Redesigned community for mobile optimization

[Lena E]

UPDATE: We are pushing the redesign this Monday 11/13 at 6am PST, with a scheduled downtime until 9am PST. 

UPDATE: We plan to push our new Community redesign at 8am pst on Wednesday. Scheduled downtime for Community is until 11am pst! 

Hi all,

We’re excited to debut a newly re-designed community forum. The new design will be mobile-optimized. That is, it's intended to allow a more user-friendly and fluid experience on mobile devices, while remaining consistent with what you see today on the website. 

Additionally, the forums are getting an update so that they're stylized more closely to the main Upwork site, offering a cleaner, simpler design that we hope will be easier to navigate and digest.

What's changing? 

The primary change you’ll notice from our mobile optimized design is the page layout. The navigation bar will now be at the top of the page. And the sidebar with our leadership board will be moved from the left to the right. This right side panel will also house the rotating "carousel" we use today to spotlight discussions, blog posts, etc.

What stays the same? 

Even though we’re moving some of the furniture around, we’ve done our best to try and avoid any disruption to your use of the forums. We haven’t removed any functionality. Actually, we’re adding a couple of new items we hope will make your experience better, including visual indicators to draw attention to new content.

When is this happening and what will I need to do? 

We’re planning to push the new design live this Thursday, July 27th In order to do so, we'll have a downtime of 3 hours, starting at 6:30am PST. *Update: we are still tweaking the new design and want to make sure its ready before pushing it out to everyone, as a result our timing is delayed. We will update this thread with new date soon*.  If anything changes with the timing we will update you all here. After the site is live, you'll be able to login as before and start participating. With an upgrade like this, we might find some stuff breaking. We'll do our best to address any issues right away after the launch.

We’ve shared a few mockups of the new design below. Let us know if you have any questions.

What the Home Page will look like:

 

What the Topic Page will look like:

 

 New Notification Page: 

[Rene K]

I can't wait to see the new version!

While whe're at this, would it be possible to get rid of the ranks? Would be nice.

And also, maybe you could get rid of the column with most kudoed and stuff? Honestly I don't want my name to be there for people to spam me or ask for support...

Pleeeeeeease?

[Ravindra B]

Looking forward to the new version! 

[Pat M]

Lena, will downtime Thursday morning involve the Community only and/or other portions of Upwork as well?  Thanks. 

[Irene B]

Ooo...almost missed this....and what the Frenchman said.

[Lena E]

Just the Community site here.

[Wendy C]

Along with my PM saying "Yippee!" + 1 to Rene's request to get rid of Top Kudoed, etc. listings if at all possible.  Way too many people take advantage of this to solicit and/or beg free help.

[Rene K]

Lena, I'm gonna to bring this to the next level. If you get rid of ranks and of the most kudoed and blah blah list, I'll send you French chocolate. I will send it to the Upwork's HQ address, to your attention. 

I can't send wine because I'm afraid the bottle gets broken during transport, but chocolate, I promise.

I understand that this may be viewed as an attempt of bribery. This is an attempt of bribery.

[Douglas Michael M]

Lena,

I'm not seeing any subdivisions into content fora, as now shown on the left under Browse Categories. Is this being replaced by a hodgepodge of "Notifications," or was it an oversight in choosing the illustrations?

Thanks and best,

Michael

[Valeria K]

Michael, 

It's not shown on the screenshot, but all the sub-categories will appear as drop-down menus at the top. It'll look very similar to the Upwork.com site