Ian Landsman is Starting From Scratch, May 3, 2005:

HelpSpot Sneak Peek 1: Request Page

If you're in the market for a powerful and user friendly Help Desk solution, please take a look at my company's flagship product HelpSpot.

There have been many requests for more details about HelpSpot so I'm happy to be starting a new series of posts offering a sneak peek into HelpSpot. From now until the initial beta launch I'll be posting inside looks at various features of HelpSpot. Some, like this post will be comprehensive looks at entire parts of the system while others will be small insights into unique tools and features.

Before I get started with the tour I just want to point out that the screenshots below are alpha quality. Some icons are missing or may change; some features may be adjusted before launch and so on. That said, 95% of what's here should be in the final product. I'd also like to encourage you to comment on what you see. Great ideas are always welcome!

Overview

The request page is an extremely important part of HelpSpot. It's the page where most users will spend the majority of their time. It's where requests are created, managed, and reviewed. As such an immense amount of functionality had to be incorporated into this page.

Beyond just making the required functionality available we really wanted to get the user interface right. So many other help desk management solutions crowd the page with dozens of form fields on this page even when most of these fields are never used on any one request. To combat this, we've combined some features, made some features popups, and used alot of in-page logic to fill in forms with only what the help desk staff member needs to see.

Let's take a look at an example of a request being managed. Here's the full screen view, we'll go through each piece below. (click image for large version):


Customer Information

Having access to customer information is absolutely essential to running a great help desk. We looked at a lot of models for working with this information before starting HelpSpot. What we found is that most help desk software either stores very little or attempts to store everything about a customer.

We didn't like either of these models; We wanted a clean interface that didn't require staff members to enter information that already exists in other systems. What we came up with is pictured below:




HelpSpot stores all the basic information about a customer you would need to answer a request as well as to provide request histories. However, sometimes you need more information than what we store to provide great customer service. To address this we came up with "Live Lookup".

The Live Lookup feature allows real time access to your customer information no matter where it's stored. Performing a Live Lookup for a customer can return any information about that customer you have in your IT systems. For example, you might want to return information about a customers support contract status. If you're using HelpSpot to support internal users you could return physical locations, systems passwords, or a list of system access permissions. Best of all, since Live Lookup accesses your IT systems in real time the information is always up to date. There's no need to for laborious data synchronizations between HelpSpot and your other IT systems (for technical details how this works see below). Of course using Live Lookup is optional and HelpSpot works just fine using only the provided fields.

Request Details

This area is where HelpSpot makes its biggest departures from "traditional" help desk software. It may not look it, but there are some big "new ideas" here so let's go through them one by one.

1. Categories/Reporting Tags - In most help desk software categorization quickly becomes a no win situation. Almost all systems have huge category trees that limit assignment to only one category; requiring you to choose the "right" one from 70 possibilities. The result is that instead of using categories to convey information they simply get used as queues of requests.
   
   So HelpSpot takes a different approach. Categories aren't nested in HelpSpot, they're single level, and are used to categorize requests into general areas. Once you've done that you now have the ability to add an unlimited number of "reporting tags" to any request. A unique set of reporting tags is associated with each category. Reporting tags are powerful because they allow for easy filtering and reporting like-requests by conveying information in a structured manner.
   
   Let's look at the example above. Here I've categorized the request as technical support and selected the reporting tags: Installation trouble, PHP 4.3+, and Linux. The results of this are tremendous. First, it only takes a second or two for the initial staff member (or others) to select the tags. Second, the tags allow categorization at a more fine grain level than traditional categories. So here I've not just indicated that it's installation trouble, but also that the customer is running PHP 4.3 on Linux. Now other staff members on the request can instantly see that information without reading through all the history to find it. I'll also be able to run reports on how many tickets we've handled for customers in this configuration and so on.
   
   Here's another cool example of the power the reporting tag can bring. Let's say you're using HelpSpot for back office IT support. As an administrator you want to track if the new super duper Xerox document management unit is having any trouble. Under your copier category you add a new tag for Xerox c343. Now any requests that come in about that unit get tagged. No more guess work about how many came in for it or having staff keep a separate Excel document to track these one off requests. With reporting tags you know exactly how many came in for it, who handled it, and how it was resolved.
   
   Tracking specific items like this is just one area where I believe reporting tags will change the way your help desk works.


2. Assignment - This is another area where HelpSpot takes a different tact. All requests must be assigned to the help desk "inbox" OR a specific user (the users available for assignment are based on the category). There is no way to assign a request to a generic queue. Don't panic! This is a good thing. Requests assigned to generic queues inevitable fall victim to the "I thought you were working on it" syndrome. Forcing a single person to be responsible for answering the request or reassigning it simplifies the process and imparts a sense of ownership.
   
   To help prevent one person from being overloaded, you can see the number of requests currently assigned to the user right next to their name. This helps keep things balanced, but at the same time gives the flexibility to still assign a request to someone if they are the only ones who can handle it.



3. Colors - This isn't specific to just this area of HelpSpot, but this is a good place to point it out. Help desk software is intrinsically a "high read" environment. There's simply alot of information that needs to be consumed by staff members, so we've put alot of time into thinking through ways to lower the amount of reading even if it's just a little bit. An effective approach is to use colors and images to give a quick understanding of the situation. In the screen shot directly above you can instantly see the request is urgent because the header has been turned bright red instead of it's normal blue. The minute this page loads it's easy to see the issue is urgent without any reading at all.

