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New interface for the Community.

OLDYELLR
I'm a senior advisor

I just signed in and and the interface has completely changed. Prettier, but less useful and difficult to navigate. What happened to the navigation panel on the right? How can I revert to the old interface?

 

*** Edited Labels/Title *** 


Rogers PayGo. Location: S-W Ontario
146 REPLIES 146

Re: New interface for the Community.

57
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

Is there a link to "my posts" somewhere?  I sometimes like to see the recent posts I've made and it often helps me to find a certain thread.  I thought I looked everywhere, but couldn't find it.  I did find some of "my posts" under "my profile", but it was only a few, far from complete.

Re: New interface for the Community.

-G-
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

@57 wrote:

Is there a link to "my posts" somewhere?  I sometimes like to see the recent posts I've made and it often helps me to find a certain thread.  I thought I looked everywhere, but couldn't find it.  I did find some of "my posts" under "my profile", but it was only a few, far from complete.


Your posting history should be all there under My profile but Posts (topics that you create) and Replies are now split out into separate sections.

Re: New interface for the Community.

57
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

Got it, thanks.  I thought I had clicked on Replies, but I guess not properly. It only shows 5 or so replies.  I don't see an option to show more at a time without clicking "more" at the bottom and seeing 5 more with each click - a pain.

 

The "Posts" should say "Threads Started or Created" instead.

 

In the "Settings" I can change the number of various items displayed per page, but didn't find one for this.  I'll keep looking.

Re: New interface for the Community.

-G-
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

Recently, something else changed.  Now, every time that I post a new reply or edit a post, I get a red "Sorry, unable to complete the action you requested." error banner.  However, the content did post successfully.

Re: New interface for the Community.

57
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

This is a test to see if the same happens to me.  Yep, same thing happens here.

Re: New interface for the Community.

RogersMoin
Moderator
Moderator

Thank you @-G- for flagging this error and I appreciate @57 replicating it. We are looking into it. 

 

Cheers,

RogersMoin

 

Re: New interface for the Community.

jays77
I'm a trusted contributor

Is this new format permanent or is there a chance that the old one could make a comeback?

Re: New interface for the Community.

57
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

I'm still getting the red banner this morning when I click on Reply.  When I started typing this post, I also got a grey banner message that I had autosaved content from yesterday, despite the fact that that post was completed. 

 

Clicking on the browser refresh icon takes me to this completed post.

Re: New interface for the Community.

-G-
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

@jays77 wrote:

Is this new format permanent or is there a chance that the old one could make a comeback?


Most likely, neither.  Rogers will take feedback from the Community about what we do not like about the new site, specific things that we missed from the previous version, and they will revise the design.  They have already brought back some of the features that we have been asking for.  However, it may take a while for the site to become usable again.

 

The Community Forum (primarily) needs to work equally well for people who are looking for help/information/support, the experts who lend their time and expertise to help others, the @CommunityHelps  team who keep things working smoothly, and those who just like to be here to learn something new and keep up to date with what's going on.  It also serves a secondary purpose of being an important source of information for product teams on what customers need, want, like and dislike.  (I say secondary because any reason for the site's existence becomes moot if customer engagement is poor.)

 

Whoever designed the new site clearly didn't consider all of the potential use cases and we ended up with something that was half-baked.  I honestly don't know what the design goals were, and perhaps the primary driver for the change was that the previous site was getting old and unmaintainable.  There are other forums out there that are easier to use, easier to search, and have a nicer layout, and I wish that they had considered those for design inspiration.  I don't think that the new site accommodates any of the primary use cases all that well and I would consider the old design an improvement... at least for how I use the site.

 

I just find this new design awkward to use.  The site elements are oversized and waste too much space, especially in relation to the content that gets posted, and I am constantly scrolling past stuff that I do not need to see.  Having the original post appear at the top of EVERY topic page is pointless and confusing, especially when topics go on for tens (or hundreds) of pages and can be active for (literally) years.  I am also CONSTANTLY resizing the posting area, whether I am replying to a post or sending a private message.  I rely on bookmarked links to navigate the site, and I still have not found an easy way to find a post that was made a few weeks ago, on a specific topic in a specific section of the forum.  The previous design made all that stuff fairly easy to do.  It also used to be easy to see new posts in both new and existing topics and, overall, it was easy to see what was trending.  Before, everything that I needed to see and do used to be accessible from the main page... and now I NEVER access the main page anymore.  I hope that we will see some improvements to the new design soon.

Re: New interface for the Community.

OLDYELLR
I'm a senior advisor

@jays77 wrote:

Is this new format permanent or is there a chance that the old one could make a comeback?


My guess is it's still in development and the old interface won't be back. Remember when the Forum was "Powered by Lithium" and then rebranded "Khoros"?  I don't see that brand anymore, so it's a new developer, or Rogers own.  Hopefully the interface will improve, become more intuitive, requiring fewer steps to navigate.  So keep on making suggestions.


Rogers PayGo. Location: S-W Ontario

Re: New interface for the Community.

-G-
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

@OLDYELLR wrote:


My guess is it's still in development and the old interface won't be back. Remember when the Forum was "Powered by Lithium" and then rebranded "Khoros"?  I don't see that brand anymore, so it's a new developer, or Rogers own.  Hopefully the interface will improve, become more intuitive, requiring fewer steps to navigate.  So keep on making suggestions.


The Community Forum still runs on the Khoros platform.  (Khoros acquired Lithium.)  If you look closely at your email notification headers, you will see that they actually got sent from Khoros' systems on behalf of Rogers.

Re: New interface for the Community.

jays77
I'm a trusted contributor

Great post. 

Re: New interface for the Community.

OLDYELLR
I'm a senior advisor

@-G- wrote:


The Community Forum still runs on the Khoros platform.  (Khoros acquired Lithium.)  If you look closely at your email notification headers, you will see that they actually got sent from Khoros' systems on behalf of Rogers.


Thanks, I just stopped seeing the Khoros logo on every page and don't subscribe to email notifications.


Rogers PayGo. Location: S-W Ontario

Re: New interface for the Community.

I have to say that I absolutely agree with @-G- :

 

1, The site elements are oversized and waste too much space, especially in relation to the content that gets posted.

 

2.  Having the original post appear at the top of EVERY topic page is pointless and confusing, especially when topics go on for tens (or hundreds) of pages and can be active for (literally) years.  This idea of making the original post a sticky that appears on every subsequent page might make sense if the threads were left alone, as in the originating author posts a question, someone answers the question and then that's it.  The thread is done, dead, sayonara.  This idea of the original post becoming a sticky is completely useless, irrelevant and incompatible with the moderators policy of moving new posts into existing threads thereby creating threads that run for hundreds of pages and several years.  I've already come across this issue, looking at a top post that was at least 7 years old and wondering what that had to do with the discussion of the day (absolutely nothing), before remembering the new format and layout.  Ok, rant complete, please lose the original post at the top of every page and stop wasting space. 

 

The top link on the page that says "Rogers" doesn't take you to the Rogers's corporate web site.  It leaves you on the forum page, which is not where I want to go.  This is not the behaviour that I've ever seen on any other web page.  Normally, if you're on a sub page somewhere, the link to the main company site is at the top, which serves as a short cut instead of having to back up numerous pages.  Now, if you want to go to the Rogers corporate web page, then you have to go to the bottom of the page and use that link.  Does it matter?  Yup, Sometimes when I'm answering a post I'll go back to the corporate site to look for relevant information, so I'd expect the top link to actually link to the main company site, like every other web site.

 

Here's the top link:  https://communityforums.rogers.com/

Here's the bottom link:  https://www.rogers.com/

 

In terms of web page design, hmm, its an interesting idea, but the top link shouldn't indicate Rogers, as in the main Rogers corporate site.  If the link isn't going to be changed, then it should read "Community Forums" and return the user to the main Community Forums page.   I'd prefer that it link back to the main Rogers corporate web page.

 

Personal opinion, the "Latest Conversations" as shown on the main page is misleading.  It shows the latest "new threads" only, not the ongoing latest conversations of existing threads which is ongoing as well.  So, either use the term "Latest Original Conversations" or something along those lines or adjust the filtering to show the latest conversations as shown in the "All Posts" link, as shown here:

 

 All Posts - Rogers Community

 

Can we please have a larger reply box, like it used to be.  Whomever designed this has obviously not used it, or they're a twitter user.  We get into long posts sometimes and the size of the response box just doesn't cut it.  If the intention is to force the questions and responses down to twitter size posts, then you might as well shut the forum down and tell the users to go elsewhere. 

Re: New interface for the Community.

-G-
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

If I can make one other suggestion, how about getting rid of that annoying survey invitation that keeps popping up every bleepin' time that you access the site?!?

Re: New interface for the Community.

57
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

@-G- wrote:

If I can make one other suggestion, how about getting rid of that annoying survey invitation that keeps popping up every bleepin' time that you access the site?!?


Hmm, I don't get that.  I've probably had one survey popup in several months and that was a couple of days ago and I did fill it in due to the new interface here.  You will get the survey every time if you don't have cookies set up properly. For example, the survey will come up if you use Chrome Incognito which bypasses cookies.  If my username is automatically filled in on the login popup, I don't get the survey.  If the username is not there (as would be the case with Incognito) then you will likely get the survey.

 

So, if the forum thinks you're a new user, you will likely get the survey.

Re: New interface for the Community.

-G-
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

I clear my browser data regularly so the "should I invite this user to submit a survey" code thinks that I am a new user, even when I log in.

Re: New interface for the Community.

57
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

I just replied to a post that was not on the last page of a thread. When my reply posted, it was under the post on the previous page instead of at the end of the thread. This was confusing since I knew there were posts "between" the post I was replying to and my reply, but those posts didn't show until I "paged forward" in the thread.

 

Of course I was also confused by the first post being on top of any page in a thread. This has to be the silliest thing ever.

 

Re: New interface for the Community.

57
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

When I click on a link to a particular post - either a permalink, or a link in my notifications, or a link in "all posts", the top of the post is cut off.  I cannot see the post's author, nor can I see the thread title.  I tried Chrome and FF on my Mac Mini computer.  (I can see the full post if I scroll up, but that's a step that should not be necessary). See screenshot below:

 

Top of post cut offTop of post cut off

Re: New interface for the Community.

OLDYELLR
I'm a senior advisor

I see the same thing.


Rogers PayGo. Location: S-W Ontario

Re: New interface for the Community.

-G-
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

 

This is... not good.

new_site_user info.jpg

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