Too many Feature Ideas up for voting

[glparker]

Hi All,

I set a monthly reminder to come to the Ideas page and survey the new items up for vote.     Looking this morning, there are 1229 items up for voting.   At 20 items per page, that's 60 pages of ideas I need to scan through to decide if I want to vote it up or down, or ignore.   That's too many.   I have some questions.  

1)   Is this large number just housekeeping from the ZenDesk transition?   That is, can we expect this number to go down in 2 months once the initial month of voting has cleared the 3-month limit?   Or is 1200 the new normal for outstanding ideas?

Thanks, Glen

[awilliams]

Hey  @glparker ​, someone from the community team like  @scottdennis ​ probably has better information and stats to back it up but I believe the rate of new feature ideas right now is more a product of all the engagement in the community rather than an artificial influx from any transitions. Most of the ideas I have seen recently are coming from actual users rather than the ones the communityteam are re-posting from the old community.

[Beth_Young]

 @scottdennis ​ addressed this question somewhat here: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-2109#comment-10024​

[scottdennis]

As far as the number of new feature ideas being added; we did originally try to bring over what we thought were the hottest/most desired ideas from Zendesk.  Our goal there wasn't to curate and sieve through all the ideas to get all that met a certain benchmark but rather to provide a kernel of good ideas around which the new community could form.  Early on we asked beta testers and early adopters to help model best practices around these ideas regarding voting, commenting, etc.

Then we saw a big jump as more people became aware of the Jive platform and did as we suggest, copying over additional ideas that they thought were import.  During the height of that we saw something like 50-60 ideas being added per day.  After  a bit it settled down to maybe about 7 new per day.  Since then it has been growing steadily and new ideas per day can hit 15 or 20 on a not unusually high day.

As far as one person being able to read through, weigh and consider every new idea submitted, that is becoming impossible, even if you had nothing else to occupy your time, or at least it is quickly becoming a full time job that we are rotating around the community team.  One day in four, one of us is doing little more.

As for what this means for admins and others concerned with the feature idea process, I think it is going to mean prioritization processes.  For those that want to follow and vote up ideas related to given features or specific bones to be picked, they are probably going to find it more efficient to look at all the ideas that will soon open for vote, filter by keyword, and then bookmark those they identify as interesting.  On the other end of the process we are working on ways to filter ideas and look at prioritization as identified by the community at large.  In other words we are working to ensure that everyone in Product and Community are aware of the ideas that are ranked highest by community vote and also working to make it easier for people responsible for specific areas in Canvas to find and consume the ideas that are relevant to their work.

Hope that helps shed some light.

[kmeeusen]

Yes, this is getting unmanageable, and I hope that the numbers of requests slow as the novelty wears off. I am seeing way too many boutique requests, or "our old LMS did that" requests. I also see a lot of requests from folks who are new users, and just don't yet realize that the functionality they are looking for is already there - growing pains for Instructure I suspect. I notice many of us try to point those folks in the right direction.

Personally, I vote for few requests.

That being said, I love that Instructure provides this opportunity to the Canvas users.

[Beth_Young]

I'm voting for a lot fewer ideas than I did at the beginning, that's for sure.

I'm hoping that the canvas team looks through the ideas when they are redesigning a tool. For example, I just posted a feature idea for the Android App, but maybe it won't get many votes and maybe now isn't a good time to work on it. Whenever the next redesign rolls around, hopefully the app team will look through the app-related feature ideas and note the ideas that fit, even if the ideas haven't garnered 100+ votes.

[jordan]

One other point I would add to that great description from  @scottdennis ​ would be this:

Based on our New Voting Process​ many of the ideas that are not gaining a lot of attention or traction from other community members will be retired/archived. If a given feature idea, that for three months has been open for community contribution and voting, only has 5-10 votes (for example) this helps us to see that this particular feature idea might be a "nice to have" feature for someone but it does not appear to be a priority to the masses. We never used to "retire" ideas of lesser interest to the community. Over time,​ this should decrease the pool of active ideas upon which you are choosing to vote <   @glparker ​  @kmeeusen ​

I know that if I had a feature idea, but not a lot of other community members had a similar interest in my idea, I'd be sad that my idea is not making it to the "big time." But it helps me to remember the Canvas product design philosophy that Deactivated user​ shared during his GENERAL SESSION: Canvas Roadmap​ session. Click the graph image to review his detailed slide notes >>>

 @Beth_Young ​ I'm glad you brough up that point about the Canvas team (specifically product team) looking through existing ideas when we are redesigning a tool. We are doing exactly that!  @Renee_Carney ​ scours the feature ideas and creates and delivers an amazing custom report to our Product Team. These are curated lists of feature ideas that have garnered serious interest and attention, to those that are barely noticed!