Request History

The request history is really the core of HelpSpot request tracking. The request history tracks everything that's happened to a request over the entire life span of the issue.

1. Order - The request history is shown in reverse chronological order, with the newest entry sorted to the top. This allows staff to quickly see the latest updates without having to scroll all the way to the bottom of the screen.



2. Photos - This is a unique feature which is again aimed at limiting the time necessary to identify who's working on this request. In an increasingly virtual workforce, it also gives a more "real" feeling to the online interactions.



3. Time - In most applications that track things over time they simply stamp the date and time next to the history event and leave it at that. When it comes to customer services however, we don't think that really conveys the information appropriately. So what we've done is display the date as the amount of time from the initial request. This has a couple of big benefits. First, it's easier to understand when each history event took place in relation to the initial request. Rather than just seeing 2 times it's much more beneficial to see that the request was updated 12 hours after the initial request came in.
   
   The second big benefit is motivational. When you just see 2 times it doesn't really have the impact of seeing the distance of time. After you add a note to a request and you see that the time says 4 days and 6 hours after the request that really gives you an understanding of how long the customer has been waiting for a resolution. It makes the impact more real and we hope inspires staying those extra few minutes to respond to a customer or taking an extra few seconds to lookup the answer now instead of after lunch.
   
   If you do need the exact time a note was added all you have to do is mouse over the time and it's shown to you.


4. Colors - Again HelpSpot uses color to quickly identify things. Above you can see that when a note is public it's green. This indicates that the note was emailed to the customer and it's also available via the online request tracking page in the portal.


5. Email Integration - HelpSpot integrates seamlessly with one or more email accounts. For example, keep you requests organized by having several support email accounts: , , . Emails from different accounts can be automatically assigned to a request category and even assigned to a specific user.
   
   When sending emails to customers or other HelpSpot users the system will use these accounts and be able to keep a seamless flow of request events. If you look closely above you'll see that some of the notes in the request history came in via email. They integrate directly into the history of events in the proper time order. If the email is from a recognized HelpSpot user their picture is also displayed.
   
   Best of all, since HelpSpot manages all the mail in the mailbox there's no more lost or forgotten email requests. Requests that come to your help desk via email are now tracked just like any other request so they never fall through the cracks.

Add a Note

Adding a note is super easy. Just type! Of course there are a bunch of optional things you can do, but we've tried to keep those out of the way until you need them. Here's a quick run down of how notes work:

1. Timer - The timer is great if your organization likes to track time on phone calls or needs to bill for time spent on requests. Simply start the timer when you begin a request and stop it when you're done. It will even keep the time if you forget to stop it and just submit the note.


2. Customer Update - Clicking on the customer update button makes the note public. You'll be able to send the note or update to the customer via email as well as track any replies as part of the request history.


3. Uploads - Easily upload an unlimited number of files into the request history. If you upload images those will be automatically embedded into the request history.



4. CC Staff - Many times to answer a request it's necessary to interact with other members of the support team. This usually takes place outside of the help desk software through email. With HelpSpot you can CC any staff member(s) on your note and their responses are automatically included in the request history. This keeps all the knowledge and interactions about the request in the system.


5. Append Prepared Responses - Prepared responses are simply bits of text that have been put into the system ahead of time to respond to fairly routine issues. When selecting to use this feature the response is appended to whatever text has already been written in the note. This feature will often be used with Customer Updates to provide email responses to customers.

Setting a Reminder

Reminders are a great way to be proactive about requests. Often when several people are involved in a request, or the request is time-sensitive it can be very beneficial to schedule reminders for yourself or others. These reminders are then emailed and/or text messaged to the recipients at the appropriate times. You can also view reminders in your workspace (sneak peek coming soon).

Next Update

This update covered just the highlights of the request page. Look for the next update in a few weeks. Feedback/comments are always welcomed. Please send remarks to ian AT userscape.com or comment below.

To stay in the loop on HelpSpot please sign up for our mailing list.




Technical Note

• How Live Lookup works is by making a simple HTTP or command line call to a script you create (or in many cases may already have). Your script accepts the information from the HelpSpot customer form and returns a simple XML document with ANY customer information you want to return. No limits. Pass back contract information, locations, system passwords or anything else. All the information in the document will be parsed and displayed to the staff member. Since HelpSpot is only requesting an XML document you can write your script in any language and can interface with any system.

Discussion

Ian,

I suggest replacing the "Reporting Tags" select box with checkboxes in the "Request Details" of the section in this picture:

http://www.userscape.com/blog/wp-content/preview1details.jpeg

The reason why is because many people get confused with that type of select box. How do I select two of them? How do I deselect one? I know it's simple enough for us to us, but trust me, most people get lost there.

Other than that it looks great.

Created by Gil on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

Wow that's really crazy Gil! I've actually been working on that change!! It's not ready yet so I didn't included it in here and it will provide the same functionality just better (as you said). When we did some testing we found that people were OK doing it the first time, but when a second user went to change the tags or add to them later on they inevitably just clicked and lost the original tags.

