Fwd: What's going on with Ubuntu One? (Status reports in the interface)

[Matt Griffin]

Hi Scott,

I don't monitor the ubuntu-devel discussion list but was forwarded your
message. Thank you for the honest feedback. This topic is top of mind
for the Ubuntu One team right now and we're approaching it in multiple ways.

1. General customer service
We are currently reviewing all of our customer service processes in
order to make them better. They were originally setup almost 12 months
ago when Ubuntu One was in an early beta stage and had a very early
adopter customer. We recognize that these processes and methods are not
transitioning well as we become a more mature suite of services and
start to reach new types of customers who have different tolerances.

This customer service revamp will include better direction to customers
about which resources to use to communicate with us as well as with each
other. We know there's a lot of value with users helping each other so
we will continue to promote those channels.

2. Ubuntu One Status - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOne/Status
This is a relatively new tool that we're using to provide a quick
snapshot of the services and some tips of what may be causing issues for
a large number of customers. We will do a better job with promoting this
area more on the Ubuntu One website so customers can easily check the
status of the service before they open a new bug or consider upgrading.

3. Updating our status
One thing that we've noticed since the launch of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS is
that our new Status page needs to communicate progress as well as when
things are fixed. With the current file and data (contacts) sync
problems, just telling customers that we're aware of the issue and that
we'll fix it only works for so long. Fixing the problems has been a long
process involving research, outside contractors, development, and
testing, but we haven't done a good job with telling customers about
these activities which have brought us close to a solution. If we could
tell customers that we will have a feature fixed on x date, we would. I
think the next best thing would be to give them confidence that we are
making progress towards a solution.

4. Desktop notifications
Ubuntu One is lacking in ways to communicate with customers on what's
happening right now on their desktop. In 9.10, we had a small applet.
This was very helpful because it conveyed sync status to customers. We
are considering similar options for 10.10. One feature would enable us
to send messages to a customer's desktop about the current status of the
service. It's very similar to what you have described. Here's the bug
number: https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntuone-servers/+bug/475750

We would appreciate any feedback that you have on these four areas and
if you think we're missing something. Thanks for your support and feel
free to contact me anytime.

Matt Griffin
matt.griffin at canonical.com



> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Scott Ritchie <scott at open-vote.org>
> Date: Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 1:52 AM
> Subject: What's going on with Ubuntu One? (Status reports in the interface)
> To: Ubuntu Devel <ubuntu-devel at lists.ubuntu.com>
>
>
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOne/Status seems to indicate a litany of
> issues affecting the service, with most features either nonfunctional or
> outright disabled.
>
> A few users that I've introduced to Ubuntu have been complaining to me
> privately (and some not so privately).  It's not clear to me where such
> discussion is supposed to take place - wiki pages are not a forum,
> scattered launchpad bug reports aren't accessible to common users, and
> there doesn't seem to be a clear statement about what the main issue is
> or when it's expected to be fixed (too much demand / too few servers?)
>
> Particularly infuriating to some is that this is a paid service, and
> there's no indication that it might not work or is partially disabled
> until after purchasing.  That has made some people VERY angry.
>
>
> The best place for communicating with users is, of course, their
> desktop.  Perhaps it would be best if System->Preferences->Ubuntu One
> had some sort of dynamic content area for messages from Canonical -
> stuff like explanations for outages, current offerings or discounts, and
> so on.  This at least would reduce the anger when things go wrong as it
> would feel like a more active communication from Canonical.
>
> Then again, perhaps I've simply missed the larger discussion elsewhere
> (or perhaps I'm merely duplicating ideas that have been discussed
> privately).
>
> Thanks,
> Scott Ritchie
>
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>
>   

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