We’ve had a feature on BOB for a long time that has received very little use. At the top and bottom of each topic as you’re reading you will see some icons. These icons allow you to watch a topic for replies, mark a topic as a favorite, or assign the topic a “point” if you found it helpful. I’m not sure if this feature is not being used because nobody knows about it, or if the icons or unclear, or something completely different.
Since we’re in the process of adding some new features to our board, we thought we would ask for your input.
Facebook has turned the “thumbs up” into an almost universal “like” symbol. So we’re considering switching to this icon to replace this one for our “Like” feature. If you have previously “liked” a topic but later realize the topic wasn’t as helpful as you thought, you can remove your like or “Un-like” using this icon: . Note that there is no “dislike” option. How is this different from a favorite?
A favorite topic is one that you want to bookmark so you can come back to it later. It is our expectation that the number of “likes” or topics you found useful will be far higher than the number of topics that you favorite or keep as a bookmark. Our favorite icon is a heart. The original “like” button was a star. We’ve had folks suggest that the star - since it’s used in IE as favorites - should be the favorite / bookmark icon, and we can make that change but having used the heart so far we’re concerned that folks would get confused. Of course you can always hover your mouse over the image to see what each icon does.
The question is: When people see the “thumbs up” are they going to be more likely to use the feature?
Why is this important? Topics with points or “Likes” are weighted heavier in search results by default. When viewing search results the “cell bars” on the topic show a relative strength of how many people liked that topic. But with less than 2% of topics on BOB receiving even one point (or like) the feature is either not visible enough, not understand, or people just don’t think it’s worthwhile.
I didn’t want to change the meaning of an existing icon, so I created not one but two new icons. The “thumbs up” will be the “Like” button, and instead of a favorite we’re going to use a different term that has essentially the same function: Bookmark. The icon for that, will, of course, be a book.
Adds a bookmark
Removes the bookmark
Like a topic
“Unlike” a topic
Liking a topic, as mentioned above, says you found the topic useful and want to let others know that you found it useful. Bookmarking a topic saves it in our database so you can come back to it at any time, without saving a bookmark in your local browser. You may, of course, do both “like” and “bookmark” a topic if you want to.
And of course we’ve changed the language in the drop-down search box to reflect the new terms for the navigation buttons.
As always, if you want to preview this or other upcoming changes, feel free to hop on over to BOB’s Beta Site and check things out. We’ve also added a help button on the nav bar that explains what all of the icons are.
If I may have a suggestion:
The thumb in the icon appears very pale on my monitor. I am not sure whether it’s because of my resolution/settings or whether the icon is really like that. Can you make the thumb a little bit more darker?
The thumbs now have a more pronounced border, and a darker color palette. It’s hard to get too much darker without blurring everything. I am trying to not recreate the Facebook thumb so we don’t get sued.
I like the like or google’s +1 but I don’t think it is the symbol that makes the difference, it is the location.
The typical threads tend to be long and then having that symbol at the very top and bottom and hidden in a list of other rarely used icons does not sound right if you want it to be used more often.
I would rather add that icon to every single post header, in addtion to the reply, quote there will be the like button. But I assume I am turning the entire concept upside down now - as usual - by making it a per-posting setting instead of a per-thread setting, don’t I? On the other hand the search can be set to threads and to posts and maybe I don’t want to see all the wrong advice but the one post that had the solution?
Other thing I am not sure about is the actual benefit. Okay, it does change the ranking in searches. But we do not have tons of threads about the same topic, using proper keywords you will get a small result set, unlike with Facebook where you can see what millions of people had for lunch.
Maybe, just maybe, other things are more important, things like “answered” flag for a thread?
They are at the top and bottom because some people flip the order of posts around. The default is for newest posts to be at the end (bottom) of the page, but if users want to they can reverse the sort order so that the newest posts are at the top. The theory is that the buttons exist there because that’s where you are going to be when you’re at the end of the topic.
We don’t keep statistics on how often the print view is used, but I think we have stats on how often topics are sent via email. There are quite a few topics that are being watched (sending notifications) so that feature is well used. Then again, you can set up a topic watch during the reply process.
Again, a challenge. The solution when taken out of context might be the wrong solution for your question. What I’m working on is modeled after discussion boards from Google and Apple, where the “most likely” solution post is displayed immediately under the question, but also in context within the topic. We are also looking at topic icons so that when looking at a list of topics there will be an icon that says “question” or “information” or “solved” or various other topic status items.
The ultimate question remains: if we create the ability to flag topics as “solved” will it get used properly?
What we found when we rolled out topic points initially was that some folks - after finding that points would raise their topic in the search - would post a question and then immediately mark the topic as “helpful” which, of course, it wasn’t. At least not yet. So we had to install code so that points could not be awarded until at least one other person had replied, or until a person other than the topic starter had assigned a point. (Replace “points” for “likes” in the new version.)
And what about certain forums like the user group forums? They don’t need the concept of “solved” topics.
I posted a topic about it. I don’t think their “Facebook-style” approach is appropriate for a support site. Forums are forums, blogs are blogs, and documents are documents. Mushing them all together doesn’t work for me (and apparently, most of SAP’s other customers). When I visit a forum, I expect to see a list of topics, a dozen or so at a time, with a single subject line. When I look at a list of blogs, I’d expect the list to be shorter, with a more wordy abstract. And I’d expect a document list to be a tree structure, broken out by purpose, version, etc.
Also, their positioning of BusinessObjects as being just another cog on SAP’s wheel is becoming more and more apparent. BO is the only SAP product that I use, yet I have to wade through tons of non-BO stuff to get to BO content.
And, as I mentioned in my other topic, the changes to help.sap.com are just bad. How many BO end-users will know to click on “Analytics” to get to BO documentation?
to replace this one 
for our “Like” feature. If you have previously “liked” a topic but later realize the topic wasn’t as helpful as you thought, you can remove your like or “Un-like” using this icon: 
. Note that there is no “dislike” option. How is this different from a favorite?
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