Created by Ian on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

That's funny, because I thought the same thing (that folks have a hard time with multiple select boxes), but then I wondered if that's still true today. I can definitely see how people would clear out the original tags accidentally with that control, though.

Which brings a thought to mind: do changes to the request metadata (category, status, tags, etc.) get logged in the request's history? That always seems like a useful feature in case a mistake (like losing the tags) were to happen.

HelpSpot looks very nice and easy, Ian! I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the tour.

Created by Kevin Dangoor on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

I think people are pretty OK with using the multiselect box but it was definetly a problem when updating at a later time.

Yes, all the meta data is logged. I didn't really get a chance to work that in, but here's a screenshot.

http://www.userscape.com/blog/wp-content/preview1log.jpg

Created by Ian on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

Since it's already come up, I thought I'd post a screenshot of the reporting tags as checkboxes:

http://www.userscape.com/blog/wp-content/preview1checkboxes.jpeg

Created by Ian on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

Beautiful.

P.S. I like your use of icons, photos, etc. I'm a big fan of creating software that makes people feel *more comfortable*, and step one is to make the interface not-so-dull.

Created by Gil on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

Yep, that was a big part of the planning. If you take a look at most other help desk software you literally want to slam your head against your desk after spending about 5 minutes in there.

Most help desk users also work distributed in some fashion or another. They may be across the building or across the world, but there's usually some distance there. The pictures really bring out the fact that these are actual people and not just a name.

Created by Ian on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

Hey Ian,

Before I start dissecting the sneak peek, let me tell you that it looks great! It really shows up your fresh approach to help desk software.

Anyway, my girl friend hates me for this, but I love to nit pick and I am still going to nit pick few things on your sneak peek. Please don’t mind. Here are few of my observations/questions/suggestions:

• Top Navigation Bar
I have highlighted few parts in your top navigation bar in this image.
http://jdk.phpkid.org/wp-content/top-bar.png

1. It reads ‘UserScape Software Help Desk’, is the title hard coded in application OR is it something administrator can configure? Can it say ‘Microsoft Help Desk’ if Microsoft were to purchase this product and use it? How about facility for admin to add logo of company as well?
2. a) Why is the ‘Home’ link all the way to the right? I think that’s very different from conventional web apps and websites. IMHO, it should be the left most link.

b) You have underlined letters in top navigation bar; I think they are meant for keyboard short cuts? Personally, I find access key shortcuts in browser not so useful. The reason is, their behaviour is different than Windows behaviour. In Windows, when you use ALT + Accelerator Key, the menu opens up i.e. an action is performed. While in browser, using access key means that you will only get ‘focus’ to the particular element. User will still have to press the Enter key, which IMHO, defeats the purpose of the access key as a short cut tool. Also, you have to be careful that you don’t potentially select a key combination used by browser itself. My rant on this topic is here: http://jdk.phpkid.org/index.php?p=1149
Do check out the link to study I have pointed in my post.

c) A small suggestion. Once user gets used to the interface, can he customize the navigation bar to only display icons and not text? This is what Windows allows and I always turn off the text.

d) Why the width of buttons ‘Create’/’Forum’/’KB’ etc. are all different? I somehow don’t like it they being different size. How about Inbox/Workplace of same width and all other buttons having same width (their width would be less than Inbox button’s width)?

3. What is this white space below the buttons? Are they used for something useful or is it because of the title on the left that you have this white space? Can something be done about it?

4. a) Shouldn’t order of the links be “Prefs | Log out”? Just like Home link is at the left most, generally ‘Log Out’ link is the right most link.
b) Why is it called ‘Prefs’? Why not ‘Preferences’? I am sure your software will be used by non geeks as well!

Now, let’s move on to the other areas:
Customer Information Box

1. I observed that some fields have ‘pin’ icon next to them while others don’t. What’s the logic?
2. What is customer id? Is it something HelpSpot generates and uses internally OR something used and identified by customer? If HelpSpot generates it and uses it internally, then how is it useful to end user? IMHO, Name of customer/Phone/Email is more than enough to Identify customer. A cryptic number doesn’t really help end user. You may as well hide it.
3. On a side note, I observed that there is no ‘Title’ or ‘Subject’ for the request/trouble ticket. You have not displayed how ‘Inbox’ or ‘Workspace’ looks like but I guess you would need some kind of title to display the list of requests? Reason is similar to point#2. User can identify request easily using subject/title rather than name.

Moving on to ‘Request Details’ box:

1. Whether request is urgent or not is depicted by ‘Urgent’ checkbox. What happens if user unchecks it? Does it make an AJAX call to update the request or user have to click on the button ‘Update’ at right bottom to update the request priority. Same thing applies for other fields in the box.
2. I was going to mention about Multi Select box not a good choice for Reporting Tags selection but looks like you have already taken care of it.

Moving quickly to bottom of request history just below ‘Note’ section, I see you have options like ‘Customer Update’, ‘Upload File’, ‘CC Staff’, ‘Append prepared response’

Don’t you think that you should have checkboxes for ‘Customer Update’ and ‘CC Staff’ options? I mean, when you select ‘Upload File’, ‘Append prepared response’, you are required to perform another operation so it makes sense to have them as link. While for ‘Customer Update’,’CC Staff’, they are more of options to be chosen when user performs an operation of updating note, and it will be more intuitive if they were checkboxes. What do you say?

