Welcome to the new look for Restarters.net

[james]

As you’ve probably noticed, Restarters.net looks pretty different! We’ve been working on this new look for a while and hope you like it

It’s the first stage in our work to improve the way the site works and make it easier to use.

So what’s changed?

A new look

This new look is primarily a new coat of paint and mostly hasn’t changed the way anything works. Most pages look different but work the same.

You’ll also notice that, for the first time, pages look consistent across all the different areas of the site (groups, events, Fixometer, Talk and the Wiki).

Note: One page that is changing is the Talk homepage. After talking to lots of you when researching how to improve this site, we’ve decided to simplfy the forum homepage by only displaying a list of the latest topics, instead of listing categories as well. If you prefer to keep the homepage as a list of categories, you can change this in your preferences.

A new way to get around

You’ll also notice a new menu at the top of every page. This menu will let you move between different parts of the site much more quickly and easily than before (you may even find parts of the site you didn’t know existed!)

Note: this update won’t unify the different profiles you have in different sections of the site. This means that despite having the same menu on every page, you will notice that your user menu (in the top right) will still change depending which part of the site you’re in. We’re working on this as part of a future update. We’re also aware that clicking the logo while here on Talk doesn’t take you to the dashboard as it does on other parts of the site. We’re working on that!

We’re really excited about these changes and hope this makes all the different areas of the site feel like they are actually part of the same site!

If you have any questions, concerns or feedback, feel free to post them below

For more info about upcoming changes, take a look at the main topic here: We're redesigning Restarters.net 🚨

[Roger]

Still seems clumsy though, when you enter at “Restarters” you see this menu

but nothing that obviously suggests “repair”. Could there not be eg 2 additional icons to take someone directly to “repair stories” and “repair help” topics since repair is a major part of what this is about.

I do wonder if the reason we seem to have so few repair help requests may simply be people don’t find the relevant area easily?

[james]

Thanks for sharing this Roger.

Our main objective with Restarters.net is to make life easier for those involved in organising, running or fixing at community repair events, as well as help us all stay connected, share learning and scale our impact through data. So, we’ve tried to design the site to highlight these kinds of features and pages. This is explained in more detail in the topic about How to power up community repair with Restarters.net.

While sharing repair knowledge is certainly an important part of this, it’s worth knowing that the #repair-stories:repair-help category on Talk is really new. It actually didn’t exist when we planned this work and the plan was to draw more attention to the repair Wiki as a place to contribute and learn repair info. We created the forum category in response to in-person events being cancelled due to the coronavirus emergency - the hope was to offer repair advice to the wider public via social media, using that category as an internal space to discuss each item first. I have to say, we were a little disappointed by the lack of uptake on social media but are really glad that it’s proving to be a productive space nevertheless!

Ultimately, I think we feel that this site is less geared up for a general audience who have items they want fixing and more for those who perform the repairs and/or who run repair events.

Does that make sense?

[Roger]

For me it would be a useful top level link as my prime interest is repair help and repair stories.
As a relatively new user I had not realised the repair help was so new, I kind of thought it was a major point of the restarter net.
But in the end if that is what the majority want of this site so be it.
I’ve created for myself a direct link on my browser toolbar to repair stories and repair help and just thought it may be a useful function for others.

Roger

[james]

That’s totally understandable Roger. One of the challenges with a site like this is trying to cater for as many different workflows and use-cases as we can without making it too confusing or overwhelming.

I think you’re right that there’s more we can do to surface interesting areas of Talk and while we’re wary of adding too many items to the main menu (it also has to fit on mobile), we’re open to ideas

In the meantime, one way to keep up to date with posts in #repair-stories and #repair-stories:repair-help is to change your notification settings for those specific categories. If you like, you can choose to be notified every time a new topic is started or even every time a post is made. Just click on the bell button at the top right when viewing the category in question:

[Panda]

Just a quick note to say I really like the redesign. It works especially well on small screen (mobile phone). Thanks to all involved.