Back in September, I asked for your help to make this site to make it easier to use. Thank you to everyone who completed the survey and took part in interviews with our designer
Since then, we’ve been hard at work behind the scenes redesigning Restarters.net based on your feedback and adding some highly requested features.
Here are some of the changes we’ll be rolling out:
a new, simplified look that unites all the different areas of the site
never get lost again: the same menu across all areas of the site
support for adding non-electronic/electrical items to events
the ability for hosts to send a message to everyone in their group
a new homepage: bye bye dashboard, hello less confusing and more useful homepage
Click/tap here for a preview of the new menu & Fixometer:
We hope these changes will make the site much easier to use and much more useful for everyone.
This new design and new features are coming soon (not all at the same time), but if you’d like to sneak a preview, we’re looking for a few people to help us spot and iron out any last minute creases.
If you’re interested, please let me know by replying below (just say “I’m interested!” )
James, Willing to help. I hope that there are improvements to the data entry process for logging activities at events. We often have to resort to paper and then try and catch up after.
Stuart: yes, we are planning to change the data entry process based on the feedback we received to make it easier to use and also more comprehensive. This won’t be in the initial round of updates, but will be coming a little later.
Finally, an update: we’re now ready to start releasing the new look for Restarters․net!
We’ll be phasing in the new design over a series of updates, with the first update happening on Monday.
What’s changing on Monday?
A new look
On Monday, we’ll be releasing the new look for Restarters․net. At this stage, the new design is primarily a new coat of paint and mostly won’t change the way anything works. You can expect buttons, boxes, menus and so on to look different but work the same.
You’ll also notice that all of these things will 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 will be able to change this in your preferences.
A new way to get around
As part of this first round of updates, we will also be introducing a new, unified menu that will appear on every page on restarters․net. 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 really excited about these changes and can’t wait for you to see them! If you have any questions, concerns or feedback, feel free to post them below
a new, simplified look that unites all the different areas of the site
never get lost again: the same menu across all areas of the site
support for adding non-electronic/electrical items to events
the ability for hosts to send a message to everyone in their group
a new homepage: bye bye dashboard, hello less confusing and more useful homepage
)
