Arduous, Non-Bookmarkable Drill-down to Machine-Specific Drivers

[Devhack]

As posted by others,

1. getting a list drivers specific to my machine and OS is an arduous process; for each of the 6 criteria, I have to click to access the drop-down list, click to choose an item from that list, then click "Continue" to go to the next criteria. That's 18 clicks. There are other sites where the drop-down list appears first, and clicking on the selection automatically takes one to the next criteria's drop-down list, essentially eliminating 66% of the clicks.
2. Once I complete the 18 clicks, I'm presented with a list of driver categories, and the first category, "Advanced Systems Management," is always open (why?). To see the driver date & version, I have to click on both the category name then on the "+ Files." So that's a total of 20 clicks just to see the first driver date and version. If I need to confirm the driver's applicability, yet another click, total of 21, to do so.
3. I may have missed some directions somewhere, but what is maddening about the above process is that I can bookmark the list of drivers, but when I come back to that bookmark in a subsequent browser session, I 've got to start from scratch, i.e., 21 clicks. Why am I unable to bookmark that list.
4. I would also like to get, per the original site, a chronological list of machine-OS-specific drivers.

I appreciate the new driver matrix, but neither it nor the RSS feed are substitutes for the above.

Thanks

[Devhack]

Update:

Just read Thorshammer's posting of same issue. 

I'll try it out, but again, I could bookmark the driver list on the old site, and I could come back to it, finding any new drivers since my previous visit.

I'll see if that's what I get with your suggested procedure.

[Cleo_Lenovo Administrator]

Hi Devhack,

I really really appreciate your comments here! This is what we are looking for! We hear our valued users keep saying too many clicks, driver matrix is better, and stuffs like that. However, we didn't have a very clear idea/example to further elaborate the pain faced by users. Anyway, we of course will keep enhancing the support site. Not going to leave it there, even me would not allow it to stop improving.

We have a lot of items to fix, but which one to go first? Our objective here is to listen your very detailed description, to know what exactly you're facing. It is very important for we can ensure which pain we would like to tackle. That's for our users! We want to keep the site useful and not causing inconvenience to any parties.

Well, I have your comments well documented, and will be shared with support team too.

Thanks for your time posting here, Devhack. I do agree with you, driver matrix and RSS are not a substitute for the browse product/auto detect/quick path. Guess I would need to collect more data as a voice of customers, to prove this right....

Anyway, appreciate your help.

Best regards,

Cleo

[ThorsHammer]

You folks could really help some of us by providing a simple vanity URL.

For instance, http://support.lenovo.com/downloads/w520

[Cleo_Lenovo Administrator]

Hi ThorsHammer,

As far as i know, there is no vanity link for a model which displays a whole list of drivers. It does not have specific URL even now, which i know this is the the pain faced by most of the people (mentioned by Devhack too)

Currenly bookmark is available only for document such as specific drivers, hints and tips, simulators, etc.

However, we are now gathering feedback from you guys to decide the direction and enhancement we would like to make. Your vanity link idea would be taken into consideration (of course it needs discussion among the teams and vendors)

So Thors, is that your biggest pain now?

Cleo

[Devhack]

Cleo, Mark,

First, to answer your question to ThorsHammer, but for my own part;  yes, getting easily to a chrono list of machine-specific drivers, and returning to that list with a single click, is of primary importance. It was easily done on the old site, and with the progress of support site software, there should be no reason it can't be done on the new site.

Second, as a substitute, and per previous suggestions, I tried to save a machine-specific driver list as part of my Support Login Account. The results:

1. First, I had to create an account....more clicks & now I have a Support Account, a Forum Account and Customer Account!
2. Then, in the Support Account Preferences, I clicked again to add a machine configuration followed by the 18 (6 by 3) clicks to define the configuration.
3. Then, clicking on the final "Continue" or "Go," it took me back to the Preferences screen, and nothing had been saved.
4. I tried this in Chrome and IE 9 with the same result, i.e., functional failure.

Has anybody successfully saved a configuration that is there the next time they boot up and log in? What may I be doing wrong? Non-default browser settings?

Thirdly, I'm a bit exasperated by the remaining lack of site functionality, both in absolute terms as well as terms relative to the old site, with which this support site was brought live. I'm suffering from beta testing fatigue, or maybe it's pre-alpha testing fatigue. I think I'm done providing feedback and henceforth will simply suffer the lack of functionality while monitoring further developments. Besides, based on my review of posts, you have all the feedback you need. If you really think you need more, convene focus groups of your best customers.

Guys, I'm not being personal or hostile here, just profoundly disappointed and embarrased on Lenovo's behalf. I wish you well in getting all of this squared away. I can only imagine the internal pressures that you may be under. In that regard, I'm reminded of the cynical 6 phases of an IT project that came out of the software development industry. They're humorous, but only from a distance:

1. Unbridled Enthusiasm
2. Total Disillusionment
3. PANIC!!
4. Frantic Search for the Guilty
5. Punishment of the Innocent
6. Promotion of the Uninvolved

A rigorous Customer Needs Analysis phase goes a long way in avoiding the above.

Good luck.

[ConnectDon]

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Cleo_Lenovo wrote:

I do agree with you, driver matrix and RSS are not a substitute for the browse product/auto detect/quick path. Guess I would need to collect more data as a voice of customers, to prove this right....

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I would think that using the current driver matrix as a base and supplementing it with an RSS feed of 100 items (which appears to be the current default) would be more than sufficient to maintain an up to date driver catalog.  Of course, you could also create a sorted by date driver category, drop it to the bottom of the download drivers and software page (so it's out of the way for Lenovo's support personnel), and have a really long web page when it's opened.  It wouldn't be of much use, though, unless you added the release date to the driver/software listings.

One thing I should mention is that I am not not getting 100 items returned from the RSS feed with any consistency.  Indeed, I an not getting the actual files returned with a document page with any consistency, either.  So I'm having to repeat a lot of page requests to obtain the information that I know is there.  This is happening in a number of different locations that have robust internet connections.

Thanks,

Don