The new design sucks

fifthyear

I understand that this is a free site so you Mods do what you think is right, and we mere mortals really don't have much to say, but man oh man the new design is really bad, very confusing to navigate, and most of all SOOOO slow to load. Please do something about the performance (and if possible, the design itself).

voraciousreader

and the font

Rain88

I truly hope this is temporary, a necessary transition period. So far, the new interface is much worse than the previous one: slow to open, confusing to navigate, bland/no colour or graphics, smaller, harder-to-read print. I appreciate having access to this forum, but, if this is the actual intended new design, the change is baffling, since it is in no way better than the previous one.

Moderators

Hi all,

In an effort to streamline the feedback and bug report process and make sure nothing is missed, please continue to post any and all glitch/bug or overall site feedback on the established thread: https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/93/topics...

There's no guarantee that glitches posted in this thread will make it to the tech team, so please either post at the link above or send us a PM.

Thanks again, we are so appreciative of you all!

Spookiesmom

how many thousands upon thousands of dollars were WASTED on this “upgrade “???

MonicaBstrong

Did you change the site due to member feedback? It seemed to work well.

MonicaBstrong

Interesting, I thought I posted a reply then it disappeared. Trying again. When I tried to access your change thread above it wouldnt load.

This is a test.

ParakeetsRule

I don't know why BCO was changed but sometimes sites have to be changed because the underlying technology has gotten out of date or is going to become obsolete. It's not always possible to recreate the same design as before, and sometimes it's harder (and more expensive) to update old code rather than start over with fresh code. Or in some cases there are hosting/server problems. One time we had to move our entire website at my job to a new host because ours stopped responding to our requests for help. Another time we had to move it because we outgrew our host and they couldn't increase our server speed anymore! Another time we had to completely start over from scratch because we'd outgrown our entire system and we needed to convert to something new. There was a huge learning curve and many frustrations from users but we didn't have a choice, and switching back temporarily while we worked out bugs wasn't an option.

Big changes were never because somebody woke up one morning and said "let's make it look different!"

fifthyear

Parakeet, I work in the tech industry, I understand the need to upgrade to new tech. But in real business world, before you move the new software to production where users access and use them, you TESTED them, both functionalities and performance. Right now, the whole user community suffers the terrible loading time, can't really navigate the site in a meaningful way, confusing design. This is NOT how you upgrade, this is lack of respect for the user community. How about the BCO CEO tries to use this site NOW and give US feedback? Lastly, don't delete this thread this is constructive feedback. Give us that!

wrenn

For quite a while now I've been able to open any thread except the tech glitches thread. I wonder if they have heard enough?

ParakeetsRule

But this isn't a business and it's not the business world or the tech industry. The non-profit world is different and doesn't work the same way. These kinds of problems are common in the non-profit world because funding is so limited and often restricted for certain uses. Nobody wants to donate their money for boring behind-the-scenes technical upgrades. Not only is difficult to get money for admin/tech projects at all, you usually don't get as much as you need, so you have to do your best with limited funds.

Plus, most non-profit organizations don't have in-house developers or contractors who work for them exclusively. They have to hire outside help, often temporarily, and often on only a part-time basis. So when something goes wrong, we're totally dependent on our developer and their timeline, and how much additional money we have available which usually isn't much, if anything.

AliceBastable

wrenn, I noticed - and thought - the same thing.

wrenn

Alice, When not logged in that thread can be opened and read up until the last page and then the error message comes up. So access to previous glitches (up until yesterday afternoon) are still there.

DivineMrsM

Yeah, I can’t get into the Post Yer Glitches Here thread, either. I can get into a few others, like this one, but it’s hit and miss. I either get a sorry our site is down or a message that there was some kind of breakdown. Who knows what the heck’s going on,

thecargirl

Can we please go back to how it was??? Whoever came up with this design should have a different job. It is not as easy to navigate, please return to the previous format! Why change something that everyone is happy with?

Beesie

parakeetsrule, you are being very kind.

I've been on this site a long time, and I have been through many site redesigns. None have gone well. To be fair to BCO, discussion board membership is made up of anxious breast cancer patients and many who may be overly irritable due to treatments (I'm on that list). Given that, it would seem that extra care should be taken before making changes to a website that some view to be their lifeline. Having been here through so many redesigns, I'd say that with each one, there has been learning that should have been banked for the future, to help make the experience easier the next time. Yet the next time, we seem to encounter the same problems. This time, not only do we have the same old issues with the redesign (as an example, ease of use issues on mobile devices were never fixed after the last update; now it's much worse) but we have behind the scenes problems at a level I've never seen before.

