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

[pgn]

Super new forum layout this morn, looks super snazzy - well done!

[Cleoriff]

Just working through it at the moment on PC...I will reserve judgement.

I signed on this morning and it took me straight into My O2. I wasn't keen on that.

I wanted to sign into the forum, not MY O2.

Also I find it a bit disconcerting to have THIS at the top of every page (also on PC)

[Anonymous]

Looks nice but in your profile if you had any unread posts or reply’s you could tell by the bold lettering but now it’s all in bold so you can’t tell which thread has new reply’s on. Don’t like that 

[Cleoriff]

@Martin-O2

I do miss the tabs that ran along the top of the home page. Shop, Apps, Wifi  etc etc etc.

I can see the shop quite clearly though no idea where to find Info in the rest of the top tabs?

Not sure it's a good idea to have this massive picture at the top of every page?

.

[gmarkj]

Agree, the picture does take up a large part of the screen. Any way to reduce it or is it permanently that size?

[Cleoriff]

Add to that (and this is down to the way I access the forum first thing)

I click on new emails in my inbox. It takes me to the big picture. When I sign in it takes me to My O2 Login and logs me in?

Not what I want or need at all. I want to sign into the forum only!

[Marjo]

Glad to hear you think it looks cool @pgn! 

We have a feedback topic in Welcome & News where we are collecting all the comments around the new homepage. We've put some quick info there also about the different modules of the homepage and it would be great to hear from you and everyone else as well on what you think, and if you have any additional questions, or if you spot any issues.  So please head over here to discuss in more detail so we can keep all the comments in one place if possible.

Cheers 

[jezza1234]

But where is the list of the latest new posts and subjects? the Unread posts are ok but, and this is just me, Im not ithat interested in subjects from last year or earlier this year(if that all makes sense).

On the old homepage you could access a list of all of the latest posts regardless of topic etc that you could look at rather than go into unread posts which has some latest stuff in it but alos topics from months ago

[jezza1234]

Sorrty I feel REALLY stupid now. Waht i wasnt doing was scrolling down te page(I know, I know, fill ure boots I deserve it)

So Im all good now that I have l;earned to scroll before jumping to conclusions