Forum for official episode discussion threads

[weesh]

I've lamented a few times recently that it is very challenging to find old episode threads. A search for the non-intuitive "S02 E05" fails because the search function for this forum is bad in general and doesn't like 3 character strings in specific. A search for the episode name fails because we use names of episodes all the time, and you get flooded with results. And bad ones too. "Canterlot Wedding" doesn't give the right result in any of the first 3 pages, and the results include threads whose final posts predate the showing of the "A Canterlot Wedding" official thread, in spite of the fact that it is one of the most popular threads this site has put forward.

I suggest making a forum to collect our official threads. Perhaps in a similar manner as one of my old favorite TV show forums: SG-1 Archive

[RarityDash]

If you do an advanced search and select the option to only match words in thread titles, most of the episode threads are actually pretty easy to find. Narrowing down the search to just the "FIM Series" forum might help even further.

[MyLittlePonyTales]

...what Phil said. If you hit the little cog by the search box, it will take you to the advanced area. From there, you can choose to search only in titles-which should very easily give you old episode threads. As Phil suggested, you can also choose to search only in certain sections for the term, by selecting them in the area below the search. Of course, searching just in titles tends to give very few results anyway.

[weesh]

Time for a design lesson. This comes from Deiter Rams' "Ten Principles of Good Design". If you use Apple products, you are familiar with his work, as his work inspired many of their designers.

Also, note that this is a critique of the design by "Invasion Power Board" and NOT of Artax, who has made us a beautiful site and has mitigated the limitations of the software with intuitive and obvious forums.

2) Good Design Makes a product useful

What good is a feature if a savvy user can't find it in a year (by savvy, I mean, I use an advanced google search work-around for this problem)? And didn't even know it existed? I've made comments about the difficulty in using the software on two different forums that used it several times in the last 11 months. Yet Phil is the first person to say anything about it to me.

Why is the advanced search even necessary? Google knows what canterlot.com thread I want when I ask for "canterlot.com 'Canterlot Wedding'", why doesn't IPB?

3) Good design makes a product understandable

And Tales felt compelled to tell me how to get to it, implying that she thought it was non-intuitive. And it is non-intuitive. Click on the adjacent, but aesthetically separate button from the search bar that has the symbol that means preferences or options on many browsers and programs? Or by non-intuitively clicking on the magnifying glass WITHOUT any text in the dialog. If you enter any text, you will avoid the advanced search entirely, and there is no link to the advanced search in the primary search window for if you don't find the thread you are looking for.

Also, why should such a simple thing as searching for a thread require advanced options? It doesn't for most searches on other software.

What about more casual users? What do you expect them to do after the search function failed them three times in a row? Many of them will give up and bear it in silence.

I heard this true story of terrible design from an industry guy a few months ago:

New Game developer: "I can't figure out how to open the inventory in this game."

Seasoned developer: "Simple, just triple click the menu button."

6) Good design is honest

A search function implies the ability to quickly and easily find information. This one is thus deceptive.

---

The amusing thing about the replies to this topic is that I know both Phil and Tales are intelligent and thoughtful, but they still fell into bad design traps. We all do. Once we understand something, it is basic human nature to accept it, rather than to wonder why it is the way it is or think about how other people will perceive the same problem. Heck, note the subject of the original post: I am advocating what is effectively a work consistent with the rest of the structure of the site while taking the bad design of the search for granted.

[SteelEagle]

A subforum might work.

[MyLittlePonyTales]

I do like the idea of a subforum, though I did not say so before. I just feel that it is unnecessary. Currently, the most recent episode discussion gets Pinned at the very top of the FiM Series section, super easy to find. All the episode topics have always been in FiM Series. There are only 11 pages to go through if you are looking for a specific topic, which isn't all that many, in my opinion. Using the CTRL + F keyboard shortcut to search for a particular title should definitely cut down on the time it would take to read every topic title instead. Plus, if you look at when the last comment on a topic was made compared to when the episode aired, you can see if you may have gone too far in your search. There are, simply, multiple easy ways to find a topic by its title, without the need to create another section of the board. There isn't usually much of a need to dig up really old episode topics anyway, so a subforum for them would act merely as a storage space. As demonstrated by your difficulty in finding a certain topic, the thread was likely buried beneath a mound of other topics that surfaced since the original airing of the episode, and topics that have fallen from the first page or so have generally been discussed to their full extent.

What good is a feature if a savvy user can't find it in a year (by savvy, I mean, I use an advanced google search work-around for this problem)? And didn't even know it existed? I've made comments about the difficulty in using the software on two different forums that used it several times in the last 11 months. Yet Phil is the first person to say anything about it to me.

If you really were savvy, would you not have wondered sooner what the buttons next to the search box did, and clicked them to see if they might work as a tool for you? Every time you want to do a search, you glance at them, I am sure. Hovering over the cog and paintbrush actually tells you what they do, without even having to click. They're very easy to use if you pay attention to them. (Although to avoid going to Advanced Search, I often us Google myself!)

Also, why should such a simple thing as searching for a thread require advanced options?

If you want something specific, you need something advanced.

[Autumn]

Thank you for your suggestion.