Third Planned Updates to LEGO Ideas

It has been a busy last few weeks on the LEGO Ideas blog, first the second planned update to LEGO Ideas were announced a few weeks ago, next the release of the Caterham Super Seven, then the announcement of the results of the First 2016 Ideas review period, just yesterday The Beatles Yellow Submarine was revealed, and now today they are announcing the third and final planned updates to the LEGO Ideas platform for 2016. You can read the official blog post here or at the end of this post after my thoughts.

This planned update does not have as many major changes as the first two updates, which were primarily focused on improving the quality of projects on LEGO Ideas. Instead this update is focused more in streamlining the project supporting and project submittal processes.

Here are my thoughts on the changes:

• It has been so long since I was a new member, that I do not remember this problem, but it seems like it will help streamline things for those who are signing in on LEGO Ideas for the first time.
• I really like this update. It makes it much easier to support a project (not that it was that difficult before, but still, I like this update a lot!). I especially like the "All" button option when choosing who would most likely be interested in the potential set.

• Not a huge update, removing the check box when submitting a project will help streamline things a bit.
• I like that the "Delete"  and "Preview" buttons are moved up to the top right on the project submittal page now.

• The auto save feature will be nice when submitting a project for review. Now people will not have to remember to save their project periodically as LEGO Ideas will do it for them.
• I have not run into this problem personally, but I am sure for people who submit multiple projects in close succession this will be a nice feature.

What are your thoughts on the third planned updates? Let me know in a comment below!

Posted October 13th, 2016 on the LEGO Ideas blog:

Today we’ve released the third and final planned update to the LEGO Ideas website for fall 2016. This time, we streamlined the Support and Submit Project flows:

• New Members Return to Project Page – If a new visitor entered LEGO Ideas on a specific project page, once they create their account and verify their email, LEGO Ideas now returns them to the project so they can support the project. We hope this means more new members convert into actual supports on your projects.
• Support Survey – We’ve removed the images from the supporter survey and tightened it up so it should not need to scroll anymore within the window.
• Submit page – We removed the checkbox confirming your agreement to the Guidelines, and replaced it with a Submit button. You’re still asked to confirm agreement to the Terms on the final page before you submit.
• Submit Flow – The bottom control bar buttons are now more intuitive. Specifically we moved the "Delete Project" and "Preview" buttons to the right column above the Project Tile preview.
• Auto Save – Projects now auto-save when you make a change. You may see a yellow alert banner below the Progress Bar.
• "Save and Exit" button now appears if you submit a new project with another project still Awaiting Approval. A tool tip reminds you that you can save your progress, but have to wait to submit until a moderator has looked at your other project.

This is the last user experience update for a while. But don't worry, we're building the foundation for even more improvements to the LEGO Ideas experience in 2017 and beyond. We're also looking forward to the next wave of 10k Club interviews and building our new Yellow Submarine sets!



Update and Ideas Logo curtsey of LEGO Ideas website.

Second Planned Update to LEGO Ideas

The LEGO Ideas Team just announced the second of three planned updates to the LEGO Ideas site. You can read more about it below as it is posted on the LEGO Ideas blog.

Here are my thoughts on the changes:

• I am a really like the new filters on the Discover page. Generally, I prefer to support the "original" projects on LEGO Ideas better than the IP themed ones, so it is nice to be able to have this additional filter.
• The trending this week filter is a nice feature, though I am not sure right now how much I will use it. I guess that will be something that I will find out with time.
• It is nice to see the staff picks by date now instead of how they were formally organized alphabetically, which made is slightly annoying to find a recent staff pick.
• The new Discover page search engine weeks much better than the old search method, and it will make it much easier to find projects after they are no longer at the top of the display for the "recently added" filter option.
• The new member search (and new display method) is much more streamlined and seems to be much easier to use in addition to being much more aesthetically pleasing.
• I have never really paid attention to the tags on a project in the past, so I will have to explore the clickable tags option to see how useful it will be in the long run. Initially, it is a novelty to click on the tags and see what projects come up, but I am sure that will wear off with time.

Finally, the change that I am most excited about is the change to the project milestone timelines. New projects now have 60 days to reach 100 supporters before they expire. If a project reaches 100 supporters in 60 days, it receives 365 additional days (this is what projects used to start out with) and then the milestones for an additional 182 days remain at 1,000 supporters and again at 5,000 supporters.

This is a change that many of the more frequent LEGO Ideas users have been asking for for quite a while. The goal is that this will help reduce the projects that are of a lower quality or are not as popular by causing them expire sooner, allowing the better projects to rise to the top. I am looking forward to seeing how this change in particular enhances the LEGO Ideas user experience and how it helps shine the spotlight on some of the stronger projects.

