Oh honey, you noticed!
You may have noticed some changes on our website. Getting the most attention this go-round was the Qlist. It was late last fall when we first introduced you to the Qlist. The initial release focused, primarily, on getting our members started on the creation of their Qlistings. As we watched member participation grow, discussions of interface redesign began to surface around the office with increased frequency.
Over the last few months, we’ve put a lot of thought and effort into this redesign. To dramatically improve our users’ experience, there were two very low hanging fruits for us to grab; the first being site navigation and the second; how to visually represent data richness. We realized that, in order for us to be successful, these two goals needed to be interdependent. We wanted to be able to reward our users! Once we decided on maps as the way to go for navigation, it became pretty obvious that color gradients (for states and regions) and sized data points (for regions) would be used to represent data richness.
Also related, but aside (from a design perspective), we needed to indicate, on the Qlists themselves, which Qlistings were more interesting to look at than others, so, we also added a column headed ‘Qlisting’. This field also contained sized data points (middle dots) which scaled in size based upon a little algorithm which determined the richness of the company’s Qlisting (Hint to Guildmembers: publish as much material as you can).
Beyond that, we also added a search. We knew that visitors would often come with a company name, or a list of names, that they are researching. This was an easy way for them to do that. Worth noting, when using the search bar, you will notice that if you are viewing a state or a region, the search will search within your current results, so, if you want to search our entire database, you should use the search on the US map view.
Below are some other changes that we’ve made:
Guildmembers, the Qlist is now preference driven. We are now populating the project type columns based upon those selected in your preferences. More importantly, the regions and states that you are listed in are also dependent upon your preferences; the markets you’ve selected. Please take advantage of this by updating your preferences as soon as possible.
List this company. What if the company the user is looking for isn’t listed? We added a form to the Qlist encouraging users to request new companies on the Qlistings.
A landing page ticker was added to our landing page. This ticker scrolls through recent blog posts and testimonials.
An RSS link to our blog was added to the top of the landing page. Use this link to get the latest GuildQuality news in the RSS reader of your choice. If the term ‘RSS reader’ scares you, don’t be nervous; we recommend creating a Google Homepage. It’s quite simple to set up and wonderful once it is.
The Guildmasters section got a few cosmetic changes. Check ‘em out!
Stuff you can’t see, but might notice. It’s all a little faster. We’ve made some tweaks backstage, so, hold onto your hat!
We hope that you enjoy these changes. Naturally, we love hearing your feedback.