Feature suggestion voting system

The developers of 3dMax started a great system a few years ago to determine what users want most in the way of new features, bug fixes, UI changes etc. They called it the User Voice. Participation is easy. There is room for discussion and clarification. The most wanted ideas quickly, and clearly, rise to the top. Voting is limited in a clever way and forces users to choose their most valued features.

The general rules, copied from: http://3dsmaxfeedback.autodesk.com/forums/80695-general-feature-req...

Each user has 20 votes for each forum
Each idea can have no more than 3 votes by a single user
If you enter an idea, it will cost you 1 vote – therefore try to make sure the idea doesn’t already exist
The more precise and detailed a description you give, the more likely your idea will be considered
When an idea is implemented (or declined), votes are returned to all the users that voted
Users can change their votes at any time
Admins can move, edit and delete ideas as they see fit to better meet the goals of the forum
We will flag ideas that are getting our attention as “under review”. Because of limits on what we can say publicly, that is as far as we can go with commenting on a particular idea. If it is “under review” it simply means we’re studying it for possible implementation or gathering data, but there is no commitment to do it.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jonah Hawk on September 10, 2014 at 10:27am

In a bit of irony, the top most requests are for a fully node based UI...

http://3dsmaxfeedback.autodesk.com/forums/80695-general-feature-req...

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on September 10, 2014 at 11:03am

It seems like a pretty significant effort to get such a site up and running, not to mention it would be difficult (perhaps even impossible?) to tie it to Ning subscriptions. On the other hand, if it works well, it also makes sense to have it for other McNeel products.

I'll mention this to Brian Gillespie, he does a lot of our web stuff.

Permalink Reply by nikos tzar on September 10, 2014 at 11:36am

The developers of 3dsmax don't have a direct open dialog with their users and so this system makes sense (note this: "Because of limits on what we can say publicly, that is as far as we can go with commenting on a particular idea").

With grasshopper on the other hand things are very different, with David being really active on this forum and new ideas being discussed and finalized with the users.

Personally I wouldn't like anything to interfere with this direct communication.

Permalink Reply by Jonah Hawk on September 10, 2014 at 12:47pm

Sure, I'm not suggesting that McNeel take on all of Autodesk's policies. It is difficult though for a person new to the conversation to jump into the "Pain Points" conversation (or the entirety of the forums) and contribute effectively to the development of grasshopper. There are a ton of ideas out there. A voting system could augment the current discussion, help quantify those ideas and help McNeel understand what the majority (of forum readers) wants.

To be fair to Autodesk, they do interact with users on forums and in user groups. But they are a publicly traded corporation and do have trade secrets. Hence the limits on what they can say.

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