Thank you for unlocking this thread. I noticed this afternoon that it had been locked, in spite of having valid and interesting questions that had not been addressed, simply because of a single debatable post. As I did not have the time to do it today, I was going to open tomorrow a second one retaking the subject, but now it will not be necessary.

I remember that some time ago, when describing the difficulties of a Spanish-only speaker with these forums, I did test the language change. This is what I posted then in a now "archived" (locked) thread:

I invite you to consider how a Spanish-speaking user of an Adobe product who never heard of these forums is supposed to obtain help in them. (In what follows I will speak of a "he" not because of my machismo, but just to keep the text simple). His obvious first step in trying to obtain any kind of help would be to visit one of the Adobe sites in Spanish, such as Adobe Spain. He will find there a button labeled "Soporte" (support) with a dropdown menu where he may or may not notice a "Foros" (forums) link. Assuming that he does, and that he knows one can obtain free and quick help if forums, if he clicks on it, he will be taken after a considerably long time to a page that is fully in English, as it is in fact the index page of these forums, http://forums.adobe.com/index.jspa.

Obviously, he is in trouble, but we will assume he is not one to be easily defeated. So, as his question is related to Photoshop, he clicks on the blue Ps icon, only to be taken to another page fully in English. And the story will repeat itself if he tries to proceed any further. So if he finally finds his way to the right forum, he will be faced with just the two following alternatives: he either gives up, or he posts his question in Spanish -provided he can get through the login procedure for first visitors.

Assume now that he still doesn't give up (or that his question was related to one of the Adobe products not having special icons). He may notice there is an INTERNATIONAL FORUMS link down in the non visible part of the page, which perhaps looks to him sufficiently close to FOROS INTERNACIONALES as to guess its meaning and click on it. He will find four countries listed there (with their names in English!): France, Germany, Japan, and Spain. He may be learned enough to know that Spain is English for España, and click on that button in relief. However, he might not be, or live in one of the many other countries where Spanish is the official language, and so think the Spain button is not for him.

Well, let's now assume that, by whatever means, he finally manages to press the Spain button. Marvel of marvels! At long last, a page with a large fractions of its texts fully in Spanish! But wait... there are some disturbing factors. "Last post" (in English) is from "5 days ago" (again in English; and I am quoting from the page where the above process took me some minutes ago, which is the opening page of the forum in Spanish). And the 7th thread, from "1 week ago" has 0 "Replies" (in English). Not really very promising.

At this point, exasperated by the number of things on the page he can't decipher, he may notice a button at the top that reads "United States (change)" (all in English), and he may be clever enough to guess this may be a way to get everything written in Spanish. So he hopefully clicks on it, only to be taken to a new page fully in English where he is supposed to know what he has to do. Assuming he goes through the long list of places - languages (fully in English), he may be clever enough to notice there are only two entries associated with "Spanish" (quite a different word from Español!). If he chooses one of them, he will be taken out of the forum and to one of the Adobe Store sites -for example, back to Adobe Spain.

Well, never mind, you think, at least he will now have everything in Spanish. Unfortunately, not so. Assuming he manages to find his was back to the forum in Spanish, on getting there he will see that everything is just the same as before. Even the button in the top row still reads "United States (change).

Now I would like to ask the patient reader who has followed me to this point the following question. Assume for a few seconds that Adobe was a German company, with all original versions of its products in German, with an excellent set of sites and forums in German, and you were trying for the first time to get help in English about how to use one of its products. Would you survive through the process I have just described if you change "English" to "German" and "Spanish" to "English"?

I am relatively certain that I did check the "Remember this choice" option, but could be wrong. Unfortunately, I do not have time to retest now, and I'm not sure I will have it tomorrow, but I promise to do it and to post my results here as soon as possible.

Thank you again for your consideration.

Ozzwoman9

Inspiring

I'm bumping this topic back up.

I just wanted to point out a (new) user that is unhappy with the website navigation. And yes I am running across posts such as this in other forums, the (new) users don't know to post here, so I think these posts need to brought to attention:

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/492471?tstart=0

And incase the deleter nixes that post, here is what it says:

I have been a long time Adobe user and fan, but the website functionality has really gone downhill. Why so many clicks? It seems like so many product pages have links to what I hope is useful info, but it takes me to a general useful info page, then I have to find the product again, etc, etc. Same with the help, if it links to the .com then I have to click, click, on and on before I find what I'm looking for. And too many times, when I get to my final destination, the information is awfully thin, and not very useful. How about some direct links to truly useful info??

I think everyone should be posting stuff like that in this forum since the mods seem to think it's only those of us who have been around a while that are complaining.

J

Jochem van Dieten

Inspiring

Ozzwoman9 wrote on 9/15/2009 10:38 PM:

I just wanted to point out a (new) user that is unhappy with the website navigation. And yes I am running across posts such as this in other forums, the (new) users don't know to post here, so I think these posts need to brought to attention:

This forum is about the forum, not the general Adobe.com navigation. The

post you are linking to is already in the right place and should not be

discussed here.