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We all love Graphic Design Stack Exchange, but there is a whole world of people out there who need answers to their questions and don't even know that this site exists. When they arrive from Google, what will their first impression be? Let's try to look at this site through the eyes of someone who's never seen it before, and see how we stack up against the rest of the 'Net.

The Site Self-Evaluation review queue is open and populated with 10 questions that were asked and answered in the last quarter. Run a few Google searches to see how easy they are to find and compare the answers we have with the information available on other sites.

Rating the questions is only a part of the puzzle, though. Do you see a pattern of questions that should have been closed but are not? Questions or answers that could use an edit? Anything that's going really well? Post an answer below to share your thoughts and discuss these questions and the site's health with your fellow users!

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I am a Stack Exchange member for the past 3 years, while only active for the past two years, and just five days ago find out that Graphic Design exists.

For me, as a lead developer where I work but also the sole designer, information, good practices but most importantly quick problem-solving about design is very important.

I've found this site while searching for a specific topic, immediately I had my problem solved.

When I've arrived:

↑ My first impression was very positive, just by looking at the questions titles I saw that all of my daily work on design and the applications I use are well covered here. Following up on the answers provided, I was amazed that users provide detailed explanations to the problem at hand while providing screenshots and alternative solutions. This is the right way to go (congrats to all).

Five days later:

↑ I have already been able to help and have already asked for help. Yet again I was very pleased to have my problem solved under a few minutes (while for this particular case it was a big facepalm for me).

↓ But one thing that I am still trying to understand is the type of questions that we can ask, since I see pratical answerable questions where the correct answer is one and one alone, but on the other hand I see questions like this one that while a very interesting reading, I really don't see how can we have a single "correct" answer to it.

Ps: The question is from a highly reputed user that clearly knows what he is doing, but from a right or wrong point of view, how will this be solved?

↑ Anyways, the experience while short is been great and I'm very excited to have found Graphic Design where a whole section of my daily work can obtain the community support.


Now that my five days experience is summarized, getting back on topic about this site Self-Evaluation:

Comparative Google searches

↓ On a negative note, searching for the question title as is, should have given me the Graphic Design as first page result, or like expected, the very first result.

The question I'm refering to is "Why is all my text uppercased in Photoshop?", where Google presented me with results for "Why is all my text uppercase in Photoshop?" since the correct term is "all caps" more broadly "uppercase" or "capitalized" and not "uppercased".

This is an aspect to consider, the usage of the correct or more broadly used term and not a vocabulary variant to have the title "properly written" in the question, since the site can be found more quikly and by more users this way.

Changing the search results for the exact question title worked as expected, giving me Graphic Design all over the first page and on the very first result.

↑ On a positive note, other sites with the same question and answer very quikly get off topic, indulging themselves on a more "conversational" method to solve the problem, while here we have a very clear question and a simple answer including a screenshot to better ilustrate the solution.


As I've been here for only five days, active during three of them, I haven't looked much at questions already present, but by the ones I've seen, we are definitely on the right track.

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    Great write-up and analysis! Some of my thoughts: "while only active for the past two years, and just five days ago find out that Graphic Design exists." — I think this is a network wide problem on SE that does not receive enough attention (and certainly not just for GD). Graduated sites attract loads more attention than beta sites, and the road to graduation is too long and obfuscated. I think there is a lot that can and should be done by the SE team to mitigate this, but it's difficult for us regular users to make improvements towards this
    – JohnB Mod
    Commented Sep 1, 2013 at 3:26
  • "I see questions like this one that while a very interesting reading, I really don't see how can we have a single "correct" answer to it." — You're right, this is very subjective and impossible to determine a "right" answer. Everyone is going to have different opinions and stances on ethics. However, I feel it's a great question for our site. To me, it falls in the "Good Subjective" category.
    – JohnB Mod
    Commented Sep 1, 2013 at 3:32
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I may tend to be overly-critical when it comes to these self-evaluations, but overall I think we did okay. Here are the questions I marked as "Needs Improvement":


Photoshop CS6 - Creating figure

The title is terrible, it should be changed to something that better reflects the actual question being asked. I wouldn't place the blame fully on the asker; I can empathize with the fact that sometimes when you're trying to solve a problem, you don't know how to ask the question for what it is you're trying to solve. Presumably the OP did not know that figure was called a "rounded rectangle", so maybe a better title would be "How can I create a rectangle with rounded corners"?

I think the accepted answer needs cleaning up as well, there are far too many external links. I have no problem with external links, but I think they would be much better off if they were hyperlinks that were part of the text so that they take up less space (and don't look so ugly), and they should also link to the official Adobe documentation (when possible) instead of third party sites.


Create more than one artboard when document is already saved?

Again, the title needs work. I think it would be better off simplified as "How can I create additional artboards?". The "document already saved" bit is superfluous.

The top voted answer needs improvement as well. I like that the official Adobe documentation is provided, however it is on the edge of plagiarism. Quotes from external sites would be marked appropriately and a link should be present to where the quote is from.


Why is all my text uppercased in Photoshop?

I can't offer much direction for improvement for this one, it seems we've just lost out to a common issue that is already a popular search term in Google. The answer is clear and to the point which is great.

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  • You may be overly-critical, but from where I'm standing, there are some interesting aspects covered on your answer that will definitely help improve my next review of the site!
    – Zuul
    Commented Sep 4, 2013 at 10:07
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In this opportunity the only question I marked as Needs Improvement was:

Photoshop CS6 - Creating figure

The title is unclear, the question is confusing (lots of elements in the image, not sure at a glance which one the OP is referring to), and the accepted answer, while it does address the issue, could be much clearer and straightforward. The attention is driven outside of the site.

Good thing is, in my opinion, the question can be easily fixed with some editing.

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