Re: New BT Mail Layout - Page 52

oldles · ‎19-07-2019

The fact that a some of the ' sages ' here are suggesting... don't use it... would indicate this version of BT webmail is not fit for purpose ..

Note My reminising was posted to give some indication as to my experience with the IT world .. perhaps i should have typed ... seen it all before..

gg30340 · ‎19-07-2019

If you check you will see that the "sages" have been saying not to use webmail but to instead use an email client long before this incarnation of BT email user interface came into being.

That applies to any webmail not just BT's one.

piglet22 · ‎19-07-2019

disgruntled4

I'm not sure what you mean by

"Sean has recently admitted that we are Beta Testers and is it just the few posting on the forum that are the Beta Testers. "

I don't get the impression that the new e-mail offering has been beta tested, or if it was, it must have been just within the company, or a select number of invited customers. I also don't think that this BT Community forum is the official, if it exists, beta testing program.

In it's best form, beta testing is the early offering of a product or software to potential users in order to gauge opinion and iron out faults, like testing a prototype. The carrot is to get to try the a product or software ahead of mainstream users or get maybe a free version. Companies get the opportunity to get it right before production release. Microsoft runs Insider Programs which is beta testing for their products.

The difference is that a beta product is clearly marked as such and the user takes the risk of using it.

BT should be a big enough company to know the rules. Unless someone knows better, this has just come off the drawing board and stuck out on the BT mail customers. First Direct Bank has just revamped their website, but at least gave customers warning. Arduino (micro-controller development boards) issue early versions of their software and Ubuntu (Linux) issue Long Term Support versions that presumably have gone through thorough beta testing. I used to buy industrial products and quite often was offered a free product on the condition I gave the company feedback. Right now I have a light dimmer from a well known company, free of charge, to test for them.

Someone or some team in BT sanctioned this "update" and the way it was rolled out, but are keeping a low profile.

Whether you are a BT customer by virtue of Phone, mobile, broadband etc. or pay for e-mail services only, you deserve better than this. AGMs are another route.

Kipper1946 · ‎19-07-2019

I have to say I have become more used to the latest Webmail interface, a lot depends on the quality of your monitor screen and adjustments. After reading very many of the grumblings about it I believe BT brought this upon themselves in the manner they have launched it with little or no warning. I still think folk with less than perfect vision must struggle a bit with the 1-2pixel lines etc. The frames and lines seemed to be more distinctive on the previous version. I wish to stay with it and hope it will be tweaked a bit.

disgruntled4 · ‎19-07-2019

Hi piglet22,

You say “”I'm not sure what you mean by: "Sean has recently admitted that we are Beta Testers and is it just the few posting on the forum that are the Beta Testers. I don't get the impression that the new e-mail offering has been beta tested "

What I tried to point out was what you have very accurately described in your post ie that new versions should be Beta tested by customers who for whatever reason have agreed to take on that role as a Beta tester. BT have not done that. They have done their Beta testing by inflicting the product without warning as Sean explained when he said the following.

@SeanDwrote: “”The rollout of the new webmail design started towards the end of last year and it is being rolled out in stages. The reason for this, in part, is so that the product team can review feedback from customers and then try and make improvements to the design and rollout process before the next batch of customers gets moved over.””

You and I are reluctant Beta Testers.

Sean did not give a figure for the number of customers in each rollout batch. I am pleased to see gg30340 has not left and he has confirmed that the "update" has been rolled since December 2018 in batches of 50,000 users. It would be interesting to know how each 50,000 batch was decided upon. I have asked 26 BT users in my locality whether they have been moved over and they have not. If 50.000 a month were moved over then the new email should be out to around 400,000 customers by now. Somehow I do not believe that figure as this forum should be on at least 100,000 postings by now if that were the case. Somewhere in the region of 399,950 customers have received the rollout without any warning and just accepted that without any complaint. I think not. Perhaps Sean could tell the Forum exactly how many customers have been moved over, how the batches of customers are chosen and perhaps he could agree to post on this forum each product change that is made before the next rollout.is made. If there are now 400,000 customers on the new mail product one option would be for BT to conduct a survey of those 400,000 customers on whether they wish to use the old or the new system. This could be referred to as a BTEXIT Referendum.

piglet22 · ‎19-07-2019

disgruntled4

Thanks for that.

50000 is a nice round number or BT's capacity to send out updates

I have only recently been "done" when the ux appeared in the URL a week or so ago Did you check your 26 to see if ux appeared?

We won't get a figure of updated customers from BT. I'm guessing that 400,000 is conservative.

The number of people getting this far in the forum with good or poor opinions on the change, is going to be be a minute percentage of those receiving the update. I'm also guessing that a very high percentage may not like it, but won't or can't complain.

Another unknown is the number of people who might have commented through a feedback link.

If this made onto Watchdog or similar, BT would put someone up and they would say "we've only had a handful of complaints, so what's the problem?"

