Community Redesign – Modernizing the Autodesk Forums - Feedback

[CGBenner]

[06/26/2025]

Post to the latest blog on the release this week

[06/11/2025]

Post to the latest blog on the release this week

[05/30/2025]

Post to the latest shareout of the listing of elements found / solved

Blog post to the latest announcement of the final migration round on the community

[5/15/2025]

The latest blog post is live and covers everything on the behind-the-scenes updates that are happening.

[5/7/2025]

The April Release Blog post is now live with updates on the Industry Hubs and more.
________________________________________________________________________________________

[Blog link in original post updated 3/6/2025]

Clarification as requested - 2/14/2025:  Any feedback in this forum thread that does not directly say that a feedback form has been submitted, and even some that does, is being captured and logged for the team to look into.  We may not respond directly to each post but we will add a "Like" to the post to indicate that we have seen and logged it.  If we have anything meaningful that we can add at the moment, we will reply with that.  If we do not reply, it means that we simply don't have anything to add to that request at the time.  We are adding links to the posts that we submit, and giving details on which individual post the team should look at, as well as including any images you share.  We do not have a way to add videos to the feedback form, but these are still welcome and appreciated, and we make a note of it on the form when we submit it so the team knows to look for the video.  Thank you!

Hello Community! 
 
As you can see from this recent blog post on our Autodesk Community Blog, the Autodesk Community Forums will soon be getting a new look and feel.  This new look is part of our efforts to modernize the community and place key resources where you can more easily find them. 
 
Some of you have had an early look at these updates during our recent A/B testing across the community. We extend our sincere thanks to everyone who shared their feedback during this phase. Your insights and comments have been instrumental in refining this design.  Here are some of the changes you will see: 

• Updated Forums experience: Enhanced navigation, optimized mobile experience, new threaded posts and the ability to upvote content. 

• Recommended content: Explore new content sections featuring suggested blog posts, events, and additional resources tailored to your interests.  

• Recognition for top contributors: Visual recognition to help you get to know the most active members in the community. 

• Changes based on your A/B test feedback: We’ve made several updates based on your valuable feedback detailed in the Product News posts on our Autodesk Community Blog.  

We would love to continue to hear your feedback on this redesign, so we have created a feedback form, which you can bookmark for future use, to report any issues or suggestions that you have. 
 
For more details on this release, I invite you to read the full blog post on our Community Blog. 

Thank you all for being a part of this Community! 

[kerry_w_brown]

@CGBenner,  et al

The message mentioned above was regarding a member on the Top Contributers List for the .Net forum who has not made a posting in that forum.

Also, the member is attributed with 9 Solutions which are all self awarded.

This has been mentioned previously.

Regards,

[ChrisRS]

You can check your PMs by clicking on the barely visible Envelope notification icon at the upper right. See if you have a sent PM. The spam flooding message it finicky and lets you send again in about 6 minutes.

[kerry_w_brown]

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@ChrisRS wrote:

You can check your PMs by clicking on the barely visible Envelope notification icon at the upper right. See if you have a sent PM. The spam flooding message it finicky and lets you send again in about 6 minutes.

---

As mentioned, I checked the message notification icon . . . nothing.

I don't know it it was even sent once ( as far as I know ).    finicky you say . . . how long has it been like that I wonder ?

I laughed out loud when I read this:

https://www.autodesk.com/customer-value/overview

Regards,

[ChrisRS]

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@kerry_w_brown wrote:

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@ChrisRS wrote:

You can check your PMs by clicking on the barely visible Envelope notification icon at the upper right. See if you have a sent PM. The spam flooding message it finicky and lets you send again in about 6 minutes.

---

As mentioned, I checked the message notification icon . . . nothing.

I think we will be better off when I stop reading and replying from my phone. No offence intended.

I don't know if it was even sent once ( as far as I know ).    finicky you say . . . how long has it been like that I wonder ?

I sometimes want to PM more than one person. If I Copy-Address-Paste-Send too quickly or too often, I get the flooding Message. If I send short individual messages too quickly, I get a flooding message. I am pretty sure any message that has been sent will show up in your notification list. This has been happening as long as I have used PMs.

If allowed, PMs to small groups would be a good collaboration tool.  

I laughed out loud when I read this:

https://www.autodesk.com/customer-value/overview

Not me.

Regards,

---

Regards,

[georgekhancock784]

Great Post

[CGBenner]

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@Curtis_Waguespack wrote:

Issue:

mobile cuts off breadcrumbs so you cannot navigate up one level

See image

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I reported this one last week while I was travelling.  The ticket is in with the team, it is not working as intended.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

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@CGBenner wrote:

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@Curtis_Waguespack wrote:

Issue: mobile cuts off breadcrumbs so you cannot navigate up one level

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I reported this one last week while I was travelling.  The ticket is in with the team, it is not working as intended.

---

[m_kingdon]

I've noticed that community managers are now in the place where the top contributors used to occupy, I believe this is a recent change?  Top contributors were relegated to the bottom of the page several months ago.  I think having the community managers here is a decent design choice, but it would be nice to have the top contributors here also, maybe in two columns. 

Having the top contributors relegated to the bottom of the page still feels like a slap across the face.

[CGBenner]

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@m_kingdon wrote:

I've noticed that community managers are now in the place where the top contributors used to occupy, I believe this is a recent change?  Top contributors were relegated to the bottom of the page several months ago.  I think having the community managers here is a decent design choice, but it would be nice to have the top contributors here also, maybe in two columns. 

Having the top contributors relegated to the bottom of the page still feels like a slap across the face.

---

This is another one that has been mentioned many times, but we found in recent discussions that it's almost a 50/50 split between those who love seeing the leaderboards for inspiration, and those who hate them because they create unnecessary competition.  I suspect that, at least for now, we won't see any changes on this one.  I've been wrong a few times on all of this, so let's wait and see....  Thanks, Mike!

