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I hope this is the correct way to present this request. Today I had a difficult time finding the Acrobat Forums. After much searching and frustration, I actually thought there were NO Acrobat Forums.
Here were my steps:
As usual, I went to https://forums.adobe.com/welcome which I have done many times to access various CC forums. I saw the difference between Acrobat and Acrobat Reader. (I was interested in Acrobat DC), so I clicked on the "Acrobat" link: Acrobat
As with other links from this "Community" page, I expected to be taken to the Acrobat Forum. But all I saw here were links to articles and videos. This was disconcerting, because wading through articles and videos is not a very efficient way to get a quick answer to a question. I carefully read all the large graphic links displayed there, and none of them apparently linked to any Acrobat Forum.
I eventually did find the Acrobat Forums, but only after doing more searches and finally posting a question in the Photoshop Forum (since I couldn't find the Acrobat forums). Fortunately, this thread was moved to the Acrobat Reader forum, where a kind MVP gave me links to both the Reference Manual, and to the LIST of MANY Acrobat Forums! This is GREAT!! But not easy to find.
In the process of discussing this confusion, I learned that there is a tiny link titled "subspaces" on the Acrobat page where Acrobat Forum(s) "should" be listed the same as all forum other links from https://forums.adobe.com/welcome. This little "subspaces" link goes to the entire list of Acrobat Forums. I think I never would have found it.
In my view, the word, "subspaces" should be replaced with the words, "Acrobat Forums." And even better, an additional large graphic should be added to the Acrobat page, positioned FIRST along with all the others on that page, saying "Acrobat Forums," which anyone coming from the Community Page is naturally expecting to see. "Subspaces" is non-intuitive, given that all the other links from the originating Community page actually DO go directly to Forums. It is also non-intuitive because it assumes that everyone knows there are MANY Acrobat Forums, requiring an additional "list" page. As a new Acrobat DC user, I did not already know this, so "subspaces" didn't help me at all.
That is my request. I hope you see the wisdom in this request, and that this also helps others find the Acrobat Forums.
Thanks for listening.
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All of the links in the top-most box on Acrobat take you to a specific "sub-space" (ie, forum) that specializes in that subject. It can't be much simpler than that, I think... The main thing that can be improved there, IMO, is that on those "sub-space" pages the Content link (which takes you to the full list of posts) can be made more obvious and with a better name, but you can still see the last posts to the forum and ask a new question from that page, so it's not a huge deal.
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Yes. If "subspaces" was simply changed to "Forums" or better yet, "Acrobat Forums" it would be a HUGE improvement. It's all about "better names," so dummies like me can get where they need to go.
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But even if you don't know what "sub-spaces" are it's quite easy to get to the forum you want to get to by clicking one of the links in that box...
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Call me silly, but I don't typically click on every meaningless link on a page, hoping to get somewhere useful. My craft is branding, which means SIMPLICITY and CLARITY. This Acrobat page fails miserably at both. It can be GREATLY improved, very easily.
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I think it was blindingly obvious to the page designer that all the things in this box were forums and you were just a click away. But when things are NOT obvious, we should look at why not. It might be because you had already used "top level" forums and when you weren't dumped into a forum it made no sense. So you assumed (wrongly) that all the links were of no interest. At the top it says
Personally, I find the conceit that forums are a kind of chat or social media a bit baffling (especially this "ask a question" stuff which is really a search engine), and I like to see the word "forum". How about if it said "What would you like to talk about? Please choose a forum below".?
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I agree the wording can be improved.
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Up to some hours ago, this thread had been moved to the Reader forum and had 8 replies:
Now it has been moved to the Acrobat > Acrobat Feature Requests forum and has only 6 replies, although it has 4 that weren't there earlier:
Now, if a newcomer enters the Acrobat forum, s/he gets this:
and "Acrobat Features Requests" is nowhere in sight. One must go to Subspaces to see this forum. Not at all easy.
And I disagree with the two moves experienced by this thread, as it it not relatd with Reader (first move), and is NOT an Acrobat feature request (second move). In my opinion, it should be in the Forum Comments forum, because it relates with the forums themsvelves.