Moving on to Request History:

1. First of all, I think it’s a great idea to display date/time in human readable way like you are doing. Btw, to add to it, you can do one more thing. You have text named ‘Request Entered on May 1, 2005: 11:29 pm’, how about adding name of the day? It may look like
‘Request Entered Today at 11:29 pm’
‘Request Entered Yesterday at 11:29 pm’
‘Request Entered Last Week, Wednesday, May 1 2005’

You get the hint.

Also, how do I find when note was added relative to current time? I mean, from your time listing, I can figure out that someone replied 1 day, 6 hours after request but what if I wanted to know whether it was replied today or not?

How about displaying two measures:
1. Time of note since request was made.
2. Time of note relative to current time.

So, you can display
Note updated: 1 day, 2 hours after request | 10 minutes ago from now

I think two time indicators might get confusing but I am just thinking out loud here. I think both measures are useful. What’s your opinion?

For a public note, I see the link named ‘Public’. I wonder what would happen if I click on that link? Will it display meaning of ‘public’ note or will it take some action?

Why update and close button is disabled? What conditions disable the button?

What are the two up/down arrows next to Add Note?

Another suggestion: I guess you are using monitor with resolution of 1600x1200. How does the screen look if used at 1024x768? What if user increases font size? How about using side bar hide button like Sitepoint.com has? [http://www.sitepoint.com/article/cgi-application] This way, user can hide the Customer Details/Request Details when they want more screen space for Request History?

In general, why don’t you have little (?) next to different options? Clicking / or hovering on the question mark, will give them little info about what the option is supposed to do, with link to full page about feature in help. As your help desk software introduces new terms like ‘Live Lookup’, ‘Reporting Tags’, which are not common for say help desk user. So, instead of them calling help desk administrator about what the feature is about, they can click on the ‘?’ and find out for themselves.

Anyway, overall, I think HelpSpot is looking great! I can’t wait to become the beta tester! In previous MNC I worked, they had help package from Computer Associates and it was terrible! I can clearly see how much support people would like to use your software. I can’t wait to see how does the ‘help desk’ looks for the end user.

Btw, sorry for criticizing so many things. I haven’t really written about why I find the features of HelpSpot useful because you already did good job of it! I wanted to offer suggestions to make it even better, that’s it!

JD

Created by JD on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

Whew! Super extra points for completeness!!!

I'll go through your comments point by point, but in general I think some of your items are just misunderstandings because it is hard to tell exactly how some elements work via just screenshots. That's of course one of the dangers of doing these sneak peeks. Also just as an FYI, in many ways the sneak peeks will be tailored more for potential customers rather than other geeks like myself (and you ). So I won't always go into as much technical detail as I could in the articles. It's a tough thing to balance and I'm still learning, but of course I'm always happy to talk tech! OK here we go:

Top Navigation Bar
1. Yes this is configurable. It could say JD's Help Desk or whatever you'd like.

Logo's are semi supported. The boxes behind the nav is a background image. This can be changed with another one if you like. Custom style functionality is also built in. This may or may not make it as a full feature of v1 but at some point early on customizable styles will be available.

2.a) The home button isn't what you think. It's actually a link out to the help desk portal. The "help desks home". I've gone back and forth on if I should label this portal instead. This is something that will probably not be finalized until everything else is done and it's easier to see which word fits best.

2.b) The underlines are for shortcuts. Browser based shortcuts do take you directly there and do not require you to hit enter in general. Perhaps it's a preference set in your browser? I'll put this in the testing routine to be sure. This will probably stay, but I'll definitely keep it under consideration.

2.c) Customizing the top nav in v1 probably isn't a possibility but it's a good idea. I'll make note.

2.d) The exact width and names of the buttons are still in play. I agree that I don't like the size difference.

3) The whitespace is for sub navigation buttons. Non are shown in this build of HelpSpot but there are things that go there to manage your workspace.

4) Good idea, just put logout on the right. I kinda don't like the location of these links in general but that's where they are for now.

Customer Information Box
1) Pins are required fields. I need to make some adjustments there since the drop downs don't really give you any choice but to fill them in so some of those will probably go away.

2) Customer ID is critical information for a help desk. This is not a HelpSpot generated number/ID it is the unique identifier which an organization uses to identify it's customers. So an organization using HelpSpot for internal IT support may user social security numbers or some generic assigned number as an ID unique to me. This is probably stored in an LDAP server or the like. A consumer organization using HelpSpot may have given you an "account number" which is the same thing. Like when you pay your phone bill and there's an account number on it

When you call any help desk what they almost always ask for first is your "customer ID" though they may call it something else. This is also a key which can be used to perform "live lookups" and get the rest of the information about your account.

3) You really want me to give up all the goods don't you . Well let's just say that I don't really like the whole giving a subject concept. In reality you usually end up having to read the entire request anyway and if your just using it to find the request in a queue there are better ways to do that.

I've also found that having this field tends to waste time for the help desk staff. If you're not familiar with help desk operations you may think this is just like giving an email you're writing a subject, but it isn't. When you're writing an email you know the content of the message perfectly because you're writing it. In a help desk environment that's not the case. Beyond just trying to accurately describe the request in the subject you also end up trying to determine how much information you should put in there and how others might read it,etc. I've seen people spend minutes on this part and those minutes are generally wasted.

Request Details
1. No AJAX calls. You must click update. There is a bunch of complicated logic in this page so unless I was going to do the entire interface as AJAX it wouldn't work. It would be too inconsistent to sometimes use AJAX calls on this page and sometimes not. I did think about it though.

2. This is one where it doesn't show in the screenshots. All 4 of those links below the note box require further action. The customer update button lets you specify a subject for the email to the customer, CC brings up a modal window where you select which staff you want to CC (if you have 100 people in your help desk you don't want to cc them all), and so on. That said I may change customer update a bit. It performs a little differently than the others so that might end up in a different spot.

Request History
The time stuff is alot of fun. I think people will really like it once they get used to it. I like the "last week" idea. But that makes it relative to now instead of the request. I think it would be too confusing to have two sets of times there. If you need to know time related to now you can mouse over the time information and get the exact date and time the history event occurred (it's in an abbr HTML tag).

If you click on the word public, which is linked it will give you the option to make it not public. It's one of the only places where HelpSpot allows editing the history of an event, but if something goes public that shouldn't be it needs to have the option to be taken down. Keep in mind that making notes public is a foreign concept to most help desks where their management system is almost always a totally private system.

I noticed the close button after I published the article. It's a little too light. It's basically just supposed to be lighter than the update only button because there needs to be some contrast between the buttons so it's clear which one to click. Most of the time you'll want the update button not the update and close button.

The up and down arrows increase and decrease the writing area of the note box. Good for long replies ( like this one )

I'm using the wonderful web developer plugin for firefox and have been testing in it. Everything should look fine down to 800X600, though I don't think many people using this type of app would be less than 1024x768 as you mention.

Reclaiming that space is an interesting idea. That's the type of thing I'll probably wait to hear back from customers on and see if we need to do anything in that regard.

I've thought about adding the help ? all over but I don't like it. Here's the issue. This isn't a normal website that someone comes to once in a while. This is the type of app that someone spends all day in because it's there job. After you know what the button does, having those things all over just drives you nuts. Think about if Microsoft Word had those little question marks next to each button.

What I'm planning on is having more of a "new user" help box on each page, which once you know what you're doing you can remove it easily.

Hey thanks for the feedback! That's why I'm posting this on a blog and not on a static web page someplace. Actually it's been really great getting your detailed comments because many of the topics you brought up are items I've given alot of thought to. That really makes me feel like it's been time well spent and that HelpSpots going down the right track.

Created by Ian on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

I guess you are right that I misunderstood few things based on screenshot. For your next sneak peek, I would try to be at higher level features wise rather than at lower level of technical details. Once I get my hand on beta, I should be able to provide you with more useful feedback.

Now I see your point with Customer Id. That's what I had mentioned in my comment. Is it something generated by your client or it's internal to HelpSpot. I was suggesting to get rid of it ONLY if it was internal.

Btw, accesskey short cut doesn't perform action in IE 6. I just verified it on my Windows box. Though in Firefox, it indeed performs link 'click' action. Something you should think about as I think majority of corporate customers will have IE as their default browser.

All your other points are noted. To be honest, I don't have lot of experience working with Help Desks like you do. I am carefully watching what you are doing because I am interested in knowing your business decisions/design decisions, the thought which went behind them. At the same time, I want to throw in my suggestions/criticism and figure out if I am any good. :o) Creating a software proudct is what I want to do once I have gained more experience and have some financial backing with me.

So, when the beta is going to come out?

JD

Created by JD on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

And yes, that Web Developer Plugin is a GOD Send! I can't thank the author, Chris Pederick enough for that time saver he has created!

JD

Created by JD on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

Your feedback is great, keep it up! One of the big things you'll learn and that I don't see talked about very much is tradeoffs. There are lots of them to make. Every minute you spend thinking about size of top nav buttons is a second you're not thinking or working on something else. Especially in a v1 where there's so much work to do because you literally need to build every component. Sometimes you just have to go with what you have. Then in the next few versions work on tweaking things you never got a chance to get perfect. Also you end up in a much better position, because after v1 you'll have alot of customer feedback so you can focus on where the real needs are as opposed to where you think the real needs are.

I hadn't checked the access keys in IE yet but I figured that is what you were talking about. Yes I'm sure they'll be lots of IE users. I'll have to look at that a bit more. I also still have to change all my icons over from png's to transparent gif's since IE doesn't support the transparency in png's well. I see that they will in IE7, but that doesn't do me alot of good.

Created by Ian on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

Ian,

I suggest replacing the "Reporting Tags" select box with checkboxes in the "Request Details" of the section in this picture:

http://www.userscape.com/blog/wp-content/preview1details.jpeg

The reason why is because many people get confused with that type of select box. How do I select two of them? How do I deselect one? I know it's simple enough for us to us, but trust me, most people get lost there.

Other than that it looks great.

Created by Gil on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

Oh forgot to answer this one. The Beta is still probably a month and half or so away. I'm not going to really commit to that though. This is probably the only time I'll have with HelpSpot where I'm in total control of the release and can afford to take extra time so that's what we're going to do. When it's running well and all the ducks are in a row then the beta will get going.

Created by Ian on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

Wow that's really crazy Gil! I've actually been working on that change!! It's not ready yet so I didn't included it in here and it will provide the same functionality just better (as you said). When we did some testing we found that people were OK doing it the first time, but when a second user went to change the tags or add to them later on they inevitably just clicked and lost the original tags.

Created by Ian on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

That's funny, because I thought the same thing (that folks have a hard time with multiple select boxes), but then I wondered if that's still true today. I can definitely see how people would clear out the original tags accidentally with that control, though.

Which brings a thought to mind: do changes to the request metadata (category, status, tags, etc.) get logged in the request's history? That always seems like a useful feature in case a mistake (like losing the tags) were to happen.

HelpSpot looks very nice and easy, Ian! I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the tour.

Created by Kevin Dangoor on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

I think people are pretty OK with using the multiselect box but it was definetly a problem when updating at a later time.

Yes, all the meta data is logged. I didn't really get a chance to work that in, but here's a screenshot.

http://www.userscape.com/blog/wp-content/preview1log.jpg

Created by Ian on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

Since it's already come up, I thought I'd post a screenshot of the reporting tags as checkboxes:

http://www.userscape.com/blog/wp-content/preview1checkboxes.jpeg

Created by Ian on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

Beautiful.

P.S. I like your use of icons, photos, etc. I'm a big fan of creating software that makes people feel *more comfortable*, and step one is to make the interface not-so-dull.

Created by Gil on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

Yep, that was a big part of the planning. If you take a look at most other help desk software you literally want to slam your head against your desk after spending about 5 minutes in there.

Most help desk users also work distributed in some fashion or another. They may be across the building or across the world, but there's usually some distance there. The pictures really bring out the fact that these are actual people and not just a name.

Created by Ian on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

Hey Ian,

Before I start dissecting the sneak peek, let me tell you that it looks great! It really shows up your fresh approach to help desk software.

Anyway, my girl friend hates me for this, but I love to nit pick and I am still going to nit pick few things on your sneak peek. Please don’t mind. Here are few of my observations/questions/suggestions:

• Top Navigation Bar
I have highlighted few parts in your top navigation bar in this image.
http://jdk.phpkid.org/wp-content/top-bar.png

1. It reads ‘UserScape Software Help Desk’, is the title hard coded in application OR is it something administrator can configure? Can it say ‘Microsoft Help Desk’ if Microsoft were to purchase this product and use it? How about facility for admin to add logo of company as well?
2. a) Why is the ‘Home’ link all the way to the right? I think that’s very different from conventional web apps and websites. IMHO, it should be the left most link.

b) You have underlined letters in top navigation bar; I think they are meant for keyboard short cuts? Personally, I find access key shortcuts in browser not so useful. The reason is, their behaviour is different than Windows behaviour. In Windows, when you use ALT + Accelerator Key, the menu opens up i.e. an action is performed. While in browser, using access key means that you will only get ‘focus’ to the particular element. User will still have to press the Enter key, which IMHO, defeats the purpose of the access key as a short cut tool. Also, you have to be careful that you don’t potentially select a key combination used by browser itself. My rant on this topic is here: http://jdk.phpkid.org/index.php?p=1149
Do check out the link to study I have pointed in my post.

c) A small suggestion. Once user gets used to the interface, can he customize the navigation bar to only display icons and not text? This is what Windows allows and I always turn off the text.

d) Why the width of buttons ‘Create’/’Forum’/’KB’ etc. are all different? I somehow don’t like it they being different size. How about Inbox/Workplace of same width and all other buttons having same width (their width would be less than Inbox button’s width)?

3. What is this white space below the buttons? Are they used for something useful or is it because of the title on the left that you have this white space? Can something be done about it?

4. a) Shouldn’t order of the links be “Prefs | Log out”? Just like Home link is at the left most, generally ‘Log Out’ link is the right most link.
b) Why is it called ‘Prefs’? Why not ‘Preferences’? I am sure your software will be used by non geeks as well!

Now, let’s move on to the other areas:
Customer Information Box

1. I observed that some fields have ‘pin’ icon next to them while others don’t. What’s the logic?
2. What is customer id? Is it something HelpSpot generates and uses internally OR something used and identified by customer? If HelpSpot generates it and uses it internally, then how is it useful to end user? IMHO, Name of customer/Phone/Email is more than enough to Identify customer. A cryptic number doesn’t really help end user. You may as well hide it.
3. On a side note, I observed that there is no ‘Title’ or ‘Subject’ for the request/trouble ticket. You have not displayed how ‘Inbox’ or ‘Workspace’ looks like but I guess you would need some kind of title to display the list of requests? Reason is similar to point#2. User can identify request easily using subject/title rather than name.

Moving on to ‘Request Details’ box:

1. Whether request is urgent or not is depicted by ‘Urgent’ checkbox. What happens if user unchecks it? Does it make an AJAX call to update the request or user have to click on the button ‘Update’ at right bottom to update the request priority. Same thing applies for other fields in the box.
2. I was going to mention about Multi Select box not a good choice for Reporting Tags selection but looks like you have already taken care of it.