Relying on feedback is hardly a good method to test a product. Even a new teabag would go though a blind testing panel. I don't think BT had any intention of putting this out for anything better than getting feedback. If there was formal beta testing, then it's well hidden. I hope they learn from this, but on the scale of things, e-mail layouts are small beer. But out there somewhere, there is someone in BT who thought this was a good idea. That good idea must have gone up through the management hierarchy for approval and signing off.

I'm all for change when it's good and improves the "user experience". Microsoft partly learnt that lesson by now do versions of an established product, rather than the horrible succession of stuff like Windows 95, 98, ME, Vista etc.

Andy_N · ‎19-07-2019

@piglet22wrote:
The number of people getting this far in the forum with good or poor opinions on the change, is going to be be a minute percentage of those receiving the update. I'm also guessing that a very high percentage may not like it, but won't or can't complain.
Another unknown is the number of people who might have commented through a feedback link.
If this made onto Watchdog or similar, BT would put someone up and they would say "we've only had a handful of complaints, so what's the problem?"

This is where nearly every single company gets it wrong. They look at the complaint issue the wrong way around. It's no point saying 95% of folk are happy, what they should be concentrating on is the 5% who are not and get to the bottom of why. Some of those could be simple user error or indeed misunderstanding, but a lot are not.

Again, the coders need to come to these forums and use "real world examples", not simply be stuck in a back room with huge screens and powerful computers. You would hope that they have a few small laptops, tablets etc with various browsers to try the system on before releasing it.

gg30340 · ‎19-07-2019

@disgruntled4 wrote:

Hi piglet22,

You say “”I'm not sure what you mean by: "Sean has recently admitted that we are Beta Testers and is it just the few posting on the forum that are the Beta Testers. I don't get the impression that the new e-mail offering has been beta tested "

What I tried to point out was what you have very accurately described in your post ie that new versions should be Beta tested by customers who for whatever reason have agreed to take on that role as a Beta tester. BT have not done that. Could you please explain how you know this was not done or are you just making an assumption. They have done their Beta testing by inflicting the product without warning as Sean explained when he said the following.

@SeanDwrote: “”The rollout of the new webmail design started towards the end of last year and it is being rolled out in stages. The reason for this, in part, is so that the product team can review feedback from customers and then try and make improvements to the design and rollout process before the next batch of customers gets moved over.””  That does not make you a Beta Tester. It is what any firm would do when they introduce any new product. Review feedback and make changes if required.

You and I are reluctant Beta Testers.

Sean did not give a figure for the number of customers in each rollout batch. I am pleased to see gg30340 has not left and he has confirmed that the "update" has been rolled since December 2018 in batches of 50,000 users. It would be interesting to know how each 50,000 batch was decided upon. Why, what difference would it make?

I have asked 26 BT users in my locality whether they have been moved over and they have not.  Are there only 26 users in your locality? Do you know how many in your locality have been moved over or have you not asked them all?

If 50.000 a month were moved over then the new email should be out to around 400,000 customers by now.   Somehow I do not believe that figure as this forum should be on at least 100,000 postings by now if that were the case. So how many posting should there be for each batch of people "moved" over or are you just making up numbers?

Somewhere in the region of 399,950 customers have received the rollout without any warning and just accepted that without any complaint. I think not.  Would "warning" people have made a difference to the number of complaints ?

Perhaps Sean could tell the Forum exactly how many customers have been moved over, how the batches of customers are chosen and perhaps he could agree to post on this forum each product change that is made before the next rollout.is made. If there are now 400,000 customers on the new mail product one option would be for BT to conduct a survey of those 400,000 customers on whether they wish to use the old or the new system.  This could be referred to as a BTEXIT Referendum. Depending on the result would there then have to be a second or third referendum until you get the result you want?

This might not be of any use because you have said that you are already a Beta Tester for BT but in case any other forum user is interested in becoming a BT tester you should have a look at this link.

https://community.bt.com/t5/Announcements-Guides-Community/Become-a-BT-product-trialist/td-p/697374

ypt · ‎19-07-2019

It would be too much to hope that this was to rectify our problems!

gg30340 · ‎19-07-2019

@Andy_N wrote:

Again, the coders need to come to these forums and use "real world examples", not simply be stuck in a back room with huge screens and powerful computers. You would hope that they have a few small laptops, tablets etc with various browsers to try the system on before releasing it.

If you haven't used the new BT Mail UI how do you know that it doesn't work on the devices you have mentioned?

I have used it on a smart phone, tablet, small laptop/netbook, normal laptop and a PC with 21" screen and I have found it works on all of them.

If I remember correctly one of the posters who was having problems was because he had the screen view set at over 125% and this caused the menu bar to "hide" some of its icons which is what I would expect to happen if you increase the view percentage, ie enlarge the page beyond what the screen can display.