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I see the forums web site as part (an extension) of the product, as it represents the product in a meaningful and potentially useful way to its users. The forums are a point of contact for people struggling to understand and use the product, as well as find solutions to problems they experience. So I still believe that "feature requests" is the perfect place for this subject, since how well (or poorly) the entry into the product's forums is written and designed can have a major impact on the user's experience with the product.
Finding the product's forums is definitely a product issue.
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And having a set of forums that are easy to navigate even for newcomers is a forum's problem, with no relationship with any product in particular. In my opinion, the Forum Comments forum is the right place for discussing such matters, but I'm not willing to get involved in an endless and futile discussion about this, so I'm off.
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I think it's kind of sad when a perceived "division of labor" makes access to supporting your product "not my problem."
Is there a forum about the design and quality of access to Adobe's forums? I don't think so ... if there is, please post a link to it. If it does NOT exist, then this forum is the PERFECT place for this discussion about the poor quality of access to Acrobat Forums.
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You should bear in mind you haven't heard from ANYONE at Adobe. So it really isn't ANY of our problems. What we're trying to do is figure out the best place for you to post so it can actually start to be someone's problem...
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Thanks. Yes, I realize no one from Adobe has responded. I "hope" they are listening. I am really speaking to Adobe here, and in particular, to Adobe Acrobat, since Acrobat Forum is the first time I have encountered this problem.
I took a look at Forum Comments. Do you think that would be the better place for this request? Or is this the best place?
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I said I'm off, but couldn't resist. In my opinion, the two moves this thread has experienced are wrong, and the proper piece should be in the Forum Comments forum.
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:+)
Thank you. Is it appropriate to post in two places?
Any other opinions? I'll go with majority.
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First question: not really; it should be moved to the proper forum by a mod, which I am not. Second question: I very much doubt this forum is visited by many, if at all.
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Agreed. This has nothing to do with Acrobat itself. So I moved it to Forum Comments, where it belongs.
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try67 wrote:
Agreed. This has nothing to do with Acrobat itself. So I moved it to Forum Comments, where it belongs.
At long last... Thanks, and let's hope it's not moved again somewhere else.
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The Document Cloud managers chose to break away from the standard page structure that we use everywhere else on the site, and build something that looks similar to the DC interface (lots of white space and big colored icons). They have strong opinions on what their particular type of customer expects to see, and that wins over consistency. You're not the first to complain.
The navigation is also hindered because there is no "Acrobat" forum. For all the other products, general questions and bug reports attach to the top-level product space, and the subspaces are reserved for stuff like SDKs and plugins. The Acrobat team does not allow general discussions about the product, only specific questions about the features they want to promote. If you're trying to ask about something else, there is literally nowhere to go. That's annoying but intentional - it's been that way for five years.
As to the 'subspaces' link, sorry but it can't be renamed. The actions bar and the black top strip come from a site-wide shared template - it is translated if you change your region but we can't make it say something different for each page. It used to say "sub-forums" but in the current version of the website software, Jive decided to refer to the nodes within the database as 'spaces' because they can contain more than just a list of threads (ideas, document, videos, blogs, etc.).
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Bottom line for me personally is: now that I know how to find the Acrobat Forums, it's not an issue. The only reason I bring it up at all is because I had such a difficult time finding the Acrobat Forums for the first time, and thought others might experience the same frustration.
"The reason we're in the communication business is because we have so much to learn ... about communication." :+)
"annoying but intentional" -- that's just kind of sad.
"it's been that way for five years" = "because we've always done it that way" -- also sad.
But having said those things, I've dealt with huge bureaucracies for decades, and understand the built-in resistance to intelligent change. I am simply a "voice in the wilderness" pointing out what seems to me to be a pretty serious problem. Job done.
Finally, to quote Claudio, "I'm off."
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Dave, would you have seen and answered this question while it was in the Acrobat Feature Request subspace?
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Last time I was in the AFR discussions, people were asking if the next version could support Windows 98