As an 60+ engineer on the Asperger’s spectrum I am probably part of your target audience. I find the phrases ‘User Experience team’ and ‘efficient, useful, pleasant and useable digital experiences’ in your post somewhat off putting. As I said when the current forum was launched “(it) seems to have been produced by ‘arty/creative’ people for other ‘arty/creative’ people and my not be accessible to the target audience (or what I assume is the target audience) or engineers and scientists who prefer a more structured system.”

https://engx.theiet.org/f/discussions/27903/does-the-iet-have-a-policy-guidelines-on-neurodiversity

I accept that the old FuseTalk forum had to be replaced but the format was excellent. There was a simple list of topics with an indication of new posts. It took seconds to see if there was anything of interest and the posts were in simple chronological order. It’s main drawback was the inability to host pictures, you had to use an external host.

The next forum worked but lost the easy topics list.

I have significant problems with the current forum. To me the treeing arrangement is difficult to follow, I have to click elsewhere to find where the latest posts are, one post can split into several intertwined threads at which point I don’t look at it anymore.

I find it slightly sad that the best overview is found by using https://engx.theiet.org/f going back to what are DOS style commands.

The low contrast colour scheme is not easy to even though my vision is reasonably normal. I imagine it must be impossible for those with impaired vision. The posting structure is also not logical to me. My first attempt ended in me shutting down Engx and going of to do something else.

I am willing to take part in your research however my availability is limited in the next few weeks.

As an 60+ engineer on the Asperger’s spectrum I am probably part of your target audience. I find the phrases ‘User Experience team’ and ‘efficient, useful, pleasant and useable digital experiences’ in your post somewhat off putting. As I said when the current forum was launched “(it) seems to have been produced by ‘arty/creative’ people for other ‘arty/creative’ people and my not be accessible to the target audience (or what I assume is the target audience) or engineers and scientists who prefer a more structured system.”

https://engx.theiet.org/f/discussions/27903/does-the-iet-have-a-policy-guidelines-on-neurodiversity

I accept that the old FuseTalk forum had to be replaced but the format was excellent. There was a simple list of topics with an indication of new posts. It took seconds to see if there was anything of interest and the posts were in simple chronological order. It’s main drawback was the inability to host pictures, you had to use an external host.

The next forum worked but lost the easy topics list.

I have significant problems with the current forum. To me the treeing arrangement is difficult to follow, I have to click elsewhere to find where the latest posts are, one post can split into several intertwined threads at which point I don’t look at it anymore.

I find it slightly sad that the best overview is found by using https://engx.theiet.org/f going back to what are DOS style commands.

The low contrast colour scheme is not easy to even though my vision is reasonably normal. I imagine it must be impossible for those with impaired vision. The posting structure is also not logical to me. My first attempt ended in me shutting down Engx and going of to do something else.

I am willing to take part in your research however my availability is limited in the next few weeks.

Thank you Roger, for your response. 

I would very much like you to participate in my research. Your comment and responses would be most helpful. I must disclose that I am not working on this forum as part of my work at the IET.  We would be looking at a different system. If you were happy to email me at graemeaymer@theiet.org I could provide more background and explain myself in more detail. Perhaps that could help dispel some of your misgivings around the job of user experience? In any case, feel free to get in touch. I'd love to speak to you. Thanks once again.