Roadmap Feedback, including "negative" comments

[E|FA]

Moving the Roadmap conversation started at: 

 

 

@Neil Barman It's possible to have a positive tone while wanting to leave "negative" feedback.  I don't know how you're compiling the votes in the Roadmap items, but it doesn't seem like there's an easy way for users to provide negative or even neutral feedback, which would skew the results and the direction of VW development resources.  As I said in another comment, please can I vote down any resources being spent on updating the startup screen.

 

 

 

[Ruby S]

25 minutes ago, E|FA said:

As I said in another comment, please can I vote down any resources being spent on updating the startup screen.

 

Hi @efa.

 

You can vote "down" or "up" anything on our roadmap here: https://www.vectorworks.net/en-US/public-roadmap 

 

Simply click on the card and label it as "nice to have" which means a low priority. 

 

the "startup screen" which is labeled the "welcome screen" can be accessed at this card: https://www.vectorworks.net/en-US/public-roadmap?url=welcome-screen

 

Thanks for your feedback!

[E|FA]

46 minutes ago, Ruby S said:

You can vote "down"

 

I beg to disagree.  "Nice to have" is still an "up" vote.  There is no way to offer a "down" vote.  If VW really wants user input, please allow us to provide it.  VW can choose to act as it sees fit, but at least the data would be there.  

 

At this point, leaving an item blank is the closest one can get to a "down" vote, but that doesn't let you know if someone didn't even look at a topic, or decided not to comment as a vote of not even "Nice to have"..  

 

Even with "negative" feedback, I am trying to be productive.  I've been using MiniCad/VW for my entire career, and intend to continue doing so until I retire.  I have a real vested interest in providing feedback that will help improve VW.  

Edited October 28, 2021 by E|FA
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[Dave Donley]

Before I go on a three day vacation, what is an example of an item on a public roadmap that you would vote down, as in "please do not work on this feature"?  Odds are it is there because someone has info that it is something we should be considering.  I am trying to imagine when someone would vote as "strongly dis-consider this item it is IMO a waste of resources"?

 

[E|FA]

 

@Dave Donley For most everything else, I think a "Low Priority" option would be a reasonable addition to the feedback form, as being a step below "Nice to Have".  

 

For example, Mood Boards might be nice, but I assume that every office has a workflow that already accomplishes this, and direct integration into VW is low priority compared to other items.  On the other hand, while I don't see a need for Unit Plans in my practice, I can see how important this would be for other firms and understand the deployment of resources.

 

Of course I'd like to have everything in the roadmap (and more) added to VW, but we all know that it's a zero sum game and VW has finite resources.  So, voting something "down" isn't saying that it's a "waste of resources", but rather that it could be a poorly allocated & prioritized use of resources.  There are too many bugs, UI inconsistencies & complexities, and long term unresolved items (stairs, doors & windows...) to get everything we want.

 

There's a post I remember from a few years ago requesting that the next version have no new features, so that existing features can be brought up to speed and bugs quashed.  I'd vote for that.

 

Edited October 28, 2021 by E|FA
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[Art V]

On 10/29/2021 at 1:20 AM, E|FA said:

There's a post I remember from a few years ago requesting that the next version have no new features, so that existing features can be brought up to speed and bugs quashed.  I'd vote for that.

Not just a few years ago, it comes up almost every year and I'd vote for that as well.

 

On 10/29/2021 at 2:02 AM, jeff prince said:

Our community has been told by Vectorworks that "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

Up to a point I do agree with that, but being diplomatic in one's wording is not always a compliment if you consider the following definition of diplomat... a diplomat is someone who is an expert in using the nicest words to say the nastiest things.

 

Given the first quote and lack of response on that from VW I sometimes have a feeling that Andrei Gromyko is still alive and has a position at VW somewhere though at least he would have said something, if only just one word. 😁

 

It's the lack of some clear explanation, i.e. not some vague wording that doesn't really tell much,  of why something takes so long or hasn't been done that is probably just as frustrating as things still not having been fixed for years without knowing why. It would already be something if there is a statement of whether some issue is going to be tackled or whether it is considered as a matter of no interest by VW. At least then you know what to expect (or not expect).