[Curtis_Waguespack]

I have no strong opinion on the new leader boards in general. But the optics of moving that to the bottom and adding community managers to that more visible position are not great. It gives the appearance of Autodesk shoving users out of the way to put employees in the front of the line. I'm sure that is not the actual intent, but that is the look this gives. And it mirrors what we've seen through out this update project concerning the treatment of users and the user experience, in favor of what Autodesk thinks is best for Autodesk rather than what is best for the user experience.

But the biggest issue I see is with what we had vs. what we now have, and what we lost with Top Contributors vs Leader Boards. And that is the erasing of the memory of our past community members who's contributions were important in building the content and spirit of the different product communities. The fact that this new version of our community bowdlerized the memory and recognition of long term contributors like Mark Lancaster from the forum boards is yet another symptom of the lack of awareness and clumsiness with which this modernization project has impacted not just the community as whole, but the smaller product communities within the larger community.

[a.laasW8M6T]

Yes there are some past prolific contributors to the Fusion Manufacture forum like Daniel Lyall(passed away a some years ago) and engineguy(haven't heard from him in a while but had some health issues) that now have the scale of their contributions erased with the removal of the leaderboards.

Also the current Top Contributors ranking appears to be somewhat more arbitrary than before, and yes having it at the bottom of the page is silly, the only reason you see it now is due to the bug that means almost every time you go back in the browser it jumps to the bottom of the page(which is supposed to be fixed in a future  update)

Another thing I have noticed since the Industry hubs release is a huge uptick in new users posting to the incorrect forums, which appears to be the opposite effect of what industry hubs was supposed to do.

Mostly this has been people posting design related questions in the Manufacture forum, but there have been a couple where the users have posted in Completely unrelated product forums.

This seems interesting:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-support-forum/don-t-forget-to-quot-select-a-board-quot/td-p/95...

Maybe the forums are getting confused as to where they are?

[m_kingdon]

@CGBennerthanks for the response.  That is a fair point.  I never got the competition vibe myself but I can understand why other users would, especially newer users.  I am probably adding some symbolism into this design choice.  @Curtis_Waguespack sums it up well.

This design change could've been handled better but at least the overall design is coming together now 👍

[m_kingdon]

@CGBenner 
So I am trying to get back into being an active user on the Civil 3D forum. I find browsing through the forum looking for posts with no replies a bit frustrating because the number of replies count for each thread is in a different place, depending on the length of the post title.

I really think a solution to this needs to be part of the next update.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Search defaulting to All Community?

I thought this was recently fixed to default to "This Board"?

I'm seeing this default to "All Community" just now.

Are others seeing this default?  Or did I imagine that it was defaulting to the expected "This Board" filter last week? 

If I did imagine it, is there a reason it cannot default to "This Board" as has been requested, and as it would be expected?

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Request: Tools tips.

There are a lot of places where there are no tooltips to tell us what a certain option does. But here the tools tips just repeat the filter name. That is not helpful. These should explain the filters. For example, I think I know what "This Category" does, but it would be better if the users didn't need to guess what Category meant in this context, and the tooltip informed them  what that selection is all about.

 

[kerry_w_brown]

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@Curtis_Waguespack wrote:

Search defaulting to All Community?

I thought this was recently fixed to default to "This Board"?

I'm suddenly seeing this default to "All Community" again.

Are others seeing this default?  Or did I imagine that it was defaulting to the expected "This Board" filter last week? 

You aren't hallucinating @Curtis_Waguespack 

The default has changed again , it was targeting the current 'board'

added:  

In fact, it was mentioned twice in the list of accomplishments 🙂

[quote]

Resolved and released 

The following issues were resolved in the most recent release.   

• Set search filter based on where you are 

• Search is defaulted to "All Community" instead of current board 

[/quote]

Regards,

[Curtis_Waguespack]

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@m_kingdon wrote:

@CGBenner 
So I am trying to get back into being an active user on the Civil 3D forum. I find browsing through the forum looking for posts with no replies a bit frustrating because the number of replies count for each thread is in a different place, depending on the length of the post title.

I really think a solution to this needs to be part of the next update.

---

Agreed. 

@ChrisRS had a very nice mock up of an intuitive version of this recently. 

The current layout is creating "cognitive leaks" in that it makes the user think about the wrong things. In this case, we as users need to interpret the disjointed layout of information first, in order to use that information to do what we are wanting to do in the first place. 

When users questioned all of this sort of thing in the early office hours meetings, we were told they were using style guides to determine the layout of these things. I think this is a strong example of what happens when designs blindly follow guides without considering the user experience.

[Curtis_Waguespack]

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@kerry_w_brown wrote:  You aren't hallucinating @Curtis_Waguespack 

Dang! I thought licking that brightly colored frog I saw in the yard earlier was actually going to work this time. 🐸 /jk

Thanks for confirming. I thought that was the case, but then began to think I was remembering incorrectly. 

It's very concerning to see things randomly revert back like this. 

[Cadguru42]

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@Curtis_Waguespack wrote:

Search defaulting to All Community?

I thought this was recently fixed to default to "This Board"?

I'm seeing this default to "All Community" just now.

Are others seeing this default?  Or did I imagine that it was defaulting to the expected "This Board" filter last week? 

If I did imagine it, is there a reason it cannot default to "This Board" as has been requested, and as it would be expected?

---

You're not alone. I just did a search and the same thing happened. Had to change what board was being searched. Autodesk just can't help themselves. There's no quality control or testing being done.

[kacper.suchomski]

A lot of things have disappeared from my profile:

• name
• description
• profile picture
• links:
  • website
  • LinkedIn

How did it happen?