New Community homepage is live! :)

[Martin-O2]

Hi everyone,

I'm sure you've noticed if you've visited before, that our forum is looking a bit different today. We've been working hard for the past several months on making changes to the community homepage, and finally went live with the new version this morning!

We have been listening to your feedback from our discussions around what you like or don’t like on the homepage, passing it on to the designers and developers, along with ideas that you’ve come up with, and tried to get as much as possible included. A BIG thank you to everyone who have provided your views over the years. 

The update has brought several changes to the layout and to the different features of the page:

Welcome and search

• FAQs are linked from the top underneath the search bar, for quick look at the most-asked questions.
• If you're logged in, you have quick access to your latest posts right on the homepage. If you're logged out, you will see instead a login box and quick general information about what the community is about.
• Underneath that you have 3 quick links to help you get started: 1) info topic on what's the community about and how to get help, 2) topic listing all the different forum boards, and 3) the how-to guides board.

Notification Feed

A new feature on the right side of your avatar, next to your "My Settings", "Messages" (PMs) and "Unread posts" links when you are signed in. You can see a list of recent activity here related to topics you've participated in, e.g. if someone has given you a Kudos, replied to your posts, or @-mentioned you on the forum.

Community Topics and contributors

• See what everyone’s been chatting about with top and latest discussions.
• You can also help with unanswered questions or ask your own.
• You can see a list of current top contributors on the right

Most Popular Searches

• See the popular searches that others have made on the community to help you with your query

Latest News

• 3 latest topics that we've wanted to highlight!

Popular Topics

• Especially helpful for those looking for help: you'll see 2 most-used community how-to guides, with related Solved topics underneath.

Activity

• Some stats about the community where you can see number of active members and click into member search, number of members online (if they've set themselves visible in their settings) with a link to view all, total posts and questions solved.

We know that big changes can be annoying and even stressful to users if the old layout has been there for long (we had the previous look since 2014!!), and some of the abovementioned elements are both new and different from what we've had before. Now that the changes are live, we will be testing and monitoring over time to see how the page performs.

We'd love to hear your feedback:

We'd love to hear what you think of this new change. Do you like the design and feel of the homepage and its new sections? Do you think it's an improvement to the old design? What is your initial feeling around navigating the forum, finding and replying to topics, etc? 

Also, since we've just gone live today, don't hesitate to alert us if you see something that's not quite right. We've done a lot of testing but there can always be some lingering bugs or issues that we might have missed. 

Your continued feedback will be much appreciated as always to help us plan for future improvements. 

Cheers,

The Community Team

[jonsie]

It's bad enough for us so how the hell do new members find this? They must think the website is a joke...a not funny at all joke That banner and the amount of scrolling is ridiculous! You hit reply and have to scroll down half a page to get to the message box.

[Glory1]

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@jonsie wrote:

It's bad enough for us so how the hell do new members find this? They must think the website is a joke...a not funny at all joke That banner and the amount of scrolling is ridiculous! You hit reply and have to scroll down half a page to get to the message box.

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An even bigger nightmare than we are is the answer @jonsie! We at least have some idea how to navigate it all, as big a pain as that might be. If you're new, you won't have a clue.

[Cleoriff]

I think it's probably easier for new members as the website is geared more for them than us.

New members are posting just as much as before.

The regulars are struggling, simply because it is so different.

That's my opinion for what it's worth.

[Glory1]

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@Cleoriff wrote:

I think it's probably easier for new members as the website is geared more for them than us.

New members are posting just as much as before.

The regulars are struggling, simply because it is so different.

That's my opinion for what it's worth.

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Good point @Cleoriff. But surely the website should be geared to all members not just new ones. Particularly as many new members only post once and don't come back.

By the way, is anyone else having to sign in more than once when they haven't logged out? I haven't logged out since I logged in just after 7pm. Yet I've just had to log in for the 3rd time to post this!!

[Cleoriff]

Totally agree about it being a community for all of us @Glory1. The reason some new members don't struggle is that they only post to to ask a question.

When the regulars are spending time looking for links to reply to a new member, this is a frustrating and time consuming job. New members have no need to get involved to the extent we do...

Edited to add, I am not having those log on problems you are experiencing..

[jonsie]

I've had no unexpected log-outs in all honesty. I logged on this morning and the laptop has been on all day while I'm doing other things and even though other websites have been open, I'm still logged on whenever I come back.

I have noticed however that the community is much less busy this past week.

Coincidence?

[Cleoriff]

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@jonsie wrote:

I've had no unexpected log-outs in all honesty. I logged on this morning and the laptop has been on all day while I'm doing other things and even though other websites have been open, I'm still logged on whenever I come back.

I have noticed however that the community is much less busy this past week.

Coincidence?

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I think the community has been less busy for longer than this week @jonsie

You only have to look back at the last 9 welcome threads. (which is 3 weeks)

[jonsie]

Because I tend to post more in the evenings and early morning, I've run out of unread posts well before midnight these days and I think the website has a lot to do with it this week. People can't find what they want because the home page and the header is terrible. It looks like it has been designed by and for simpletons!

....and the spell check is broken. It works sometimes but not always. Reckon it's trying to make out that people are illiterate. I get the spinning circle of death on this post, then nothing happens.

Pleze egscus ani errers....

[Cleoriff]

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@jonsie wrote:

Because I tend to post more in the evenings and early morning, I've run out of unread posts well before midnight these days and I think the website has a lot to do with it this week. People can't find what they want because the home page and the header is terrible. It looks like it has been designed by and for simpletons!

....and the spell check is broken. It works sometimes but not always. Reckon it's trying to make out that people are illiterate. I get the spinning circle of death on this post, then nothing happens.

Pleze egscus ani errers....

---

Al errers egscusd.

[Glory1]

Well I've just had to sign in for the 4th time. As no one else is having this problem, I'll put it down to my phone and that it's on its last legs after being hard worked for nearly 2 years.

@Cleoriff I totally agree what you've said about how the regulars and new members use the website. Maybe then we, the regulars, should have been considered that bit more. #just saying

I don't think the new Homepage is going to attract new members. It certainly hasn't done so, so far.

What it does seem to be doing is [Removed] off the regulars, though. Don't think it was meant to do that either. So it's a lose-lose all round then