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Updates coming to Profile and Dashboard


hzoi

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Throughout all the recent changes I was just hoping that they would leave the my profile page alone as that's my langing page into GC.com, and it has everything I need to use the site all in one place.

 

It's not really possible to say how good the new version will be just from looking at a couple of screenshots, but the experience of recent rollouts hasn't been good so I hope the devs have learned a lesson and will make this one less traumatic.

 

waiting in anticipation/trepidation :huh::ph34r:

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Please also consider the network variable when implementing graphics (header or other) on the page.

I live in rural WV and my cell coverage is spotty as the dickens. Load time for graphics makes pages painful. And my home network is sometimes worse than my cell speed. I rarely follow links on FB as seeing half the page load and waiting on the rest isn't worth it to me...

If you're going to put the larger image / header in, please allow for customization. Others may not but I would remove it on my profile,..

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hoping that they would leave the my profile page alone as that's my langing page into GC.com

Hmm. On that note, Groundspeak, could you please make the soon-to-be-hidden profile page bookmarkable?

 

By that I mean, a proper link rather than some JavaScript contortion such as the current profile tabs. Ever try emailing a link to someone's gallery? (Ever try bookmarking your favorite map style?)

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My most used feature on the dashboard is the map icon, for a quick pop over to my map of nearby caches. That doesn't seem to be included in the new layout?

 

Hey fuzziebear3-

 

Thanks for the feedback. Because the 'Map' and 'Search' links are critical to the game we wanted to highlight them on the main navigation panel. It is important that they be more intuitive to access from anywhere on the site, not just the Dashboard. They already exist in the 'Play' dropdown menu, but they are hard to pick out from the rest of the options listed. We will be making some header changes later this week that will bring some more attention to them on the 'Play' dropdown menu. Hope that explanation helps!

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Hello Jayme,

 

I imagine it might be a pain for you guys but please do continue posting major design update steps here or in the blog. It's nice to know what to expect, and maybe you get some good player feedback as well. I'm glad at least that this thread is very friendly, compared to the Release Notes thread.

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Hello Jayme,

 

I imagine it might be a pain for you guys but please do continue posting major design update steps here or in the blog. It's nice to know what to expect, and maybe you get some good player feedback as well. I'm glad at least that this thread is very friendly, compared to the Release Notes thread.

Thanks terratin!

 

It is a bit more work, but it's way more preferable to build in small bits with feedback from the community than build a HUGE thing that we think is great and then hear that it doesn't work for folks. I agree - it makes it a lot easier to participate when the threads are grounded and friendly. Thanks for being a part of that. :)

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I'm sure this is beyond the scope of what you are planning anytime soon, but would it be possible to hide sections that I don't care about? Or allow users to rearrange (drag n drop) sections to meet their personal preferences? There's not a whole lot I'd hide now other than maybe trackables (and Brad), but I can see in the future if there are new widgets I'm not interested in I might want to hide them, or at least drag them to the bottom of the page so the things I care about are elevated. Just wish list thinking for the future.

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Groundspeak, could you please make the soon-to-be-hidden profile page bookmarkable?

 

By that I mean, a proper link rather than some JavaScript contortion such as the current profile tabs. Ever try emailing a link to someone's gallery? (Ever try bookmarking your favorite map style?)

Please, please, pretty please? Especially if the default page becomes the user's lists of geocaches, rather than their personal profile info.

 

Another page that would greatly benefit from this is the Geocaching 101 page.

 

You have the technology. You use it on the guidelines pages. For example, if I want to link specifically to the saturation guidelines, then I can link to:

https://www.geocaching.com/about/guidelines.aspx#cachesaturation

 

But on the Geocaching 101 page, there is no way to link to (for example) the "What should not be placed in a cache?" section of the page.

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I'm sure this is beyond the scope of what you are planning anytime soon, but would it be possible to hide sections that I don't care about? Or allow users to rearrange (drag n drop) sections to meet their personal preferences? There's not a whole lot I'd hide now other than maybe trackables (and Brad), but I can see in the future if there are new widgets I'm not interested in I might want to hide them, or at least drag them to the bottom of the page so the things I care about are elevated. Just wish list thinking for the future.

 

That was something that I suggested a few years ago. Remember iGoogle? It allowed the user to completely customize the content. Basically everything on the page was in a "section" that could be added, deleted, moved, or re-sized as the user desired. There's somewhat of a replacement called "iGoogle Portal" (http://www.igoogleportal.com/) that demonstrates the functionality. Maybe it's not for everyone but I spent a few years working on an open source Portal product that mostly did the same thing so maybe I'm biased.

