Can't see the wood for the trees

[gnorman]

Hi guys

As a long time sporadic reader of the site something has been apparent to me when trying to find specific on DLC in the news section and info on the Grand Tour Special Event in the forums. There is too much info here to be able to find something relatively simple. As an IT consultant I know that if something is too complicated to find, most people won't bother and I don't believe my searches were too obscure not to have a better solution or to conclude that the searches in news and forums are not as helpful as they need to be.

In the news I wanted info on the early DLC but the Google search offered only the latest info that seemed tand trying to go to the next page just took me to the next page of news rather than search results (bug btw). Maybe a tag cloud would have helped as I found what I was after by finding a news item tagged DLC and clicked on the tag. A bit of a long way round to find something relatively simple.

As I don't get time to play GT5 as much as I did with GT1, 2 & 3 I am still trundling through golding special events and licences and everything else. Having completed all the other GTs it is my duty to get there in the end. As I am somewhat out of practice I am struggling on the Grand Tour in SPecial Events and was looking for help. The search threw up nothing useful. Of course I could spend time tweaking a complicated search with no guarantee of success. As an occasional user I have no desire to learn the specifics of the search right now.

Whilst I'm sure people will defend the search, which is fine if you can get it to give you what you want but I never have, I was expecting to be able to browse to the GT5 sub-forum and see a folder structure in there with a list of the different event sets, like Special Events, Licences, Professional A-Spec - stuff like that and then be able to navigate to a series of threads related to what I'm after. As far as I can tell the sub-folders don't go deep enough in their current structure as everything related to the racing is lumped in to Questions & Answers or the main GT5 forum. As a result of the site being so popular there are so many threads related to anything and everything GT5 and the theory of what needs changing etc that something quite easily defined and categorised as a the different events gets lost.

You may point out that I could have posted a question myself, but I would surely have received answers like "Use the search" or "post in the correct forum" or "Groundhog Day" and then I am just part of the problem of too much noise.

In the end I searched on the trollfest that is YouTube and found a video which has helped get within .1 of Gold on the first Grand Tour, but resorting to YouTube for help on GT is not what GTPlanet should be aiming for.

I'm sure it is too late for GT5 sub-forums to get a new structure unless someone has a lot of time on their hands to find relevant threads and repost them there, but consider it a request for GT6 to have more structure in the folders for those that want help with the events when we know what they are.

Cheers

PS Notice how I've made the key points easily visible amongst the waffle

 

[daan]

As I am somewhat out of practice I am struggling on the Grand Tour in SPecial Events and was looking for help. The search threw up nothing useful. Of course I could spend time tweaking a complicated search with no guarantee of success.

There are 40 threads in the GT5 forums that contain the text "grand tour" in the title. I'm sure one of them would have been able to help as pretty much all of them are relevant.

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/search.php Type in your text, restrict the search to thread titles only, and restrict it to the GT5 forums, and voila.

A search is only as good as it's user, and no matter what we do, or how easy it is to search, some people will still not find things.*


* Not aimed at you.

As an occasional user I have no desire to learn the specifics of the search right now.

Although this doesn't help your case.

 

[Eks]

I'm not sure what you're asking. Are you suggesting they improve the search function? (I think it's fine, clicking through some pages never hurt and in the time it took you to type that you could've clicked through some of them) Or are you looking for help with something in GT5?

Edit- And talk about occasional, lol. Only 20 posts in a decade

 

[Guardian]

Can I just ask, what were you trying to find and what did you type in to search?

I ask, because whilst I have no issues with the Search function, it can be a nit-picky when it comes to certain words.

 

[BobK]

It's an open secret that GTP's search is somewhat deficient. Searching for BMW M3 GTR RACE CAR doesn't work too well, for instance, since the search engine ignores anything with three letters or fewer. A couple years back I was looking for information on the Jaguar E-type, but a search on "E-type" returned results on Hondas and Nissans apparently because it thought "Type R" was a match for "E-type".

 

[gnorman]

Thanks for the replies, and blimey daan, I think I recognise your name from gttimes board before that disappeared

There are 40 threads in the GT5 forums that contain the text "grand tour" in the title. I'm sure one of them would have been able to help as pretty much all of them are relevant.

