Default to private issues (Tender-wide)
We recently learned that one of our clients has really, truly clueless users[1]. They are so clueless that it's rare for anything they ask to be a real issue, let alone useful to anyone else. Showing those questions publicly lets users jump to the conclusion that there's a problem ("zOMG, other people have completely unrelated questions, it's broken!").
Most of these folks don't know or care enough to check the Private box, so we'd like to make it the default on the New Discussion page.
We'd still like the categories to be public, though, both because there are a few clued users and so real issues can be left public (hopefully preventing folks from creating new tickets, since most would never consider searching for a solution).
Speaking of, I searched for this request and only turned up private Tenders and entirely-private categories. Sorry if it's a dupe.
1: As I learned recently, this is just the way it is for truly general-interest sites. Think dialup tech support and you get the idea, though that's not what this is.
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Support Staff 1 Posted by Courtenay on 15 Mar, 2009 10:12 PM
you can set up your category to be private by default. edit the
category, check "private", voila.
2 Posted by Troy on 15 Mar, 2009 10:30 PM
Thanks. I tried that and it seems to change all new tickets to private (no user choice). Ideally a user would be able to make one public if they actually knew enough to bother, it just wouldn't be the default.
Support Staff 3 Posted by Courtenay on 15 Mar, 2009 11:20 PM
Oh I just read what you actually wrote the first time as opposed to
what I imagined you wrote. I think I'll change the private
implementation so it just preselects the private checkbox.
============ Courtenay (310) 294-4026
On Mar 15, 2009, at 3:30 PM, Tender Support [email blocked]
wrote:
4 Posted by Troy on 13 Oct, 2009 09:46 PM
FYI, I ran into this for a completely different reason. We use Tender for the Cloudvox phone API platform at help.cloudvox.com, and instead of non-technical mainstream users (above), Cloudvox has very technical folks.
They tend to provide lots and lots of valuable troubleshooting info -- sometimes too much for a public ticket (phone numbers and specifics). Many are right in the middle of coding, so the Private checkbox (or one number amidst code & debug messages) isn't very noticeable.
So, +1 for being able to change the default behavior to Private for certain categories. Thanks.
Support Staff 5 Posted by Courtenay on 13 Oct, 2009 09:56 PM
You can do this. Edit the category and select "private". :)
6 Posted by Troy on 13 Oct, 2009 10:04 PM
You said the same thing 6 months ago, and made the same mistake, I think ;-) I only see an option to change all tickets in that category to private.
I want to default tickets to private, not make them private. Users are welcome to create public tickets, as long as it's intentional.
Support Staff 7 Posted by Courtenay on 13 Oct, 2009 10:04 PM
Oh hmm, looks like there are two issues in this discussion. Sorry.
8 Posted by Troy on 13 Oct, 2009 10:06 PM
Nope, same issue as before - I just want to change the default to private.
9 Posted by Troy on 13 Oct, 2009 10:08 PM
PS, thinking further on this, for me the right UI construct would be replacing the admin category "Private" checkbox with a dropdown: Visibility. Choices of Public, Private Only, Default Public, Default Private (wordsmith as you see fit). I'd pick Default Private a lot.
10 Posted by Eric on 13 Oct, 2009 10:11 PM
If the category is private, the user can't create a topic as un-private.
(see attached screenshot)
Support Staff 11 Posted by Courtenay on 13 Oct, 2009 10:13 PM
I like your idea there.
12 Posted by System on 13 Oct, 2009 10:16 PM
A Lighthouse ticket was created for this discussion
13 Posted by steve on 26 May, 2010 04:14 PM
As a staff user, there needs to be a more visual difference for public and private discussions. This indicator must be present no matter where you are on the page. If I have read all the way down through a discussion and now I'm posting, I need to be able to see if the topic is a public or a private one.
For public discussions, you will be resolving the items more infrequently, and I believe that either placing the resolve button someplace else on the screen would be appropriate. If nothing else, for a Public discussion, I should get a warning message asking if I really want to resolve this public discussion.
Perhaps a public discussion could have a bar of a different color going down one of the bkg images, so you only needed to look at the left side of your screen for instance to know if the item is priv or pub, without having to scroll back up then down again.
If interfaces are so subtle, as to confuse or to cause unnecessary clicking and cursoring, the clean interface is defeating its main goal - to be useful.
Your interfaces are way too subtle in general. I like clean visual space as much as the next guy, but c'mon, you need to be able to know how to use an interface by exploring it visually, and not waste a ton of time trying to find things that ought not to be more obvious.
One example of this is the little shaded arrow in the Admin beside "All issues". This is shaded when it ought to be darkened, indicating that it is available. A shaded item should be UN-available - that is if you even noticed it.
I've been using Tender for a couple months now, I only noticed this very important part of the user experience by someone pointing it out to me. I'm not the most brilliant user, but this is barely visible. You ought to consider making it bold when active and closed, then shaded, after it is no longer active.
From a design stand point, you might also consider adding some kind of emphasis on the arrow to show more strongly that it is pointing right, and possibly this item might do something else. The current arrow visually is not much different pointing right as it is pointing down.
Thanks for your eyes.
Troy closed this discussion on 17 Mar, 2012 08:18 PM.