Here's a sample of what our product team sees, so when we are going to rework "Peer Reviews" (for example), there is one convenient place where a product manager can go to review relevant ideas!

[glparker]

Hi Jordan,

I totally get your philosophy of building for the masses, of not building things that already exist, and not catering to niches.

My main concern is one of visibility, discoverability.  

As it stands today, a 'normal' user of Jive is only going to browse 5-7 page deep into Feature Requests.   They will happily vote on topics that already have a few votes (the ones at the top of the list on the first 5-7 pages).   The Ideas in the first many pages will take care of them selves.

The next group will be connected folks at an institution.  They will submit a ticket, then advertise it to their constituents.   This will grant this Idea an initial boost of 10, 15 votes, which will rocket it into the top 100-200 ideas.   At this point it's got a realistic shot of eventually bubbling into the top 100 where it will garner the attention (and votes) of the first group above.

The vast majority of Ideas will be submitted, get a single vote from their author, then languish, unloved, until 3 months pass and it's archived.   Only the rare Idea from this group will be found via search, or by a super dedicated person who regularly mines all the Ideas.

I guess I'm saying that Ideas is still a popularity contest, which is okay, but it's one where marketing/advertising matters.     The ideas with the best initial supporters will get some visibility and will get their shot at becoming something more.   The rest will never be seen by the community and get a shot and making the cut. 

[scottdennis]

Glen, I think your observations are on point here.  It sort of reminds me of direct democracy in that every person gets one vote per idea and can spend their votes as they choose but only by joining with others in political action groups will individuals have much of a say.  I think this is a natural part of growth, good or bad.

[mworden]

Deactivated user, correct me if I'm wrong, but the process seems to punish ideas that would never generate interest. For example, I have a suggestion in the voting queue related to accessibility. If every single person in the Accessibility Group were to vote for this it wouldn't have enough votes to advance. While accessibility is the law, no one really cares about it (except us Accessibility Compliance Officers). I would recommend that ideas be categorized, so the accessibility experts at Instructure can evaluate the value of accessibility topics, the interface experts can evaluate the value of interface topics, etc.

Just my 2 cents.

[kona]

 @mworden ​, there's a similar discussion going on about mobile feature ideas - Feature Request Threshold for Mobile

[mworden]

Thank you  @kona ​. I'm not in the mobile group so I can't comment on it, but it's a valid concern in all areas that don't generate high interest. I'm glad to see that this topic is being discussed.

[scottdennis]

Thanks, Mark.

Accessibility, mobile, API, Commons - all examples of sub-sets of ideas that cannot compete in popularity with the wants and needs of mainstream web canvas users but are never the less important.  We are still evaluating how to best get this feedback from users to decision makers.  Sometimes, such as with Commons related ideas it will be by pushing them into an alternate forum space.  Other times we'll collect info via a focus group (see focus groups coming soon to the Ideas space overview page, next to Feature Ideas).  More to come soon.

[jordan]

Hey Mark, thanks for expressing your concern. I addressed Glen further down in this thread and I think it might shed some additional light on this matter - Re: Too many Feature Ideas up for voting

We still monitor and glean insight from ideas that have not garnered a lot of interest or votes. We have a roadmap of things we are working. The community feature ideas help us prioritize our development, along with other factors. When we begin development on a new component of Canvas, this community helps us quickly sort out all the relevant ideas pertaining to what we are building. If we were making some improvements to accessibility, for example, a PM can quickly see the related feature ideas and how the align with the big picture. Whether the feature idea has 10 votes or 100. Whether it's in the "Gathering Info" stage or the "Archived" stage, we do our best to review all relevant feedback that can help us make  that particular part of Canvas better!