 

On 10/29/2021 at 2:02 AM, jeff prince said:

So, I'll offer the following.

A rating system that allows you to "award one star" or "no vote" to give feedback is a wonderfully constructed safe space.

That would be a good alternative, there needs to be a bit more fine grained range of responses to clearly indicate how much priority a feature should have, e.g. "nice to have" would be 2 or 3 stars in a range of 5 stars.

[Art V]

On 10/29/2021 at 12:50 AM, Dave Donley said:

Odds are it is there because someone has info that it is something we should be considering.

@Dave Donley This is the kind of thing that makes people wonder why some things are on the roadmap.

 

What would make it the roadmap more useful for us would be a description of the intent of why something is on the roadmap, what are the arguments in favour for a roadmap item. E.g. to use the "more interactive welcome screen" as an example... what is the intent and why do(es) the person(s) making that roadmap suggestion to consider it think it is in improvement? Right now it only shows one line without any information so I have no idea whether it would be worth upvoting or not so based on that I would definitely downvote it if possible.

 

Some things may seem not worth the effort unless you know the why behind a request, it may also cause others to come up with a possibly better solution/alternative. That way everyone may benefit.

 

Just two more examples from the development section:

"3D Modeling - Push/Pull enhancements

Posted April 2021

A new tool will be added to offset edges of planar and non-planar faces. Push/Pull mode will be added to provide push/pull behavior as soon as edges are offset. Existing Push/Pull tool will be enhanced to support non-planar faces."

 

This is a bit non-descript to some extent, I'm not sure if it means what I think it might mean. If it does then it would be really nice to have but I can't be sure. Maybe it is implemented in a way that is of little use for me but I don't know so I can't suggest possible improvements after all and will only find out when it is released. Then I would probably be commenting on how half-baked the implementation is and how it could be improved.

 

"Roadway

Posted April 2021

Layout and networking features"

 

This is just too general, what can be expected? Is it something that I would want to support, should I make a suggestion for (additional) improvement or could my suggestion be something that is already being worked on.? A bit (or lot) more information would be useful.

[E|FA]

On 10/28/2021 at 5:02 PM, Jeff Prince said:

Our community has been told by Vectorworks that "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

I just tried to submit written feedback for the "AI Chat" feature in the roadmap without clicking on the "Nice to Have" button.  Nope.

[Matt Overton]

On 10/29/2021 at 9:50 AM, Dave Donley said:

Before I go on a three day vacation, what is an example of an item on a public roadmap that you would vote down, as in "please do not work on this feature"?  Odds are it is there because someone has info that it is something we should be considering.  I am trying to imagine when someone would vote as "strongly dis-consider this item it is IMO a waste of resources"?

 

AI chatbot. 
I think you’d struggle to articulate how that will improve customers experience. 
 

[line-weight]

On 7/29/2024 at 9:55 PM, E|FA said:

I just tried to submit written feedback for the "AI Chat" feature in the roadmap without clicking on the "Nice to Have" button.  Nope.

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

[Dave Donley]

8 hours ago, Matt Overton said:

AI chatbot. 
I think you’d struggle to articulate how that will improve customers experience. 
 

 

Wow I don't even remember which vacation that was in 2021.  There is a lot of information that if brought together into an AI chatbot could save you a lot of googling.  I think  a good chatbot would indeed improve some customers' workflow and save them time.  Maybe you are assuming the chatbot would not be a good one.  By feeding a chatbot with all the training materials, university, forum posts, manuals, and any other sources of information about Vectorworks, theoretically you would be able to get to the information you need and/or receive new insights that you were not aware of.  As these become better at meta-understanding they may go beyond comparison/competition with google searches, i.e. to help with questions about workflow not just questions about individual features.  Zero connection with AI systems is not a viable long term strategy, at some point you may find AI features indispensable.  There are real examples we are using in the programming world to increase our productivity and it would be great to help users increase theirs.