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/search.php Type in your text, restrict the search to thread titles only, and restrict it to the GT5 forums, and voila.

You've identified the problem straight away, restrict the search to thread titles only That would indeed have brought better results assuming the OP named it with a functional title rather than trying to be clever, like mine on this one. Thank you. Golded that one now after about 6 hours of trying, but will know for next time as I will surely need more help.

The search results I was getting back for the whole post seemed to have no relation to the Grand Tour as the search seemed to be using an OR boolean operator rather than an AND between my terms. I tried enclosing the terms in quotes to specify the exact phrase but the results seemed too random and numerous to browse through, especially as some of them reached 100+ pages. That is where the frustration really stemmed from.

I've gone back to the news search too but can't recreate the problem I had with getting to the next page of search results, maybe it was on the iPad, will try later. Ignore that for now, user error unless I can prove otherwise.

A search is only as good as it's user, and no matter what we do, or how easy it is to search, some people will still not find things.*


* Not aimed at you.

Very true, RTFM is my mantra when dealing with support from users. But, systems should always be designed for the lowest common denominator so they are simple, but have the advanced features accessible to those that want them. The news search "powered by Google" has no advanced options unfortunately, and the forum search throws them at you by default, which is what got me. The point being, I was faced with a screen full of fields instead of a simple search bar and an Advanced Search section.

Your point does apply to me though because I should have been capable of finding what I wanted, but the interface put me off.

Although this doesn't help your case.

Let me clarify what I meant. As I tend to come at these things with a 50/50 dev/basic user hat on, I see both sides and you are correct in that I could have taken the time to get to the bottom of it, but the interface needs to encourage this. The forum search does not bring an end user in due to it's complexity and unfriendly layout.

As an occasional end user I am not in and around the site very much, so I don't visit many of the forums and only know from the posts that I see that the post titles and content can be very far removed from the information one requires to help achieve gold in a specific event or test. I could therefore be taking, what could potentially be, significantly more time to learn about how to use the search with the numerous forums available than seems reasonable.

I'm not sure what you're asking. Are you suggesting they improve the search function? (I think it's fine, clicking through some pages never hurt and in the time it took you to type that you could've clicked through some of them) Or are you looking for help with something in GT5?

Can we have a tag cloud for the news section please?
Can there be an Advanced search option for news searching?
Can the form search be restricted to a simple search field with an Advanced Search link to take to the current search options?

EDIT: Can GT5 forums have sub forums added for the missing event areas? There is one for seasonal events, and B-Spec but not for Special Events or Licences. Would make browsing for tips on problematic golds simpler. And the same for GT6 when it is released?

Sure, I don't mind clicking through some search results if I might find what I'm looking for but nothing seemed relevant and some threads were over a hundred pages so that was too much clicking through to bear.

I was looking for help on the Stage 1 of the Grand Tour, but I golded it after a plate of curry for lunch so I'm all good now

Edit- And talk about occasional, lol. Only 20 posts in a decade

Thats what marriage and kids does for you

Can I just ask, what were you trying to find and what did you type in to search?

In the forum search tried Grand Tour Special Event and then "Grand Tour" "Special Event" on Search Entire posts as I don't trust people to title their threads sensibly

 

[daan]

Thanks for the replies, and blimey daan, I think I recognise your name from gttimes board before that disappeared

Yep, that's me. GT3times, as it was back then, was the site that really got me into GT. Only ever had about 3 gold trophies though.... Happy days.

 

[Jordan]

The forum is powered by commercial forum software, and only so much can be done in regards to the search feature. I'll be converting the site to a different platform later this year which will see some changes and improvements in this area, though.

A tag cloud for the news page posts is available at gtplanet.net/tag.

I don't foresee releasing an advanced search for the news blog articles or re-organizing the GT5 forum at this point, but I agree a different organizational structure might work better for GT6.

 

[gnorman]

great, thanks for listening and responding Jordan.

Keep up the good work, you deserve a medal or a gold plated driving rig.