New interface features!

June 28, 2010 interface, new features 7 Comments

A little while back we sent out an email to most of our members asking for feedback as part of our interface redesign. You can see some of the results of that process up on the site now! You don’t have to read this post to understand the changes – we’ve made them as simple as possible! – but it may prove fun reading if you’re interested in user interface design! Here’s the new stuff:

Statistics are now displayed automatically!

Before, when you wanted to see the performance of your bids (or ads, or campaigns), you had to visit your “My bids” page and then click through on the “view performance” button, where a new page would load showing you the performance information. Now, all that information is shown by default – and in a much more compact, useful, and intuitive format. We’ve gone from:



to the much simpler:



You can click on those images for more detail. All the information is there, but it’s now grouped in a more sensible way, colour-coded, and the charts take up way less space — and of course, you can still click on them for a larger view.

Regional bids are now grouped together!

One of the things we heard a lot was that it can be hard to manage geotargeting, now that there are so many bids. Now, your regional bids on an ad box are grouped together, allowing you to manage them all at once:




The information from four bids is shown here, presented as a single bid. And when you edit it, you can edit it across regions as well! If you want to go deeper, there’s a “show all” button that breaks down a bid to its individual parts, just as it would’ve been displayed before. And if you don’t like viewing your bids like this, you can turn this option off on your My Profile page.

More intuitive interface elements!

Management options are now shown in a straightforward vertical list. The other change you’re probably noticing is the crown above the status face:



This crown is gold when you’re the high bidder, and grey otherwise. Click on a grey crown, it becomes gold, and your bid becomes the high bidder! It’s faster than bidding up over and over again, especially if all you want to do is just win the auction.

The vertical arrows allow you to bid up and down, and the sideways arrow with the clock on it allow you extend your bid, as before.

Cleaner, simpler design!

Throughout the site we’ve tried to make things more clear and concise. A good example is the “My profile” page. Here’s the old version:



and here’s the new version:




The new subheadings and icons help you find when you’re looking for quickly, and make navigating the page faster and easier.

All these changes — along with plenty more, including an easier and cleaner search page — are up on the site now. Thanks for being Project Wonderful members!