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I'm sure this is beyond the scope of what you are planning anytime soon, but would it be possible to hide sections that I don't care about? Or allow users to rearrange (drag n drop) sections to meet their personal preferences? There's not a whole lot I'd hide now other than maybe trackables (and Brad), but I can see in the future if there are new widgets I'm not interested in I might want to hide them, or at least drag them to the bottom of the page so the things I care about are elevated. Just wish list thinking for the future.

 

That was something that I suggested a few years ago. Remember iGoogle? It allowed the user to completely customize the content. Basically everything on the page was in a "section" that could be added, deleted, moved, or re-sized as the user desired. There's somewhat of a replacement called "iGoogle Portal" (http://www.igoogleportal.com/) that demonstrates the functionality. Maybe it's not for everyone but I spent a few years working on an open source Portal product that mostly did the same thing so maybe I'm biased.

 

Actually iGoogle is exactly what I was thinking of. I thought if I mentioned that, nobody would know what I was talking about!

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Wow--the new dashboard is absolutely horrific. I mean like--the worst change GC.com has made to the site since I began in 2010. The recently viewed is BIGGER, darn it! It fills the page. And I don't want to see my friends' activities--how do I turn that off?

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Horrible is a good description. It is very slow moving from page to page. My person icon was designed for the small size and is square. In the ugly, humongous size, it is now a circle and cuts off parts of it. In the lists, I have to page down to the bottom of favorites awarded to get the the rest of my lists.

Nothing good. Many things bad.

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I was wondering where in the new dashboard I could edit my profile and finally spotted the tiny little gear on the right of the first "friends feed" thing. It's placement implies it's only settings related to the feed but it's the one and only (as far as I could see) access to all my settings. Perhaps it should be moved into the bar on the left and made a bit more prominent.

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I tried the new dashboard page. My God - slow. It's in another tab and has been circling with blank recently viewed and recent activity unpopulated.

 

For several minutes!

 

They need to make sure that this thing works across platforms before they roll this out into production.

 

With what they've got now, I'm not going to opt in. They're stopping lots of people from alpha testing their updates because it's too painful.

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From what I have seen I will be opting out until it is fixed.

 

Font size is too large. I reduced the size in my browser to 70% and then it was better.

That huge profile avatar on my profile page takes up so much room you have to scroll down every time too see anything useful

I am still seeing friends logs despite turning it off in the settings.

I see they ave dumped the display of DNFs. Probably to protect those sensitive petals amongst us

Recently viewed and recent logs takes ages to download

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I am still seeing friends logs despite turning it off in the settings.

 

I haven't tried to change it (assuming I can) but why do my friends logs appear before mine? I'm guessing that they're displayed chronologically, but a cacher on my friends is far more active than I (we both started about the same time: I have just under 1300 finds, she has over 14K) so her logs overwhelm the few that I post.

 

 

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I am still seeing friends logs despite turning it off in the settings.

 

 

I didn't see a place to turn that off--only a place to turn mine off on their dashboards. Did I miss something?

 

Here's what I'd like an answer to:

 

Recently viewed/friends logs takes up 3/4 of the page and the links to things I actually use in my dashboard are on a little vertical list off to the side. Why is that, exactly? Very confused...

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Ugh again! sad.gif

 

In what UX 101 class is the approach to navigate require scrolling? On a 17" Macbook with a browser maximized, on the new Dashboard I see just Statistics & Souvenirs. I need to scroll to see every other option to display on the screen. So much white space smattered with small, fine hard to read text.

On the Profile page, as I posted in this or a previous thread, on the same 17" Macbook I don't see the menu/tabs and have to scroll. There's the small banner about going back to the old page, so it will sneak up to the very BOTTOM of the screen.

Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh!

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On souvenirs, it doesn't look like this changed much, so perhaps this is more of a request for a future update than a comment on the current dashboard:

 

When profiles have lots of souvenirs it gets a bit messy to scroll through pages and pages of images. I would like to see categories of souvenirs defined that you can expand/collapse. Categories would be things like location souvenirs, date souvenirs, HQ promotions, maybe a few more.

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Horrible is a good description. It is very slow moving from page to page. My person icon was designed for the small size and is square. In the ugly, humongous size, it is now a circle and cuts off parts of it. In the lists, I have to page down to the bottom of favorites awarded to get the the rest of my lists.

Nothing good. Many things bad.

My icon also looks abysmal you can't use the same icon in multiple places with different formats.

 

Please, please remove friends logs from my screen I have no wish to stalk anyone.

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I'm confused. Why do I care what others are logging before what I recently logged. I would rather that put on the side away from what I want to do. It's like if you have your desk just the way you want it and then someone comes in and messes it up to be the way they want you to have it and you are at a loss of what was in important to you. What happened to asking what is important to us and what we want to see on our dashboard?

