I have experienced the same frustration that's been shared publicly and privately with me by many others -- that of not being able to access Virtual Office or their web sites and not knowing how or why it was occurring or if anyone at AA even knows at the time.  And then not knowing when/if it was resolved.   (See "Advanced Access Anomalies" for current list of other major issues.)

In addition, no updates/changes/replacements are announced before, during or anytime after they are implemented.  You find out by surprise (literally startled in some situations) when you go to perform a function and you get a completely different/foreign screen with no instruction on how to use it.  I call these "Stealth Updates". 

It would be great to have a status area / announcement area on the screen that is displayed after logging in so that you could get reliable / up-to-date status news and announcements of planned updates, known bugs and new changes.  You can keep them short, link to a readme page if necessary for details.   Since people viewing this information will be only registered users, there is no need to be anything but forthright about all problems, since the users have probably already experienced them or soon will.   It's important that this is only implemented if AA will be able to insure that it is accurate, timely, honest and consistent over a long period of time.  [And, please, do not rely on programmers/developers to do this.]

Another suggestion when doing updates is to make sure new/updated/changes features are alpha tested by a QA test group then beta tested with a group of willing AA users before going live for everyone. (You will probably get numerous volunteers who would enjoy helping out.  You can provide testers with a credit or a free feature while they are beta testing as an incentive.)  Every update to date has had major install problems, bugs and onging outstanding issues. 


BTW, I commented briefly on the Menu structure in my prior post, "My Ongoing Experiences As An Advanced Access Client - Part 2".  I want to add that it appears the menu placement is decided in a bottom-up manner. By that I mean if they have a new or different function and need to insert a new or renamed menu entry for it, they will plug it in any menu branch that comes closest to making sense -- knowing what it does and it's name.  However, for most users (especially new or first-time users of the function), they will approach from a top-down route and it's not always clear (nor intuitive) how to reach the desired function (or what name it goes by).



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Copyright 2008 by Lawrence Yerkes. All Rights Reserved.