Editor's note and update (June 12, 2021): This thing is now called the memoQ Users' Ideas Portal and can be accessed HERE.
A bit of background. I attended memoQFest 2019, and during and after this event, a group of us got into discussion, and I compiled a list of features we would like to see added. At this time, memoQ appointed two new people to oversee its development pathway, and the idea of a development portal came up. It was very slow to take form, and I believe an error was to admit that no new suggestions would be considered until 2020.
In closing, I've heard the complaint that we freelancers should have more influence on CAT development. As an informed outsider, I'd estimate that about 20% of the top players' turnover comes from us, so perhaps our demands should be tempered a little.
Thank you, Ralph! The portal has been a long time coming, and I had just about given up on it. But I do hope that The Software Artists Formerly Known As Kilgray will stay committed to this project, because it is sorely needed!
ReplyDeleteKevin, greetings from a long-time reader of yours. I was just about to contact you asking when we the users of https://ideas.memoq.com might see feature suggestions from the memoQ guru that you are, only to find you beat me to it, apparently.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that puzzles me in your post is the statement that you need to email someone to get access. In my experience, Language Terminal access details are more than enough to get in, no emailing required.
Anyway, hope to see you on the memoQ Users' Idea Portal.
Best regards,
Mykhaylo Syzonenko
I thought this idea had died; I heard about it several years ago and thought it a good idea, but the long time to implementation caused me to forget about it. Ralph was more persistent in tracking matters, which is why he's guest posting. I have been involved in suggesting new features for memoQ for a few years before I even became a user. When approached to test the product, I refused for years, because it was too limited. I stated my minimum criteria and waited. And waited. memoQ was not really fully usable for me until version 4.2, when the bilingual RTF tables were introduced after years of insistence on my part.
DeleteThere really needs to be a better way to manage product suggestions from the (potential) user base. For now, this portal seems like the best option.
Hi Kevin,
ReplyDeleteI've also sent several lists of suggestions to memoQ/Kilgray over the years and once was told it would be better to submit them "one by one" and that the lists were checked at regular intervals to see which requests came up most often.
I think a public (votable) list or system would be preferable, because many user's don't even know some features exist or how to put their (new memoQ buzzword) "pain points" into words.
#EvenBetterMemoQ on Twitter was my feeble try to make feature requests more visible, but I'll surely give the development portal a try.
Thanks for your work!
Birgit
The only problem I see with public voting is how that can be skewed by mischief or the kind of complaint campaign I organize quietly to badger the company for feature changes from time to time. The only way I have found consistently effective over the years is to explain patiently, with many examples, why a particular change or feature would be desirable and how profitable that would be. It's usually a process of several tiring years, with the company folk assuming that there won't be much demand, only to find later that the feature or service is one of the most popular. (memoQ Cloud comes to mind here - I started pushing for that as soon as I got to test resources on a Kilgray server for my local projects well over a decade ago. Or those RTF bilingual tables. U.v.m.)
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