Anyone checked out the website recently

Well, as suggested by Soundhound from his thread on documentation, I am reposting my comment here. I cannot find any manuals as opposed to ‘Quick start guides’, and as others have posted two weeks ago, the animations and interactive help guides have disappeared now. Good online support can be extremely useful and save users, dealers and Naim support significant amounts of time so it’s odd that it seems to have been abandoned for now.

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Clive which specific manual are you looking for, if I may ask?

Core. I wanted to check back-up procedures before I plugged in a new HD, but I have done a back-up now anyhow. I have had the Core a while and only just got to doing a back-up, but when I first got it the interactive support with animations was helpful.

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Yup, server side sorting is preferable, but no reason one cannot at least sort it in JavaScript for the website, if required.

Not to mention that the Product Search “combo box” is completely wrongly implemented as well. You cannot even operate it with a keyboard, unless you know what to type. Why? Cause no one bothered to follow the recommended proven pattern in building a Combo box control: Combobox Pattern | APG | WAI | W3C

So, another part of the website that excludes users, this time keyboard only users and users depending on screen readers.

One would thinks that creating a website more users can use will result in more sales, but hey…

I dunno who built this website, but my goodness, each day brings more surprises…

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It may be difficult for us as mere Naim Owners to actually tell. There may have been a lot of fixing/debugging/correcting going in, which we cannot easily ‘see’. Or they may have been … nothing.

Very easy for Naim Audio to ignore this - just a load of ‘noise’ from some grumpy owners of old Naim kit, so lets ignore it.

I hope that is not the case, but right now… I cannot tell… :neutral_face:

Perhaps @Richard.Dane can get us a report from someone at Naim…?

I am reminded of the well known triangle -

Pick any 2 - you cannot have all 3…

Naim seem to have picked Fast & Cheap.

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Slow down to go faster…Do it once, do it right.

There’s an endless list of clichés available here.

And it’s a poor driver for the pre-loved market when original manuals (such as they are in some cases) aren’t available on-line.

The staggering thing is, I reckon 90% of the content was all there, all it needed was re-indexing et al, not simply ignored/dropped. Truly bizarre.

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I like this particular cliche.

By doing it this way it becomes a lot more expensive. All the info and the patterns are available to build a website correctly the first time around. All that happens here is that people are paid to do it wrong and then have to be paid more to fix it. Software development is a strange business, imagine if a car builder cranked out cars with doors that wont open, a missing steering wheel and back to front seats and then expected the buyer to “have it fixed”. Somehow in other industries it would be ludicrous but here “it was better to get it released and have people test it”. As a web developer, it pains me to see this happen over and over again. User testing is to see if the message comes across as planned and find the strange edge cases you did not (and often could not) test for yourself, not to plunge themselves into a dumpster fire. Hmpf.

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Also known as ‘right first time’ in some circles – variations on a cliché :grin:

Operating this way can also have material HR implications, as criticism and negative feedback (especially across operating disciplines) aren’t the foundation stones for motivating people.

And, topical as it is, the writhing dancers within the UK’s Eurovision entry didn’t do much good :scream: Too much in yer face ?

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I don’t know where they’re at with it as of today, but I do know that last time when I asked I was told there was to be a meeting with all Naim’s points put forward, and that it would hopefully progress from there.

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Ultimately, its up to Naim - or Focal - to decide what correcting or improving their website is ‘worth’ to them. They may be happy with it as it is… :thinking:

Stranger Things Have Happened… :expressionless:

Personally, I am not interested in de-bugging or critiquing the ‘new’ Naim website any more. No Point.

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The jarring video still seems to be up. Never really noticed how it doesn’t appeal to me as my browser does not show it by default.

I quite like the way the ‘Collections’ fade in animation wise left to right, but clicking on Streaming Amplifiers I’m not sure why we get this:

…as it’s an extra click on ‘Discover’ to show in theory the only integrated range available (HE excepted). Maybe that means a higher end all in one range is planned?

Just looking at the Atom HE, and probably the same for most products I’d expect ‘Physical Specifications’ to relate to dimensions/weight not physical connections or power output. ’Technical Specifications’ only lists audio formats supported.

Whoever’s quote was lowest would be my guess. Have seen it before.
Or someone in marketing happened to know someone (their nephew or someone like that).

Or they’ve been looking for someone competent to fix things instead of the company that originally build it? Probably idle hope. (That a competent company would willingly touch this)

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My money is on the guess I made in the original, since deleted, thread on the new website:
I guess that Naim had been told by parent company to redo website to be in same style as Focal’s. Naim staff too busy and didn’t see it as pressing. Parent company lost patience, told someone else, not English and with no Naim knowledge, to do either a mock-up or to cobble something together, with just a day in which to do it. This was then presented to Naim, and to for e them to accept it or galvanise them into sorting it out they took down the old site and published this.

I have seen this process happen before, more than once, though not with a website.

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Email Naim support requesting they send you a PDF of the manual you require.

I’m sure if they’re bombarded with enough requests for manuals, they’ll get their arsse in gear.

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You really believe that the Focal marketing people ever asked Naim to do anything? Of course they didn’t.

But before that, the Focal marketing team were told by the parent company to develop a website that looked just like Devialet’s.

I didn’t say asked…
of course I have no idea what actually happened, and I doubt we’ll ever learn, but to me that fits.

Had a nose-around in the website plumbing and they used Alpine.js to build it (or a template that was created in this technology). Before this I did not know this JavaScript library existed.

For reference, if you look at the NPM downloads of the library it is currently at 200 000 downloads a week. This can be used to gauge how many people use it. In comparison, React, perhaps the most widely used Framework to create interactive websites is at 23 000 000 downloads per week.

Not that few downloads mean that something is bad, but this is little used technology that means less third party tools to use to make creation of the website better and easier.

Somewhere I read Alpine is good for creating small projects and demos.

Personally, for a flagship company website, I would never have chosen this and have stuck to one of the big guns to ensure the support and tooling is available to create the required experience. This could no doubt also explain why fixing the issues is harder and taking more time.

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The social media posts are pretty dire too. Like this one that just appeared on my feed.

“NAC 332 is a customised control system designed to enhance your music listening experience. This innovative system is the ‘analogue center’ that delivers exceptional performance, ensuring that you can enjoy your music with maximum clarity.”

The Victor Meldrew in me is also irritated by the American spelling of ‘centre’ when Naim has such strong British roots.

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