Moving quickly to bottom of request history just below ‘Note’ section, I see you have options like ‘Customer Update’, ‘Upload File’, ‘CC Staff’, ‘Append prepared response’

Don’t you think that you should have checkboxes for ‘Customer Update’ and ‘CC Staff’ options? I mean, when you select ‘Upload File’, ‘Append prepared response’, you are required to perform another operation so it makes sense to have them as link. While for ‘Customer Update’,’CC Staff’, they are more of options to be chosen when user performs an operation of updating note, and it will be more intuitive if they were checkboxes. What do you say?

Moving on to Request History:

1. First of all, I think it’s a great idea to display date/time in human readable way like you are doing. Btw, to add to it, you can do one more thing. You have text named ‘Request Entered on May 1, 2005: 11:29 pm’, how about adding name of the day? It may look like
‘Request Entered Today at 11:29 pm’
‘Request Entered Yesterday at 11:29 pm’
‘Request Entered Last Week, Wednesday, May 1 2005’

You get the hint.

Also, how do I find when note was added relative to current time? I mean, from your time listing, I can figure out that someone replied 1 day, 6 hours after request but what if I wanted to know whether it was replied today or not?

How about displaying two measures:
1. Time of note since request was made.
2. Time of note relative to current time.

So, you can display
Note updated: 1 day, 2 hours after request | 10 minutes ago from now

I think two time indicators might get confusing but I am just thinking out loud here. I think both measures are useful. What’s your opinion?

For a public note, I see the link named ‘Public’. I wonder what would happen if I click on that link? Will it display meaning of ‘public’ note or will it take some action?

Why update and close button is disabled? What conditions disable the button?

What are the two up/down arrows next to Add Note?

Another suggestion: I guess you are using monitor with resolution of 1600x1200. How does the screen look if used at 1024x768? What if user increases font size? How about using side bar hide button like Sitepoint.com has? [http://www.sitepoint.com/article/cgi-application] This way, user can hide the Customer Details/Request Details when they want more screen space for Request History?

In general, why don’t you have little (?) next to different options? Clicking / or hovering on the question mark, will give them little info about what the option is supposed to do, with link to full page about feature in help. As your help desk software introduces new terms like ‘Live Lookup’, ‘Reporting Tags’, which are not common for say help desk user. So, instead of them calling help desk administrator about what the feature is about, they can click on the ‘?’ and find out for themselves.

Anyway, overall, I think HelpSpot is looking great! I can’t wait to become the beta tester! In previous MNC I worked, they had help package from Computer Associates and it was terrible! I can clearly see how much support people would like to use your software. I can’t wait to see how does the ‘help desk’ looks for the end user.

Btw, sorry for criticizing so many things. I haven’t really written about why I find the features of HelpSpot useful because you already did good job of it! I wanted to offer suggestions to make it even better, that’s it!

JD

Created by JD on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

Whew! Super extra points for completeness!!!

I'll go through your comments point by point, but in general I think some of your items are just misunderstandings because it is hard to tell exactly how some elements work via just screenshots. That's of course one of the dangers of doing these sneak peeks. Also just as an FYI, in many ways the sneak peeks will be tailored more for potential customers rather than other geeks like myself (and you ). So I won't always go into as much technical detail as I could in the articles. It's a tough thing to balance and I'm still learning, but of course I'm always happy to talk tech! OK here we go:

Top Navigation Bar
1. Yes this is configurable. It could say JD's Help Desk or whatever you'd like.

Logo's are semi supported. The boxes behind the nav is a background image. This can be changed with another one if you like. Custom style functionality is also built in. This may or may not make it as a full feature of v1 but at some point early on customizable styles will be available.

2.a) The home button isn't what you think. It's actually a link out to the help desk portal. The "help desks home". I've gone back and forth on if I should label this portal instead. This is something that will probably not be finalized until everything else is done and it's easier to see which word fits best.

2.b) The underlines are for shortcuts. Browser based shortcuts do take you directly there and do not require you to hit enter in general. Perhaps it's a preference set in your browser? I'll put this in the testing routine to be sure. This will probably stay, but I'll definitely keep it under consideration.

2.c) Customizing the top nav in v1 probably isn't a possibility but it's a good idea. I'll make note.

2.d) The exact width and names of the buttons are still in play. I agree that I don't like the size difference.

3) The whitespace is for sub navigation buttons. Non are shown in this build of HelpSpot but there are things that go there to manage your workspace.

4) Good idea, just put logout on the right. I kinda don't like the location of these links in general but that's where they are for now.

Customer Information Box
1) Pins are required fields. I need to make some adjustments there since the drop downs don't really give you any choice but to fill them in so some of those will probably go away.

2) Customer ID is critical information for a help desk. This is not a HelpSpot generated number/ID it is the unique identifier which an organization uses to identify it's customers. So an organization using HelpSpot for internal IT support may user social security numbers or some generic assigned number as an ID unique to me. This is probably stored in an LDAP server or the like. A consumer organization using HelpSpot may have given you an "account number" which is the same thing. Like when you pay your phone bill and there's an account number on it

When you call any help desk what they almost always ask for first is your "customer ID" though they may call it something else. This is also a key which can be used to perform "live lookups" and get the rest of the information about your account.

3) You really want me to give up all the goods don't you . Well let's just say that I don't really like the whole giving a subject concept. In reality you usually end up having to read the entire request anyway and if your just using it to find the request in a queue there are better ways to do that.