I think it would be nice to have "Categories" and it's something I've brought up to the team. Hopefully that extra layer of organization will help use keep tabs on all the great ideas out there!

[glparker]

Thanks for the explanation.   I like the new model of culling the top 10 to make room for lower ideas.

You mention stats.   Do you have information on how many of the current 1230 Ideas have a score of only zero or one on them?    By my rough count 560 have 2 or more net score,  leaving 680 with a current score of 0 or 1.   It would be interesting to make a snapshot of those 680 now, and see how many of them make it into the top-10 before they archive out.   

[scottdennis]

Hi Glen,

Unfortunately I don't have good numbers on that.  It is an interesting line of inquiry but I don't have a good way to track it as of now.  We are working on that currently.

[jordan]

 @glparker ​ I think you're assessment is spot on. I think that the number of FI's that "make it to the top 10 before they are archived" is going to be small, relative to the number of ideas that exist. But don't fear!

I think it's important to reiterate that we esteem "archived" ideas in a different light than the traditional sense of that word. "Archived" is simply a holding place where we can continue to engage with our users and glean insight from them as we make progress toward developing these new feature ideas.

For example, as I mentioned in my post above, we are working with our product team, behind the scenes, and they are looking at Feature Ideas in ALL STAGES of development (except 1 and 1.5 probably ).  Let's say we are going to be doing a refactor for quizzes.  The product team will go to the doc #Quizzes to learn all about  community sentiment related to quizzes. Here's a clickable version of the #quizzes doc so you can see what it's like. One thing you will notice is that over 90% of the ideas on that list are "Archived." But their votes, and the community sentiment within each thread still carry the same weight as they do for any other stage of the Feature Idea process.

In summary, you're absolutely right that there is an overwhelming number of feature ideas that have been submitted. I'm sorry that Jive only allows us to see 20 feature ideas on a page. It would be nice if you could define the number of results you want to see on a page!

Not every idea will go "prime time" (past 100 votes)  and even some that do get past 100 votes might still not be developed. But we are still monitoring and taking into consideration even those feature ideas with smaller amounts of votes, so it is not a popularity contest. If an idea has 2 votes and it's something we could easily include as we refactor a given feature, we won't ignore it just b/c it had 2 votes. This is why we have 4 community managers watching and engaging with the community, so we can report community sentiment to our product team.  I imagine the amount of feature ideas being submitted will plateau eventually, and we'll continue to cycle through and revamp old ideas.

[jordan]

I just stumbled across this feature idea:

A good example of an idea that existed and had very little exposure/support from others. We didn't drop everything to build this feature but it was perfectly aligned with our roadmap and it made sense for us to include this into our development.

I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of this that we expect 😉

[canvas_admin]

I started something similar a few months ago here:  Limits on Feature Requests in Jive?

[buellj]

Scrolling through the new features a couple at a time has gotten very annoying, especially given the lack of good filter and display many options. I would like to see a filter associated with ideas open for voting and the ability to show all in one long listing so that I can quickly review the relevant ones up for a vote and vote on the few that seem compelling.

[scottdennis]

Hi John,

Do you think a link or button that pointed to something like this would work for you?  That is a rough and dirty example.  We did add a widget to the landing page for feature ideas that displays only ideas that opened in this current voting cycle and will do that for each successive cohort.  Would either of these additions help you?

Just FYI we are currently working on adding a taxonomy of tags to all feature idea.  We are tagging each new idea as it comes in and working backwards through the 2000+ ideas to tag them all so that we will be able to create dashboards of widgets that pull for specific areas of Canvas, ideas that might be germaine to user's role or institution type.

[Beth_Young]

The landing page works pretty well: Canvas Feature Ideas​  except that all the lists are outdated.   The links at the bottom of each list in red are two cycles behind, and the label above the right-hand column is one cycle behind, I think (shouldn't it be a list of ideas that are open now but will expire soon?)

[scottdennis]

Hey Beth,

Thanks for the reminder.  I just went in and updated all the widgets so the current cycles and also make the link targets uniformly blank - previously some opened in a new tab and some in the current.

Cheers,

SD