| Northbayhikes.com |
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This page contains a running log about our group & recent web site changes. For general information, please see our FAQ. Note this website and all design decisions noted below are copyright Rob Laddish, all rights reserved. |
As we've been adding users and events, things have been slowing down. Good news - I implemented a cache system that should make all our pages load in 5 seconds or less. (worst case before was about 30 seconds sometimes - yuck!) Please let me know if you see any issues.
I changed the html email invitations to be much smaller and concise - you'll need to select the link to come to our site for full details. This may prompt you to login to our site. We recommend you never log out on your home or work systems, and only logout for public computers such as internet cafe's and libraries. This will cut the login prompts down to once a year.
We made this change for several reasons: (1) many people were going off the email invite, and when circumstances changed (such as the start time or date), they showed up on our web site & it was often missed. (2) when we implement our new web-based response system, you'll only be able to see other peoples responses if you go to the web site. We realize that viewing your email then jumping to the web site is a bit more inconvenient, but hope that the improved interaction & always current information make it more worthwhile.
I tested the new invite format with IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari (latest versions only) as well as the email client with google mail. As there are hundreds of combinations out there, I can't test them all, so there are bound to be a few bugs. As always, please let me know if you see something that looks odd. (besides my picture :)
Happy Holidays from all of us at Northbay Hikes!
On Oct 13 we sent out a survey for your opinion on some site changes. We received ~50 responses & many great suggestions. This post summarizes what we heard and how we're improving the site.
Question #1: There are several other hiking/walking groups in Sonoma County. Occasionally, we do a joint outing. We have the ability to list some of their events on our web site - would you be interested in seeing these options when they're not led by us?
Summary #1: 46 voted yes, 4 voted no ==> yes it is! With some opt out options below ...
Question #2: We've asked before if people are interested in hearing from others on paid events, usually charity, and the response was a pretty solid no. There's a gray area where some places are free but ... have a suggested donation. What are your thoughts here?
Summary #2: 31 voted yes, 15 voted no ==> yes it is! With some opt out options below ... Most said they'd be interested in required donation activities as well.
When designing a program or web site, it's an art to make things seem simple while allowing lots of options. Well, my engineer talents are showing as our user preferences page and events page are chock full of options! So, what are a few more? While people voted yes to both these questions, we got several good suggestions to make these events obvious and the ability for people to opt out. Even better, we will ease into sharing these kinds of events so we can improve the process with your feedback.
First off, we want to make these types of events obvious! This means showing it in several places:
We chose the following format:
If this isn't enough for you, we've added the ability to opt out. To do this, login and go to your settings.
Right now, we only have 1 partner loaded into the system. Some partners prefer we don't share their invites, and some people get email from both places and don't want that either. So ... we'll start slowly, and if there is a bug or if you can suggest a better way, please let us know.
We hope this meets most of your suggestions, and always welcome your feedback!
Happy holidays & see you on the trails in 2010,
Rob
On Oct 13 we announced a plan to make our event pages more interactive. Well ... it's taking a bit longer than I wanted. Paul, TJ, and I met and I demonstrated the new functionality. [Agile/Scrum processes for project management is great!] I got a lot of good feedback and suggestions.
Most of the functionality looked great, but there was 1 feature missing that both TJ and Paul thought had to come now rather than later. This is the ability for an admin or event organizer to create/delete/edit a response. It's important, as we still get emails and the occasional phone call to join a hike, and they need to add it in. So while I hoped to release this in phases, we decided to hold back the first phase until this one was in place.
In the meantime, some other changes have come through:
I hope to get the new interactive event pages finished early 2010. After a month of several up to 2am development nights, I burned out and needed to take a break. Our twins will arrive in Feb or March, so I hope to get back into the swing of things soon. Once our daughters arrive I'll have much more important things to do. Besides, you won't want to see spit up all over our pretty web site. :)
This was sent out by email to all our members:
We're pleased to announce some upcoming changes to our web site. They will
help bring us closer together as a community. I also have a couple of general
questions I'd like your thoughts on for some future changes:
1) There are several other hiking/walking groups in Sonoma County. Occasionally,
we do a joint outing. We have the ability to list some of their events on our
web site - would you be interested in seeing these options when they're not led
by us?
2) We've asked before if people are interested in hearing from others on paid
events, usually charity, and the response was a pretty solid no. There's a gray
area where some places are free but ... have a suggested donation. What are your
thoughts here?
Tangible examples often help - I'll send out a notice for a Laguna Walks event,
that has a suggested donation, but is free for us if you want. It will use the
new features below, to allow anyone who wants to go to self organize any
carpools you want.
Please respond to this email with your thoughts within the next 5 days or so,
and I'll tally the results. Thanks!
Now on to the new web site changes:
A) When you respond to an event, your response will be posted to the event page
on our web site for all to see. This will help others see who is going, and help
to self-organize non-standard carpools. It should be a big help to event
organizers - as that role can take 2-3 hours per event responding to emails and
listing the names on paper.
B) Posting your response to the web site will not send any emails to the
organizer or anyone else. The option to have this happen is there, and will be
implemented at a later time.
C) After an event is over, please come back to the event page and rate your
experience. You will be able to rate it from 1-5 stars, enter a comment, and
post a link to any pictures you have for the event. All reviews will show up at
the top of the event page. Later on we may add an option to the event listing
page to sort all events by the highest ratings, and link to peoples pictures
from our static pictures site.
As always, there will be bugs. Please email me directly if you run into a
problem. By default, all events will use the old email style of responses unless
the organizer specifically asks for the new web style. This way previously
planned events will continue using the old style, and if we run into a bunch of
bugs, we'll fix them before starting another event with the new style. If all
heck breaks loose, you will always be able to respond to your email invitation
and it will go directly to the organizer.
See you on the trail,
Rob Laddish (rob@laddish.net)
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