I've also found that having this field tends to waste time for the help desk staff. If you're not familiar with help desk operations you may think this is just like giving an email you're writing a subject, but it isn't. When you're writing an email you know the content of the message perfectly because you're writing it. In a help desk environment that's not the case. Beyond just trying to accurately describe the request in the subject you also end up trying to determine how much information you should put in there and how others might read it,etc. I've seen people spend minutes on this part and those minutes are generally wasted.

Request Details
1. No AJAX calls. You must click update. There is a bunch of complicated logic in this page so unless I was going to do the entire interface as AJAX it wouldn't work. It would be too inconsistent to sometimes use AJAX calls on this page and sometimes not. I did think about it though.

2. This is one where it doesn't show in the screenshots. All 4 of those links below the note box require further action. The customer update button lets you specify a subject for the email to the customer, CC brings up a modal window where you select which staff you want to CC (if you have 100 people in your help desk you don't want to cc them all), and so on. That said I may change customer update a bit. It performs a little differently than the others so that might end up in a different spot.

Request History
The time stuff is alot of fun. I think people will really like it once they get used to it. I like the "last week" idea. But that makes it relative to now instead of the request. I think it would be too confusing to have two sets of times there. If you need to know time related to now you can mouse over the time information and get the exact date and time the history event occurred (it's in an abbr HTML tag).

If you click on the word public, which is linked it will give you the option to make it not public. It's one of the only places where HelpSpot allows editing the history of an event, but if something goes public that shouldn't be it needs to have the option to be taken down. Keep in mind that making notes public is a foreign concept to most help desks where their management system is almost always a totally private system.

I noticed the close button after I published the article. It's a little too light. It's basically just supposed to be lighter than the update only button because there needs to be some contrast between the buttons so it's clear which one to click. Most of the time you'll want the update button not the update and close button.

The up and down arrows increase and decrease the writing area of the note box. Good for long replies ( like this one )

I'm using the wonderful web developer plugin for firefox and have been testing in it. Everything should look fine down to 800X600, though I don't think many people using this type of app would be less than 1024x768 as you mention.

Reclaiming that space is an interesting idea. That's the type of thing I'll probably wait to hear back from customers on and see if we need to do anything in that regard.

I've thought about adding the help ? all over but I don't like it. Here's the issue. This isn't a normal website that someone comes to once in a while. This is the type of app that someone spends all day in because it's there job. After you know what the button does, having those things all over just drives you nuts. Think about if Microsoft Word had those little question marks next to each button.

What I'm planning on is having more of a "new user" help box on each page, which once you know what you're doing you can remove it easily.

Hey thanks for the feedback! That's why I'm posting this on a blog and not on a static web page someplace. Actually it's been really great getting your detailed comments because many of the topics you brought up are items I've given alot of thought to. That really makes me feel like it's been time well spent and that HelpSpots going down the right track.

Created by Ian on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

I guess you are right that I misunderstood few things based on screenshot. For your next sneak peek, I would try to be at higher level features wise rather than at lower level of technical details. Once I get my hand on beta, I should be able to provide you with more useful feedback.

Now I see your point with Customer Id. That's what I had mentioned in my comment. Is it something generated by your client or it's internal to HelpSpot. I was suggesting to get rid of it ONLY if it was internal.

Btw, accesskey short cut doesn't perform action in IE 6. I just verified it on my Windows box. Though in Firefox, it indeed performs link 'click' action. Something you should think about as I think majority of corporate customers will have IE as their default browser.

All your other points are noted. To be honest, I don't have lot of experience working with Help Desks like you do. I am carefully watching what you are doing because I am interested in knowing your business decisions/design decisions, the thought which went behind them. At the same time, I want to throw in my suggestions/criticism and figure out if I am any good. :o) Creating a software proudct is what I want to do once I have gained more experience and have some financial backing with me.

So, when the beta is going to come out?

JD

Created by JD on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

And yes, that Web Developer Plugin is a GOD Send! I can't thank the author, Chris Pederick enough for that time saver he has created!

JD

Created by JD on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

Your feedback is great, keep it up! One of the big things you'll learn and that I don't see talked about very much is tradeoffs. There are lots of them to make. Every minute you spend thinking about size of top nav buttons is a second you're not thinking or working on something else. Especially in a v1 where there's so much work to do because you literally need to build every component. Sometimes you just have to go with what you have. Then in the next few versions work on tweaking things you never got a chance to get perfect. Also you end up in a much better position, because after v1 you'll have alot of customer feedback so you can focus on where the real needs are as opposed to where you think the real needs are.

I hadn't checked the access keys in IE yet but I figured that is what you were talking about. Yes I'm sure they'll be lots of IE users. I'll have to look at that a bit more. I also still have to change all my icons over from png's to transparent gif's since IE doesn't support the transparency in png's well. I see that they will in IE7, but that doesn't do me alot of good.

Created by Ian on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

Oh forgot to answer this one. The Beta is still probably a month and half or so away. I'm not going to really commit to that though. This is probably the only time I'll have with HelpSpot where I'm in total control of the release and can afford to take extra time so that's what we're going to do. When it's running well and all the ducks are in a row then the beta will get going.
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Created by Ian on 05.03.2005 5:05 pm

 

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