Forum Discussion
The new tech community is user hostile
The new tech community is user hostile. In the past it was so simple to drop by and ask a question or read new blog posts.
The user hostility starts already with the menu bar at the top. "Tech Community", "Community Hubs", "Products", "Topics", etc. What is all that? It is overwhelming.
Then I click on "Lounge", because I remember from before that this was the place to discuss the Tech Community itself. I immediately see a list "Recent Discussion". Ok, great, I am at the right place. But how in the world do I start a new discussion? There is no button to be found on the entire page. Aber searching for another 5 minutes, by pure chance, I see a small link "Discussion Spaces" above it and click it. Now "Spaces" is displayed to me and a space "Tech Community Discussion" is shown. I click it.
A new page loads, that looks exactly like the page I just left. I see the same "Recent Discussion", but here they're called "Latest Discussions".
And – Oh, wonder! – Now there's a blue button on the right called Start a Discussion.
But I'm not done. The reason I write this post is because I have a question about editing PIM role settings. The documentation is everything but helpful. I want to ask for help. What was straight forward in the old forums is horrendous in these forums. Where in the main menu bar at the top would I even start? I click on "Community Hubs". Ok, looks good. As I don't immediately see a Hub related to Microsoft Entra ID, I use the search. I type "entr" (because I'm lazy) – nothing. I type "sec" – again nothing. I type "azu" – nothing. But wait, nothing on Azure? That cannot be! I type "azu" and then slowly continue to type in the other characters. Once I hit "Azure" I get a result. I'm surprised and type "security" – oh now there is a result! The search refuses to actually search for substrings. That is surprising, and surprisingly hostile!
Since I haven't found anything on Microsoft Entra ID, I decided to write something in the Security hub. I click on it.
After scrolling down I see "Recent Discussions", but no button to start a new discussion. After having written all this, I go back to the space with everything I learned and search for the "Discussion Spaces" button, and there is not one! Why is there no "Discussion Spaces" button, when on the Lounge there is? How do I start a discussion on the Security Hub?
Not counting the time I write this feedback, it took 15 minutes out of my day just trying to find a place where I can ask my question and I never had this problem in the old forums. At this point, I give up. I'm frustrated and I am angry. How do you (Microsoft, YOU) think this is acceptable?
6 Replies
- Allen
Community Manager
DanielNiccoli I am sorry to hear this, I don't think anyone has provided similar feedback thus far, I would love to hear more about what makes the experience hostile for you.
In terms of editing your original post, you can do this by clicking the cog at the top right and clicking edit.
Please do continue your journey and share with me more details on what makes it hostile for you,
Regards
Allen
I don't think anyone has provided similar feedback thus far
I hope "nobody is complaining" isn't the metric by which you are judging success. I agree with much of what DanielNiccoli has said, but I'm not as inclined these days to provide what is effectively free UX consulting services to a trillion-dollar company.
And to DanielNiccoli : come and join us at https://www.reddit.com/r/entra/. It provides a much better experience, in my opinion, and you may even get a response to your product question from an actual Microsoft employee, which rarely seems to happen here.
- Allen
RyanSteele-CoV
Thank you for joining the discussion, we place user feedback at the heart of community and so it would be more accurate to say, as I did, that we have plenty of feedback from users that they like the new UI and so I always stand ready to hear feedback from the community that balances that.
One thing is for sure if you don't provide feedback that something isn't right for you then we will respond to the feedback we do get.For accuracy sake, Microsoft product teams do engage directly with customers in the Microsoft Tech Community, any many customer channels including reddit and I am sorry that you feel your comments or questions have not been answered here.
Hi Allen ,
Thanks for taking the time to respond—and for sharing the screenshot pointing out the Edit button.
That alone highlights another UX issue. The Edit button is tucked away in the far upper-right corner of the page, far from the post itself. That’s inconsistent with how comments are handled (where the edit option is located directly on the comment) and with common UI patterns in general, where controls are placed close to the content they affect. It’s a small thing, but it adds to the larger sense of friction in the interface.
To clarify: When I described the experience as hostile, I wasn’t suggesting bad intent. I meant that the interface actively gets in the way of accomplishing simple tasks—starting a discussion, navigating hubs, or even using the search. These things used to be straightforward in the old Tech Community and now feel needlessly complicated and are frustrating.
I’ve already invested time providing detailed feedback, yet key issues remain unaddressed—such as the confusing and inconsistent process for starting a discussion. Some pages bury the button behind redundant layers, and in the Security Hub, it’s completely missing. It’s frustrating to be asked for more feedback when these critical points haven't been acknowledged. This kind of design creates unnecessary friction and undermines confidence in the platform.
I do appreciate your openness to feedback. My hope is that this input helps improve the experience for everyone—especially those just trying to ask a question or get help quickly.
Daniel
- Allen
Thanks for the reply, I am not going to try to say we have the worlds best UI - there is always room for improvement right? - but the feedback your giving here is new to me. Indeed we have a wealth of comments that having the search persistently present in the hero image is great and makes it easier to navigate the community.
The start a discussion button shows up when you are in a board which you have permissions to start a discussion in, now in the classic community we also pulled that out to the category level and we may do that again at some point however engagement metrics with it in the old community were very low.
We have a roadmap item to investigate integration of AI in to the community which could be used to help members create posts but I don't think that gets at the heart of your feedback here. I also am not aware of having seen any of the feedback you have given previously. If you wish to send me a PM (or post here here) then I will be happy to look at it and consider it for future enhancements.Allen
Allenpinging you here. And to continue my journey of user hostility, I can't even edit this post because there is no edit button.
Edit: Great, I can edit a comment, but not my original post. :JackieChanMeme:
