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We have made changes to the element14 Community homepage!

cstanton

Maybe as soon as now!

Behind the scenes we have been making changes based up on your feedback, and some ideas of our own. The changes went live on Tuesday the 5th of May at about 1pm.

What kind of changes?

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When you're logged into the Community you'll now get a bit more clear information about your account. Where to go to change your avatar, customise your notifications, view your content and see your community activity.

You can also change the achievements you want to highlight on your profile - maybe learn about some achievements you've yet to get? And also what your current level is, and details on how you got there.

We'll be looking into changing this area a little bit in the future, maybe highlighting some more about your account so you can get the most out of it.

When you're logged out of the site, it'll look a little different.

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We wanted to highlight some of the benefits of the Community to entice people to join. We had to put something here, so we've started with this and we may build upon it in future.

As for the rest of the page?

We're highlighting featured content in a new way.

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Here you should see content that we think you should see. From our programmes, announcements and otherwise, or maybe a RoadTest and Webinar that have particular interest. Here you may see new and old content featured for you to engage with.

Speaking of content to engage with, Webinars and RoadTests now have a more prominent place, along with the current question of the month (I should update that):

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You'll get a quick presentation of the past two to three Webinars or RoadTests if there's nothing enrolling right now for you to check out and read up on. We do have a long library of on-demand Webinars after all, and the RoadTest Reviews are definitely a bit more than just a review.

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Content that overflows from our 'Featured content' will feature in the banner below, from our third party associations through to projects that are still just as important, but we couldn't quite fit in.

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We now show all of the 'recent content' in one list (well, two, and no more 'tabbed' content) so if there's a new blog post, or forum post or project to the Community it'll be shown straight away and not hidden away.

On the left of this list is who created it and when, in the centre is the title, and where it was created, and on the right an icon to represent the content type, how many views, and how many likes it has.

We have separated the list into 'Latest from the Community' and 'Latest Tech News from our Partners', our partners are those who manage their own group and sell products on the Farnell online stores.

There are some 'stretch goals' we have in mind to improve this layout, filters for the recent content list for one, and surfacing different content when you log in.

Hopefully this will help your content come to the front page sooner and make it easier for you to find your way to what's new, and then we'll be looking at the rest of the site and its sections as we go.

Thanks again for being a part of this journey with us.

  • in reply to cstanton

    I was using the time to let my coffee cool. Sip, click link, sip, click link. I don't have to blow.

  • in reply to DAB
    DAB said:
    I like the design, but the response is very slow

    There's a fix coming for this, thankfully!

  • in reply to Andrew J
    Andrew J said:
    and feature widgets don’t change

    There's a backlog of content that needs to go out at present, it should be updated a little more frequently.

    Andrew J said:
    When I was involved in UX, admittedly 10 years ago, we always considered “the fold” - essentially the bottom of the display - and kept important or “of most interest” information above it.

    I'm familiar with this, what it maybe doesn't consider is mobile user behaviour, where users flick a the finger and you've scrolled with little effort. We have a large number of mobile users on the Community. This's something that will be balanced out in time.

    Heatmaps, though something we don't have on the Community site at present, but I've used on other sites, reflect this.

    Andrew J said:
    I definitely like the non-tabbed presentation of user content and that the list is a good length on page 1

    Great!

  • in reply to beacon_dave
    beacon_dave said:

    It feels as if it's getting harder to collect points now.

    We can change that. Slight smile

    Part of making them more visible is also to make them.. more relevant.

    Eg. updating guidance on what we do on the Community based upon your points level, how you can gain more points, and so on.

    beacon_dave said:
    It would perhaps be interesting to see a graph showing the points accumulated at level changes & each year of participation, against the dates, to see how past participation performance has varied over the years

    Verint has no such reporting, which is frustrating.

  • in reply to Jan Cumps
    Jan Cumps said:
    I'm estimating 14 years for my next level, based on past performance

    It feels as if it's getting harder to collect points now.

    It would perhaps be interesting to see a graph showing the points accumulated at level changes & each year of participation, against the dates, to see how past participation performance has varied over the years.

  • in reply to wolfgangfriedrich
    wolfgangfriedrich said:
    I stopped looking at my points and how many I needed for the next level, a long time ago because they were moving so slowly.

    I'm estimating 14 years for my next level, based on past performance Slight smile

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  • These changes had made it more engaging 

  • Having used the site for a couple of weeks, I think I can firm up my initial opinions, and I notice that others have made a similar point.  There’s a lot of scrolling to get to the changing content which is user generated; that is, the profile info, and feature widgets don’t change so are scrolled past.  They get in the way of the user experience unfortunately. Obviously they will change (monthly??) so will become of interest again until read - is there a danger that people won’t notice the change because they’ve just become accustomed to skipping past?  When I was involved in UX, admittedly 10 years ago, we always considered “the fold” - essentially the bottom of the display - and kept important or “of most interest” information above it.  It wasn’t easy, especially when designing for accessibility, particularly screen readers, and different display port sizes.

    I definitely like the non-tabbed presentation of user content and that the list is a good length on page 1.

  • I stopped looking at my points and how many I needed for the next level, a long time ago because they were moving so slowly. Now I get reminded of this every time I open the main page. I don't like it. 

    I do understand the concept of gamification and the adrenaline rush of levelling up, but it just does not work for me any more. I am adding content for content, not for the sake of points. 

  • Looking good on desktop Ok hand Looks a bit congested on mobile though. Will take a while to get used to. Thanks for all your efforts in putting this through. So that we can enjoy the time we spend in the community site.