I like seeing what I viewed and glad that hasn't changed, but then I want to see what I logged last because I sometimes I log caches then get interrupted and can't remember where I left off and what I just logged.

Seeing what my friends logged in a newsfeed is not that important to me and rather see that pushed to the side so I can look at it if I wanted but not take over my dashboard.

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I'm confused.

 

Yes. I am not sure why the new experiences are better than the old. At least you can see some of the information. I just watch the recent view and the recent logs section whirl unless I click on on the menu to the left. As for the friends logs, I defriended everyone because the plans seemed invasive. I have other means of staying in touch with my friends so I hope they understand.

 

It's like if you have your desk just the way you want it and then someone comes in and messes it up to be the way they want you to have it and you are at a loss of what was in important to you.

 

I have that reaction with the public profile. We used to be able to decide what we wanted to show when it is opened. Now Groundspeak has decided they know best and our information is relegated to the side.

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I'm confused.

 

Yes. I am not sure why the new experiences are better than the old. At least you can see some of the information. I just watch the recent view and the recent logs section whirl unless I click on on the menu to the left. As for the friends logs, I defriended everyone because the plans seemed invasive. I have other means of staying in touch with my friends so I hope they understand.

 

It's like if you have your desk just the way you want it and then someone comes in and messes it up to be the way they want you to have it and you are at a loss of what was in important to you.

 

I have that reaction with the public profile. We used to be able to decide what we wanted to show when it is opened. Now Groundspeak has decided they know best and our information is relegated to the side.

I was thinking of doing the same thing. Unfriending everyone on my list. I never pay attention to it anyway.

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I like the iGoogle idea of picking and choosing what 'widgets' are shown.

 

I would like a section of 'My recent logs', not so interspersed with others logs.

 

I did end up deleting some friends, as they are not close to me physically or emotionally, and I don't really care what caches they find.

 

Regarding my previous comment on the map button -- I know I can get there other ways and can go to the dropdown, but I do miss my map button already.

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I like the idea of seeing my friends logs, but I'd like to see them separate from my own recent logs.

Good point, I hadn't thought of that. On the dashboard, I clearly want to see my own logs. Because of the whole social media thing that's swept the modern world, I understand the idea of seeing all your friends' logs even though I'm only vaguely interested in it and doubt I'd look at it very often. But the one thing I can't imagine anyone wanting is to see both in the same list. In terms of what information I'm seeking, they have almost nothing to do with one another.

 

When GS mentioned that we were getting all the logs because they didn't have time to implement filtering yet, my first reaction was that the obvious first implementation would be just my logs, i.e., functionally the same as the old page. But with a little more thought, I realized why that's not what they implemented: they want to make sure to put this "cool new feature" in front of us so people with that social media mentality will be duly impressed while the rest of us wait for the additional controls to change it back to what we want.

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I'm confused.

 

Yes. I am not sure why the new experiences are better than the old. At least you can see some of the information. I just watch the recent view and the recent logs section whirl unless I click on on the menu to the left. As for the friends logs, I defriended everyone because the plans seemed invasive. I have other means of staying in touch with my friends so I hope they understand.

 

It's like if you have your desk just the way you want it and then someone comes in and messes it up to be the way they want you to have it and you are at a loss of what was in important to you.

 

I have that reaction with the public profile. We used to be able to decide what we wanted to show when it is opened. Now Groundspeak has decided they know best and our information is relegated to the side.

I was thinking of doing the same thing. Unfriending everyone on my list. I never pay attention to it anyway.

 

I don't have any geo friends, but unfriending everyone isn't the "correct" answer. The correct answer would be for GS to fix the problem... oh well...

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Current (automaticly resized) 68x68 pixels profile images are shown too pixelated when they are stretched to 227x227 pixels for the new layout.

Now that they've blown the icon back up into image size, maybe they'll switch back to the old image-sized profile image we all used to have before they decided they didn't want a profile image and eliminated it in favor of just using the icon.

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Current (automaticly resized) 68x68 pixels profile images are shown too pixelated when they are stretched to 227x227 pixels for the new layout.
Now that they've blown the icon back up into image size, maybe they'll switch back to the old image-sized profile image we all used to have before they decided they didn't want a profile image and eliminated it in favor of just using the icon.
IMHO, they really should be different images. The small 68x68 avatar is a small indicator of who you are, and appears next to your logs and your forum posts. The large 227x227 image should be a profile photo or something similar.

 

A lot of perfectly fine 227x227 profile photos are unrecognizable when shrunk down to 68x68. And perfectly recognizable 68x68 avatar images seem enormous at 227x227.