You may be right. This might all have been triggered by an underlying technology change. If that's the case, given both the load & access issues and the high level of dissatisfaction with the small gray type, the layout and the navigational difficulty, why wouldn't someone tell us that? Wouldn't that generate understanding and sympathy? You say "Big changes were never because somebody woke up one morning and said "let's make it look different!". But we don't know that. I think that sometimes this is exactly what drives big change. Someone thinks that a "refresh" will revitalize the board. Having said that, if in fact the changes were necessitated by technology or hosting/server problems, and if the new design is the best that BCO can do given the constraints of their technology and budget, after this number of days and with so many problems, shouldn't someone say something? We know from posts by the Mods that usage of the site is down. Has the budget been cut because the discussion board is less important now to BCO? Or were these changes made in an attempt to attract a new audience?

I don't know what's behind any of these changes but I do know that Members of the Discussion Board have been kept in the dark. Do we have to be told anything? Of course not. But without returning Members, there is no Discussion Board.

Edited to add: And then there is the whole "soft launch" thing. This is was not a soft launch. Why were we told that is was? It's a small thing, yes, but it represents much bigger issues.

ParakeetsRule

When I said "Big changes were never because somebody woke up one morning and said "let's make it look different!" I was referring to my own experience, which I had just described. Obviously there are situations where people make changes simply to make changes.

molliefish

it is ba

molliefish

ba

molliefish

bad

I can assure you that I have tried to post the word bad four times and given that I can watch 3 or 4 facebook or instagram videos before it loads should be an indicator to you that this is a problem. Bonnie chances et au revoi

AliceBastable

I've been looking all over trying to find an incoming message and it seems to be MIA. I tried to open it through email and got nothing. Now I can't even figure out where messages are hiding. And I'm getting really tired of hide & seek with the login and avatar now you see it, now you don't. Total poop.

Gig57

the new design is horrible and very hard to navigate. Very slow to load anything. I know this site has been very helpful but like a lot of you at this point I can do without the frustrations of trying get anywhere. And forget your favorites bar sometimes it is there but more often not. I used to come on here at least once a day but think for my sanity I will check back much later. And trying to read this tiny print ugh. Do I give this upgrade or whatever it was supposed to be a big thumbs down

momwriter

Can't find my favorites ... not sure what they were thinking...

DivineMrsM

I haven’t been able to access the Post Your Tech Glitches post since some time yesterday. I keep getting this:

*****

****

It mentions the discussion board errored and could not recover, but it’s the only thread doing this.

I still do not have a clear way to log in. I get the “Join Our Community” page. There is no link or box to check for current members, or already a member.

When I click the join community, I get “All Topics”. No place to sign in OR join.

I have to go into a forum, say the first one on the All Topics page: “Info & Resources for New Patients”

Then I have to click on “Log in to start new topic”.

So I log in. One of two things might happen. I either get a completely blank page, or it signs me in and takes me back to “All Topics”.

So far, that’s five steps to sign in, and I’m still not where I want to be on the forum.

Many pages take over thirty seconds to load. I am on a new iPad Air and have good broadband internet.

And I can’t get on the Glitches thread to post my technical difficulties. Not sure why, but if I was cynical, I’d think that thread was intentionally disabled.

ceanna

I've been off BCO for a few days and came back and saw no improvement. My eyes are tired from trying to read the fine print!! I did get the same error message when trying to access the "glitches" thread, but found that I could get in and read without error by clicking on the "Forum" column and not the "Topic." I wondered if I could post and found that did work, so posted this same info there. Would someone else check and see if you can access the "glitches" thread through the "Forum" and let me know if that workaround works for everyone? BCO needs to back out of this mess and get back to a working, readable site.

ceanna

Deleted. I got the "site down" message the first time I tried to post, so reposted, only to have it show up twice!!

fifthyear

This site has been a life saver for many of us but the redesign and launch added so much pain and stress to us users. I understand the Mods are not the one that developed this but someone green lighted the launch without proper testing. Lack of care for the community. Or just simply listened to techkies without understanding the process. Either way we the community pay the price.

Veeder14

Please the font needs to be much larger. It’s only about font size 2 or 3, standard is 12 and ADA is 14. Ridiculously tiny print, please enlarge. Thanks

M0mmyof3

The re-design stinks! Obviously whoever did this botched job never heard the old adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Bring back the old design. Was much easier to use and loaded faster

Beesie

veeder, if you click the "Click here" in the newly updated announcement on the discussion board home page, you get a list of changes made to-date. Apparently the type has been darkened and increased in size.

"Readability

• We have increased the type size for community posts and made the text darker to be more legible."

I've just checked the site on my iPad and phone and while it's possible that the color of the type is slightly darker (but barely noticeably so), the type size does not appear to be any larger than it has been since the start of this mess.