The new design sucks

and the font

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!

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

I don't know why BCO was changed but sometimes sites have to be changed because the underlying technology has gotten out of date or is going to become obsolete.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!"

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?

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

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,

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.

it is ba

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

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

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.

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

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

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."