[Jeff Prince]

1 hour ago, Dave Donley said:

By feeding a chatbot with all the training materials, university, forum posts, manuals, and any other sources of information about Vectorworks, theoretically you would be able to get to the information you need and/or receive new insights that you were not aware of.

I think that is very wishful thinking given the quality of the current help system.  The way it is written confuses most of my customers.  Then, when you factor in the built in contradictions within existing vectorworks workflows and tools, I could see an Ai chatbot recommending things that aren’t possible or cause problems with this nuanced software.  It would be great for me to be proven wrong, but I’m guessing it will take years before that is the case with all the cleanup required.

[Matt Overton]

12 hours ago, Dave Donley said:

 

Wow I don't even remember which vacation that was in 2021.  There is a lot of information that if brought together into an AI chatbot could save you a lot of googling.  I think  a good chatbot would indeed improve some customers' workflow and save them time.  Maybe you are assuming the chatbot would not be a good one.  By feeding a chatbot with all the training materials, university, forum posts, manuals, and any other sources of information about Vectorworks, theoretically you would be able to get to the information you need and/or receive new insights that you were not aware of.  As these become better at meta-understanding they may go beyond comparison/competition with google searches, i.e. to help with questions about workflow not just questions about individual features.  Zero connection with AI systems is not a viable long term strategy, at some point you may find AI features indispensable.  There are real examples we are using in the programming world to increase our productivity and it would be great to help users increase theirs.

 

Hi Dave, you make a good point. An AI vectorpython REPL in vectorworks would be a good way to potentially speed up development and enliven the plugin development community again. Not that seems to be on the cards but it would be easy to see how it could lead to improvements. 
 

I think Jeff has articulated why an AI help system would struggle to provide value. The AI visualiser hasn’t set a good expectation of AI usefulness a help system would most likely be strike two

[line-weight]

If an AI assistant could help someone like me (with very limited coding knowledge) write scripts or build marionette objects that would be very useful indeed.

Edited September 17 by line-weight

[Tom W.]

It is a hell of a lot of work trawling the Help pages, Forum posts, University videos, other people's videos, etc trying to get a handle on how VW works, with the fact the software is constantly evolving often making it feel like a full time job. Anything that could help make this process easier for all of us has got to be worth pursuing. It's not sustainable to have a such a powerful piece of software with the info on how to operate it scattered so chaotically all over the place. The more people who fully understand how to use it the better for all of us. How good a job an AI assistant would do at it remains to be seen but I don't think it's misguided to pursue it.

[line-weight]

Perhaps time would be better invested in improving the contents and accessibility of the Help system, before developing an AI assistant to help navigate it, though.

 

When something is not adequately explained in the Help, the solution should be to make sure that it is, rather than creating some kind of AI assisted system that looks elsewhere, amongst sources that may or may not be reliable.

[Tom W.]

12 minutes ago, line-weight said:

Perhaps time would be better invested in improving the contents and accessibility of the Help system, before developing an AI assistant to help navigate it, though.

 

When something is not adequately explained in the Help, the solution should be to make sure that it is, rather than creating some kind of AI assisted system that looks elsewhere, amongst sources that may or may not be reliable.

 

That's fair enough but I think the problem is that the software is such a beast that even VW people don't always fully understand how it works + what all the possibilities are. That's where the other sources come in. I'm sure a large amount of resources go into Help already + I imagine the judgement is that AI offers (potentially) more bang for the buck: how many more people would you need working on Help full time to ensure it covered every last nuance of the program + was fully accurate + up to date at all times? I appreciate it's just theoretical at this stage but I like the theory: the info's out there it just needs accessing/organising. I think it's the right thing to explore it. I certainly don't feel that everything else is going to fall by the wayside as a consequence.

[Jeff Prince]

AI is only as good as you teach it.

 

Meanwhile, tools that make us money, like irrigation, are languishing and effectively useless.

 

I wonder if the AI will say “it looks like you want to make an irrigation plan, have you considered switching to Land FX?”.