 

And what's up with the weird dimensions? Not 50x50, not 75x75, not 64x64 (a round number in binary), but 68x68. And not 200x200, not 250x250, not 225x225, not 256x256 (a round number in binary), but 227x227. Weird...

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I posted my now-active greasemonkey-scripted Dashboard page comparison over here.

 

Already using it, and liking it. Just need a couple of populated sections and to add sticky 'Hide' state.

 

Also, for the first time since I created my account in '09, I updated my account avatar. ohmy.gif Gonna miss Marvin. He's staying in the forum though.

Edited by thebruce0
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Now that you enlarged the profile image on the new dashboard, you should also allow users to upload bigger profile images.

 

Current (automaticly resized) 68x68 pixels profile images are shown too pixelated when they are stretched to 227x227 pixels for the new layout.

 

You can upload a new image in your settings at https://www.geocaching.com/account/settings/profile

 

If I submit a new profile image it will automatically be resized down to 68x68 px. At least that's what's written on the profile settings page.

 

w8w468.jpg

Edited by Ridler & Cmokica
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I just tested and uploaded a new profile pic that's 815x815 to see what resizes are made and how they're used.

 

Public profile: Raw image used is 200x200, but displayed at 227x227 (slightly blurry stretch)

Dashboard: Thumbnail used is 150x150, but displayed at 90x90 (wasted bandwidth)

Dashboard Friend feed: Thumbnail used is original-sized 815x815, but displayed at 50x50 (vastly wasted bandwidth)

Cache listing: Thumbnail used is 48x48, displayed at 48x48 (perfect!)

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Now that you enlarged the profile image on the new dashboard, you should also allow users to upload bigger profile images.

 

Current (automaticly resized) 68x68 pixels profile images are shown too pixelated when they are stretched to 227x227 pixels for the new layout.

 

You can upload a new image in your settings at https://www.geocaching.com/account/settings/profile

 

Easier said than done since I created my avatar within the original specs. I would prefer not to change it but I'll see what photoshop can do.

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In the lists, I have to page down to the bottom of favorites awarded to get the the rest of my lists.

I'm pretty sure that's how it is in the 'old profile page' too. I don't like it, but it's not unique to the 'new' page design.

Personally, I'd prefer if we could have a tabbed display on the "Lists" page - "Favorites" & "Bookmarks". Similar to how the Statistics page has different tabs (buttons) for Basic / Maps / Milestones.

 

and #2 How to display DNFs

Looks like GS decided to scrap the display of DNF's. There were a lot of people, in forum and FB, about having their DNF count shown. Those sensitive/embarrassed cachers' outcries seemed to win out here.

 

I would like a section of 'My recent logs', not so interspersed with others logs.

+1

I'd really like to see a section that is just "My" recent logs.

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IMHO, they really should be different images. The small 68x68 avatar is a small indicator of who you are, and appears next to your logs and your forum posts. The large 227x227 image should be a profile photo or something similar.

 

A lot of perfectly fine 227x227 profile photos are unrecognizable when shrunk down to 68x68. And perfectly recognizable 68x68 avatar images seem enormous at 227x227.

I never understood why GS thought it made sense to combine them into a single image, even without considering the size problem. They have two different, entirely unrelated functions.

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I was wondering where in the new dashboard I could edit my profile and finally spotted the tiny little gear on the right of the first "friends feed" thing. It's placement implies it's only settings related to the feed but it's the one and only (as far as I could see) access to all my settings. Perhaps it should be moved into the bar on the left and made a bit more prominent.

I also found the placement of the settings icon (gear) to be odd and not intuitive. I'd also prefer to see it in the left column, but not where it gets its own line break and pushes all the other content down further.

 

Perhaps the gear icon, even without the word "Settings", could be placed to the right of the "Username / Member Type" lines or to the right of the "View Profile" button.

 

Something like this?

gc-dashboardsettings.png

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I don't know what's happening, but since yesterday I'm unable to use the Message Center in Chrome. When I click on the link at top right, the page opens, but no conversations appear... just the waiting circle... waiting... waiting...

 

In Edge, for example, it seems good. So it's some incompatibility with Crhome. I've already deletet the cookies, but still not working.

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I don't know what's happening, but since yesterday I'm unable to use the Message Center in Chrome. When I click on the link at top right, the page opens, but no conversations appear... just the waiting circle... waiting... waiting...

 

In Edge, for example, it seems good. So it's some incompatibility with Crhome. I've already deletet the cookies, but still not working.

Is this in Windows 10? I just now tried it, and it seems OK on mine. My version of Chrome is Version 58.0.3029.110 (64-bit) and says it's "up to date".

 

Maybe it was a temporary glitch?

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