Ive been thinking about the “Device integration Request Process” as it stands there is just several threads with hundreds of responses all about different products people want integrated, all of them non related to one another and its very confusing for others to find things of interest to them, which is resulting in a lot of repeat posts/topics… its also hard to see if its worth integrating a product as a developer, not knowing if it will only help you and one other person or if it will be viable solution for a large audience (useful information if monetizing of smartapps / device types etc was to come available later on)
So my new approach idea is very simple, and to be honest not a new idea at all:
A POLL / VOTE SYSTEM . . . Just like the old “FACEBOOK QUESTIONS” post type.
It would be laid out in such a way that under the category “DEVICES & INTEGRATION” they would be a topic for each DEVICE TYPE (Example: CCTV CAMERAS - INTEGRATION POLL // OPEN/CLOSE SENSOR - INTEGRATION POLL // DOOR LOCKS - INTEGRATION POLL // ETC ETC) to which all users of the community can vote on or add an option too. . . within each topic would be several option (to which other users can add there own) and everyone else who has an interest in can vote on, so both SmartThings & Community Developers can see which is the most common and requested integration in that field.
Example of this:
Post Title:
CCTV CAMERAS - Integration Poll
Post Content:
Please vote for the product you feel is most required on our platform in this device type or please add your own product option if you do not see yours listed below…
Tenvis example 01(Click To Vote)
Foscam example 02(Click To Vote)
Dropcam example 03(Click To Vote)
D-Link example 04(Click To Vote)
Add An Answer(Click To Add Option)
Post content would look something like this:
Category View:
Topic View:
Referenced Facebook Feature:
Conclusion:
this way one initial post can hold all the information required to make a judgement on what device withiin each Device Type is the most in need of an integration to please a mass audience of users . . . that would usually take up a whole thread and a lot of time deciphering each persons inputs over hundreds of posts . . .
***What are peoples thought on that?***… it is a nice way to get a fast growing communities needs visualized and gives all users an equal voice, im fairly sure its the same way other tech company’s work with similar situation, if there is a great demand for something, then that becomes a priority.
Polls are a good idea and a way for Smartthings to guage current issues and feature requests. I suggested this to @alex to see how many people find mobile presence unreliable in their households and he liked the idea.
Find out feedback on an update such as the IOS App:
EG:
1.) App has been 100% reliable so far (vote)
2.) I have an issue with tiles showing correctly (vote)
3.) Presence tag is becoming unreliable (vote)
or a feature such as:
EG:
Do you have reguluar issues with the SmartSense Presence Tag:
1.) Not At All (vote)
2.) Once A Month (vote)
3.) Once A Week (vote)
4.) Once A Day (vote)
5.) Once A Hour (vote)
Or even for finding out general interest or quick data from a post/topic:
EG:
Do you have a good WAF/SAF at home:
1.) Not At All (vote)
2.) Fairly Accepted(vote)
3.) Moderate Acceptance (vote)
4.) Accepted (vote)
5.) Very Accepted (vote)
Lists of uses are endless, it should be a feature accessible to all users really on the forum post toolbar:
Polls can be very useful, if you can get people to actually participate. We have a poll every 4 years for who we want to run our country and are amazed if 20% of the citizens actually participate. Yet 50% spend the next 4 years complaining their guy didn’t win.
I also agree wholeheartedly that this forum is near impossible to navigate through all the threads to actually find what I am looking for. I cringe at the thought of being a developer and trying to sort through the posts that actually need attention.
Maybe it is just that since I don’t have my hub yet, that I can’t actually look at the apps. I only see the brief description by the authors as to what they intended the app to do. Or quite possibly I am just looking in the wrong place. I just ass-u-me’d that the smartapps thread was where I would look for the apps.
In your given example poll I would have to vote for Foscam ,since I have 6 of them in various rooms around the house. In the same yet different topic ( IF POSSIBLE) being able to somehow integrate hardwired camera systems would be right up there too. Since I have 2 Q-See 8 channel systems that monitor the exterior of the house and yard. Q-sees get you coming up the drive, porch and to the door. Foscams get you once you get in the door.
tgauchat
(ActionTiles.com co-founder Terry @ActionTiles; GitHub: @cosmicpuppy)
5
Excellent idea @AutomateEverything, but my feedback regarding the idea is net neutral / ambivalent…
There are some really super platforms designed to capture Customer Feedback and product management tasks like feature and bug prioritization. Some give a limited “allowance / quota” of votes which can be allocated in “bids” to various features / bugs. This forces the Customer to prioritize their “spending” based on their personal needs. Much better data this way, I think. Check out UserVoice and UserEcho as a couple examples.
The number of participants here is statistically insignificant when compared to the market size (or even existing Customer base ≈ 100,000).
“Product design by survey” has been discounted as a suboptimal business strategy by many experts.
That is more than fair enough @pstuart@tgauchat . . . But indo think there needs to be a way to break each device type and all ots possible options/products to be integrated up and offer people a chance to show which is most viable for them . . . Otherwise we end up with hundreds of people wsking for foscam integrations whilst they play around with d-link and dropcam etc etc (as only w pure example) the problem stretches much wider