Leave a comment below to share your thoughts on the second planned LEGO Ideas update.

Posted on September 8, 2016 on the LEGO Ideas blog:

Today marks the second of three planned updates to LEGO Ideas this fall, aimed at improving the experience by analyzing your survey feedback and comments, our user experience testing, and conversations with many of you at LEGO fan events.

Here’s a list of updates:

• New Discover page filter for Project Category lets you choose to view only “original” projects, only projects based on third-party intellectual property (IP), or both. Choose “Original” if you don’t want to see projects based on movies, games, brands, etc. Original will show you projects based on existing LEGO playthemes like Ninjago, Friends, or Classic Space, as well as all those completely original concepts by LEGO Ideas members. These are filtered based on how members classify their own projects when asked about IP before submitting. If you happen to see a project incorrectly categorized, let us know by email while we work our way through the new filtered lists ourselves to check for any mistakes.
• New Discover page Trending This Week filter. This works just like Trending this Month, but for the week.
• Discover page Staff Picks view now sorts projects by Staff Pick date. This should be more intuitive for frequent visitors. Before, this view sorted by the date the project was posted.
• Goodbye, Search page, hello Discover page. We “fixed” the search bar in the site header to load the Discover page which allows you to filter and sort your results.
• Member search moves to the Community page. We improved the Leaderboard so it now behaves like the Discover page; you can search for members and sort results by several parameters.
• Tags are now clickable! Open a project and scroll down to the tags. Click one and the Discover page will load with the tag added to the filter.

Changes to Supporter Milestones and Targets

The biggest change is a Guidelines update we’ve applied to all projects starting today.

We’re attempting to balance making LEGO Ideas as open as possible to members with a range of skill levels, with peoples’ desire to browse and support beautifully presented models. We consistently hear from people who want to see more projects they think are “high quality” and fewer they think are “low quality.” We say think, because quality is highly subjective. This feedback persists even when our moderators filter out the majority of submissions for not meeting our Project Quality Standards.

The most successful Ideas projects—those that reach 5,000 and 10,000 supporters—share one thing in common: every one of these projects posted since LEGO Ideas launched in April 2014 reached 100 supporters in their first 30 days. No project that has gone on to reach 5k or 10k supporters has taken longer. It could very well be that the “wisdom of crowds” is the best quality filter of all. We’ve decided to let you tell us which projects are high quality by doing what you do best: supporting your favorite projects.

Starting today, projects will have 60 days to reach their first 100 supporters before receiving time extensions.

• New projects will now have 60 days to reach 100 supporters. Once they reach that milestone, they’ll receive a one-year boost. The six-month boosts at 1,000 and 5,000 remain the same.
• Existing projects with less than 100 supporters have had their Days Left clock adjusted to 60. We’ve left an Official Comment on the affected projects letting them know.

While in the short term we’re adjusting the Days Left on some projects down, the change grants new projects an additional 60 days beyond the current two years to reach 10,000 supporters.



Why did you remove Days Left from existing projects?

We decided to put projects with fewer than 100 supporters on an even playing field with new projects. Otherwise, we would wait a year before seeing the full benefit of the new expiration deadlines.

How many projects were affected?

Approximately 58% of the 5,500 active projects have had their Days Left counter reset to 60. Had we set the threshold to 30 days, 66% of projects would have been effected. These percentages are based on a sampling of active projects as of July 24.

What happens if my project expires?

If your project expires before reaching 100 supporters, we encourage you to improve your idea, re-submit it, and sharpen your promotion skills to get the support you need.

Want 100, 1,000 or even 10,000 supporters?

As always, success is ultimately in your hands, which is why we always encourage you to focus on a high quality presentation and promoting your projects to a broad audience outside the online LEGO fan community. If you don’t know where to start, learn from the Ideas members who have done just that. Check out these tips on getting a project to 10k:

• Ghostbusters fan creator Brent Waller wrote a dedicated guest blog post with advice for an effective project.
• You don’t have to spend 10 years developing your project like Angus MacLane did. Watch a video interview with the WALL·E fan designer, and check out Angus’ interview on the LEGO Ideas blog.
• Focus on promotion. Doctor Who fan designer Andy Clark says it took as much work promoting his project to reach 10,000 supporters as it did designing.
• Glen Wadleigh and Ellen Kooijman (The Big Bang Theory) break down their promotion techniques in detail on this video, starting at 2:58.

On behalf of the team, we’re pleased to bring you this update and hope you enjoy the improvements to the LEGO Ideas site. We’re looking forward to the third and final planned 2016 site update coming next month.

Update and Ideas Logo curtsey of LEGO Ideas website.