Heads Up! Our new Help System

Andy · August 1, 2011

Today we launched our new help system. When you go to http://help.smugmug.com you will now see our new help portal, with a great big fat search box that should very quickly guide you to the page you need :barb You can also use this page to contact us, and our help and contact links on smugmug.com have been changed to this page.

A big plus with our new system is that now we can make help page changes, updates, and handle errata almost instantly.

Let us know what you think

And as always, SmugMug's Support Heroes are available 365 days a year, nearly round-the-clock, simply by either emailing us from your email system or by going to http://help.smugmug.com

denisegoldberg · August 1, 2011

Nice job!

I'm just starting to wander through the help pages, looks good so far. Many thanks for the time that was spent to pull together these pages, and please pass my thanks on to your team.

--- Denise

J Allen · August 1, 2011

denisegoldberg wrote: »

Nice job!

I'm just starting to wander through the help pages, looks good so far. Many thanks for the time that was spent to pull together these pages, and please pass my thanks on to your team.

--- Denise

+1

I like it, everything on one page. The side bar is great!

Good job!

denisegoldberg · August 2, 2011

I see that links to the old help pages in forum posts are flipping to the new URL and are still going to the appropriate page in the help. Thanks for that!

--- Denise

Andy · August 2, 2011

denisegoldberg wrote: »

I see that links to the old help pages in forum posts are flipping to the new URL and are still going to the appropriate page in the help. Thanks for that!

--- Denise

Andy · August 4, 2011

Our heroes are answering mails much faster now, the new system is so much more productive. How do you like the search and help pages?

BradfordBenn · August 4, 2011

Andy wrote: »

Our heroes are answering mails much faster now, the new system is so much more productive. How do you like the search and help pages?

I like to see the changes and improvements, no wonder Shmoo was talking to her dog. I use the help functions quite a bit in programs and applications as I find that is more helpful than going to a "wide open" search engine. To me the speed of getting an answer is important, especially when focused on a task. If the task is step #7 of a 19 step process, I don't like waiting or be waylaid looking for an answer. Having all the information in one place is great and moving toward that.

I tried using the search function and found the results page a little distracting with some of the highlighting. Also the results could be a little over or under whelming at times.

Allow me to illustrate if one places the phrase "How do I display a random photo" in the search/question box, I get back 221 results and there is odd highlighting of the text.

If I place just the word "random" in the search/question box, I get back 8 results. That is much more manageable. The ranking of the results is a little surprising though. I would like to see the pages with the word "random" closer to the top. The page "Customize Random Photos into your header" was number 7. The results I got were as follows:

Communities
If your passion is hangliding, bulldogs or Zanzibar, you're in luck: communities help you bond with other peop...
JUL 25, 2011 07:11AM PDT
Hacks and Apps: Third-party uploaders, downloads, migration tools and ...
A list of uploaders, downloaders, service migration tools, and other utilities that can help you. Want to get...
JUL 29, 2011 10:12AM PDT
Assistant password
Pro users can create an assistant password for their account that is separate from their main account password...
JUL 29, 2011 04:49PM PDT
Feature a photo in your gallery
A featured photo represents a gallery. The default for non-password-protected galleries is to rotate randoml...
JUL 30, 2011 06:18PM PDT
Old Flash Slideshow
This is an older method of setting up a Flash Slideshow. Our new Show Off Slideshow is much easier to setup f...
JUL 27, 2011 07:43PM PDT
The Gallery Tools Menu
Find the menu Once you've logged in, you can find the Tools Menu near the top of every gallery page. The "...
JUL 30, 2011 06:18PM PDT
Customize Random Photos into your header
It's possible to collect random photos and display them, too. See Dgrin's header for example. The code used: ...
JUL 29, 2011 04:49PM PDT
Show off your photos in Slideshows and Badges
Love to flaunt your photos on the internet? How about a badge to tempt curious viewers to your site? As a Smug...
JUL 28, 2011 07:26PM PDT

If you notice the word Random only appears in the excerpt for two of the entries.

Now having said that I have nothing but respect for the process of writing and indexing help, I do it at my job so I understand the difficulties of thinking how will people search for something.

I think that ability to indicate whether the page was helpful or not is a good idea. I am hoping that it will help get better search results moving forward.

A question I have, if one finds something wrong or has a suggestion for a help page what is the preferred method for communicating it? Help Desk? DGrin?

Andy · August 4, 2011

BradfordBenn wrote: »

A question I have, if one finds something wrong or has a suggestion for a help page what is the preferred method for communicating it? Help Desk? DGrin?

Help Desk - we can fix things nearly instantly.
I've passed this on to Doc & Schmoo.

docwalker · August 4, 2011

Brad,

Thank you very much for taking the time to provide the feedback. We ported our old help pages directly over to the new system (with a bit of manual polishing to keep the same format) and some of them are not yet conducive to relevance searching. We also integrated most of our wiki pages and a bit of the knowledge from our heroes.

We are planning to rewrite all of the pages to make better use of the search feature. Assistly is also making some changes on their side to help with this. As you probably know SmugMug is undergoing major changes every few weeks with smaller changes every few days. This new help platform allows us to keep pace with those changes in a much more efficient manner.

