About 2 years ago, the Quest Board of Directors gave the staff an overarching goal – double community membership by 2017.  Doing so presented an opportunity to take a fresh look at some of the resources offered to members in order to improve the services available.  As part of this analysis, we reached out to a variety of website users to gather feedback, share opinions, and guide us on how our members are using the site.  This usability study was an invaluable experience for the Quest team, as it gave us stronger insights into how our members use the site, their expectations when visiting, and the resources they found most valuable.

With that in mind, the board made the decision to move in a new direction – specifically, designing a new website that encompasses the expectations, needs and requirements of the professional users that we serve. It was also crucial to do so without sacrificing the spirit of the unique and independent JD Edwards and PeopleSoft communities that we’ve been building.  It’s been a long and winding road, but the Quest staff is now happy to announce plans to launch an updated website community to address these specific needs of our customers and vendors alike.

Usability Study Summary

They say that every great journey begins with the first step.  In the story of our journey, the first step was taken by a randomly-selected group of website users, covering a variety of user types who were willing to give up their time to participate in a full website usability study.  This included Online Learning participants, conference attendees, group leaders, and the kitchen sink.  From those conversations, we learned a great deal:

• Visitors to the site don’t want to spend a great deal of time looking for a resource
  • Visitors want to get the necessary information quickly, and then go on with their work day – the need to “get in and get out” after finding the answer to their problem is crucial
• Ease of navigation –  intuitive, easy-to-understand information architecture is critical
  • New users aren’t clear on what the site has to offer
  • Main navigation bar is the primary way that users navigate the site, but the menu bar can be simplified
  • Heavy usage of the Content Library, but mixed reactions towards ease of navigation
• Users visit the site for three primary reasons:
  • Training/Educational resources and presentations
  • Networking functions – SIG Involvement and forum discussions
  • Event information & Registration

As the primary user group for technology professionals, there is obviously a great need for our technology to match the expectations of the savviest of users. To meet these expectations, we are making some significant changes and updates to our site components, related to the primary reasons to access the site:

Resource Library

In analyzing the usage of the site, it became apparent that the resources found in the Content Library are an invaluable tool for the members of the community. However, the amount of content in the library presents a problem; in particular, how do users of the site navigate the library to find exactly what they need?

To address this need, the content library will employ a more robust taxonomy manager, allowing users to filter their choices down by product, module, industry, hot topic, and source.  Users will still be able to use a full site search when searching for a specific term or topic as well.

Groups

As an independent user group, the Quest community is only as strong as the users that are participating in it.  Special Interest Groups are the centerpiece of the Quest community, and in the past year, participation in Quest groups has increased by 15%. Recognizing the important and strategic influence that these groups play in the Oracle ecosystem, the re-launched group portal on www.questdirect.org will improve the networking opportunities that members receive year-round.

Rather than “reinvent the wheel” and completely redesign group pages, our designers have taken the feedback gathered from users and put forth an improved version of the groups that you are already a part of.   With that in mind, there were two main goals when relaunching our groups:

1. Make it simple for the viewer to explore content, while making benefits of joining the group immediately apparent
2. Improve networking opportunities between members of the group (specifically, outside of the regular group meetings/calls)

In order to achieve these goals, the new website will include improved moderation for group leaders, improved messaging explaining what a paid member can access, and a more intuitive user interface in the group pages themselves.

Discussion Forums

In tandem with the improvements to our group pages, the overall site discussion forums will undergo heavy renovations in order to comply with the feedback gathered during our usability study.  To address the need for our users to get relevant answers quickly, the Quest website will offer a site-wide community-driven question-and-answer forum, rather than the classic style that currently exists on our site.

This new style will allow a user to post a question, follow that particular topic for updates, and then vote for the “best” answer to their question.  Furthermore, this new forum style will allow users the option of replying to a post via email notification, eliminating some of the classic barriers to entry that a user currently experiences.  Following the original post, any customer in the community will have the option of voting or replying to the topic at hand.  In doing so, website users will be able to take advantage of the collective voice of the community to identify the best solutions presented, rather than relying on Quest staff to source the solution.

Fans of the classic forum style will not have to worry, however.  The new group pages will feature group-specific discussion forums, employing the current Original Post – reply – reply model.  Both forum styles lend themselves to different uses; the Q&A-style forums are available for how-to tips, quick questions and troubleshooting conversations (basically, the “how do I fix this?”) whereas the group forums are available for industry-related discussions, strategic discussions that affect your product and module, and conversations that don’t necessarily have a ready-made solution.

In Conclusion

The Quest community is made up of busy, hard-working professionals.  Research shows that PeopleSoft and JD Edwards users drive better business results, achieve a higher satisfaction with their Oracle product, and build meaningful IT relationships by leveraging Quest’s user-led, user-driven community. Under that understanding, the Quest website will help members of the community eliminate the time searching for a solution, and replace it with time spent networking and learning.