Took me F.O.R.E.V.E.R to figure out how to mark a post as the "Best Answer" to my question. Why make this functionality so hard to divine?

[tsibiski]

I have posted several questions in this forum. And I've gotten great answers that solved my problem to most of them. I'd noticed someone marked an answer I made to their question as the "Best Answer". I wondered what that feature was... I didn't have the option to do that in my threads... or so I thought.

I've technically been a member for over a year, and I just now found out how to mark a thread as the Best Answer. It took me effectively a year... In my opinion, there's close to ZERO chance a person will look at the thread they created and say to themselves, "yep, a super tiny little icon looking like a trophy sitting off to the side of a post clearly means that I want to mark that as the best answer". Or in my case, I didn't ever even notice the icon, to be honest. It just didn't stand out, so I glossed over it every time.

It seems like a great feature to have, so why make it require people to be "in the know" to use it? Why put so much friction between a user and the system when the feature involved is extremely important for those that come down the road and want to know what the correct answer to a thread was without reading each one and trying every suggestion?

This seems like an unfortunate design, and I suggest/ hope that you do a small update to accomplish the following:
A) Add a notification at the top of the thread that appears if any replies exist and says something like, "To mark an answer as the 'Best Answer', simply select the trophy icon to the left of their reply.
B) Change the icon to be clearer what it is used for, like changing it from a trophy to the text, "Mark as Best Answer".

Or just do your own thing, but make it any clearer than it is right now. Like, in retrospect, a trophy makes more sense than some alternatives - but before I knew what it was, had you instead used an icon of a monkey, a potato, or a t-rex with a jetpack, it would not have been any more obvious what the purpose of the icon was.

Thanks for considering the update!

 

[ex_bubblehead]

There's plenty of documentation, and most, if not all, of the moderators and quite a few users have instructions listed in their signatures. In addition, how you set up the question in the first place dictates whether or not a best answer option even exists for the thread. Question threads have a best answer option wheras Discussion threads do not.

 

[tsibiski]

There's plenty of documentation, and most, if not all, of the moderators and quite a few users have instructions listed in their signatures. In addition, how you set up the question in the first place dictates whether or not a best answer option even exists for the thread. Question threads have a best answer option wheras Discussion threads do not.

I actually just learned about the moderators having instructions in their signatures. It was right after I learned how to do this. I don't ever read people's signatures because in the last 15 years of my life, every signature I've read has had pointless stuff. I'd never run into a useful signature before so I've just been conditioned to ignore them.

Documentation: No one is going to go out of the way to find the documentation and read it. I didn't try hard because I didn't care enough. If I'd gone around searching for the answer with any real effort, I would have found it immediately. I am not posting because I am actually frustrated with how long it took me (I'm not if I am being honest). I am posting because I realize in retrospect how it just doesn't need to be this way. And as a web dev, it irked me enough to post feedback.

Having docs that explains it also doesn't mean it satisfies best practices for someone to make a website with features obtuse enough that people have to search for documentation to use them.

Here's a summary of my point:

1) A feature should not require separate documentation. I have been a full stack web programmer (and also video game programer) for about 10 years now. As someone who does this all the time, I can assure you that you don't want a feature on a non-technical application to be difficult at all for the average person to understand or even notice without documentation. That's not how 99% of users operate. And they shouldn't need to start doing that.

2) If a feature is not immediately obvious, or difficult to make obvious, on its own - add a tooltip, like I suggested previously, that appears on the page and emphasized the icon.

3) The fact that most or all moderators put this explanation in their signatures is perhaps the most perfect representation of the problem. If you feel that have to do that, the feature is not well implemented, explained, or presented.

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You don't need to make any changes, and most of the time with feedback like this, a company won't. That is your right to do that. And it is only a suggestion. I love this website regardless. But if you want this feature to continue to be ignored by people... without a moderator having to PM most of the original posters asking them to mark a question as the "Best Answer", or adding directions on how to do this in a signature... then you could make everyone's jobs a lot easier. Just saying.

 

[Darkbreeze]

For what it's worth, I agree, and we've complained about the way the selection of BA's is set up for a long time now because it is not particularly user friendly and without the instructions in many of the moderator or regular member signatures a lot of people would have no clue how to select a BA. I also agree that most, maybe ALL people are not going to "go looking" for a way to do it. If it's easy to select a BA, then they will do it in order to "say thanks" and then move on with their life, otherwise, they are probably just going to "move on with their life" and never give it a second thought.

It's something that needs to be fixed to be a lot more obvious than it is or has been since the switch to Xenforo and we've asked and asked for this repeatedly but since the best answer system was custom made, not part of Xenforo, I guess it's not easily done or something.

 

[Colif]

Looks at his sig... looks at the post I made last Feb that half the forums regulars now have in their sigs.

I have beaten this dead horse so much its now dust.

We know but as we aren't admin, we can't do anything about it.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

That is strange because as soon as I started using the new forum it was easily discernible how to set the best answer so I don’t understand this at all and why it’s such a huge problem.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Well, some people instantly understand the instruction manual for setting up a cold fusion reactor, and others don't. It's just the way it is I guess. Not everybody sees things the same, or at all.

 

[Colif]

Its just as well, then, that setting a Best Answer isn't a matter of life or death, or we are all doomed.