When those new features are released, we do plan to revamp the help pages much further. Every new page that we create is going to be given careful consideration to make sure the search ranking is handled properly.

If you find bugs or have suggestions for the help pages, for now email them to the help desk with 'Attn: Help Writers' in the subject. Hint: write it exactly like that without the ' and it will automatically get to right location. One of the help writers will review the suggestion.

BradfordBenn · August 4, 2011

Thanks for the fast response. I don't even think the electrons were dry yet.

Allen · August 5, 2011

I do not like "ask a question" type help pages. I have problems asking in the correct terms, even if I know them. Seeing what
others call things on Dgrin they would have hard time finding answers. What I think would be good inconjuction is
a keyword page type box with about ever term/phrase.

I much prefer the drill down method from general to specific which the old help page did.

cabbey · August 5, 2011

denisegoldberg wrote: »

I see that links to the old help pages in forum posts are flipping to the new URL and are still going to the appropriate page in the help. Thanks for that!

Thank YOU for noticing. And you're welcome. (thanks also to Dan over at assistly for providing me with the csv mapping /help urls to article ids that made that so much easier to build.)

cabbey · August 5, 2011

Allen wrote: »

I do not like "ask a question" type help pages. I have problems asking in the correct terms, even if I know them. Seeing what
others call things on Dgrin they would have hard time finding answers. What I think would be good inconjuction is
a keyword page type box with about ever term/phrase.

I much prefer the drill down method from general to specific which the old help page did.

Hey Allen, I'm with you on that one. But that's why assistly is so great... it's BOTH in one. That big block of links below the "ask your question here" is a drill down driven menu. Start with a general topic (highlighted in yellow in my screen shot) below, then find a particular topic from the associated green box (the most popular items on that topic) or click through to the full list just below it.

As doc mentioned earlier, we're still refining that organization some... so if there are things that don't seem to be in the place you would expect them to be, I'm sure the writers would welcome that feedback.

BradfordBenn · August 5, 2011

I was using the help again this evening, and I am thinking that there could be an opportunity for improvement for non SmugMug subscribers. I got the same help screen welcome whether I was logged in or not to my SmugMug account. Thinking about the less computer experienced people, the first glance could be overwhelming. If I was just wanting to come in and order a print, having information about customizing a site might make me think I was in the wrong place. Would it be possible to bring back the logged in and logged out experience? If not would it be possible to group items so that there was "Client" and "Account Holder" areas that had clear borders. I think that this would help point the clients toward the right information.

docwalker · August 6, 2011

Brad, we will take a look at the options for that. Its not possible right now but as I said, we are going to be redoing a lot over the next few months with regard to the pages. Just getting the content into the new format was the first phase. I have already begun the next phase and the other help writers have been as well.

Andy · August 6, 2011

Many of you will notice that our world-class email support is even faster now, thanks to our new system! And, there are more improvements to come

BradfordBenn · August 6, 2011

Don't get me wrong, I do like the new help a lot. Nothing but respect.

DJ-S1 · August 7, 2011

Andy wrote: »

Many of you will notice that our world-class email support is even faster now, thanks to our new system! And, there are more improvements to come

I certainly did. Got an answer in 9 minutes the other night!

The other thing I noticed, which was a pet peeve of mine, was that the emails from the HD were much less confusing than they used to be. The old style repeated the question 3 times and was formatted terribly; it made it very hard to read and decipher what was going on. The new system makes much cleaner emails - a big plus in my book.

BenA2 · August 11, 2011

Andy wrote: »

Many of you will notice that our world-class email support is even faster now, thanks to our new system! And, there are more improvements to come

Is that so? I sent an e-mail to help@smugmug.com last night at 8:01pm PDT and still haven't gotten a reply. Is the direct e-mail system no longer in use? Am I required to now use the form on the help pages?

Andy · August 11, 2011

BenA2 wrote: »

Is that so? I sent an e-mail to help@smugmug.com last night at 8:01pm PDT and still haven't gotten a reply. Is the direct e-mail system no longer in use? Am I required to now use the form on the help pages?

The direct email works as always. I just searched our system for the two emails I have for you (dgrin email and SmugMug email) and found nothing. Did you use a different email address?

BenA2 · August 11, 2011

Andy wrote: »

The direct email works as always. I just searched our system for the two emails I have for you (dgrin email and SmugMug email) and found nothing. Did you use a different email address?

Well, I can't explain why you didn't receive the e-mail. But, the point is moot now. I had written about not receiving links in seven e-mails I received last night notifying me that gallery download zip files were created. But, at about 9:45am this morning, I received seven new e-mails that had the links in them this time.

Andy · August 11, 2011

BenA2 wrote: »

Well, I can't explain why you didn't receive the e-mail. But, the point is moot now. I had written about not receiving links in seven e-mails I received last night notifying me that gallery download zip files were created. But, at about 9:45am this morning, I received seven new e-mails that had the links in them this time.

Yup, we had a problem with formatting in outbound emails for a few hours last night - and the zip links were missing in bulk download emails - so I had Ops send 'em again.

Heads Up! Our new Help System

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