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Inches and Falling :: Our Way To Fall

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Previously on the Calliope

Thanks to Hieronymus for fixing the ol' calliope… it was touch and go there for a while, since only certified technicians are allowed to mess with its innards.

Hey, you!  Yeah, you!  Why don't you come on over and play the Calliope No. 8 with us?

Fall Line

Jack Johnson

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I'm talking, of course, about discussing the recent Vox update.  I haven't made a dedicated effort to seeking out people's opinions on the new UI changes, but every post from my neighborhood on the topic seems to be on the negative side of things.  I wonder how many, like myself, actually tried out this interface during the beta phase?  I'm blushing, because I tried it, found it pretty unusable, and switched back to the "old" UI.  But I forgot to submit feedback through the survey, and I'm wondering now if there were just not enough people who tried it out, found they didn't like it, and submitted their negative review. 

I wouldn't think Vox would go ahead with such a change for everyone if they found 90% of the people who tried it didn't like it, so I'm afraid that the majority of the survey results were from people who tried the new design and liked it and bothered enough to submit feedback.  I have to take my share of the blame for not providing feedback when it could have helped, but yet I still feel that it is better to voice my opinion, albeit a bit late.

Here's what I submitted to Vox feedback this morning:

I tried out the new design when it was a beta option, and had to stop after a couple days, because it was just so damn hard to do what I wanted to do.  This is not a knee-jerk reaction, I really gave it a chance and it came up lacking for the basic actions and ways that I used Vox.  I was happy that I was able to switch back, and I hope you provide an option to opt back to the older layout (much like Google gave Gmail users a means to switch back to the old Gmail design if they didn't like the new one).

Problems with the interface that made me switch back: I can't easily follow my neighborhood updates, comments are a pain to find, and this really breaks the entire user experience I was having and enjoying.  I don't care so much about the death of [This is Good], but I feel like my Vox homepage is a splash screen with almost zero content, where before I felt like it was a very lean, efficient means of transferring information about myself and my neighbors.  Part of my desire to come to Vox was derived from what I could glean from the Vox homepage.  That part of my involvement feels missing – I feel LESS connected with my neighbors and groups than I did before.  The new "features" section is a good idea but something about it makes me feel like I won't be using it much.

I will (probably) be staying with Vox through this new design, but I'm leaning towards getting into posting on my personal site.  I know that I won't have the community aspects that Vox has had, but when it feels so awkward to use Vox, I think I may be willing to give that up for something that feels more comfortable to use & manage.

Vox has been a great place to blog, and I have enjoyed the community aspects that have made me active, both in posting and reading other people's blogs.  I'm going to stick with Vox for a while yet, and see how things go.  But in the end, my intention for having a blog was having a place for me to write and share my thoughts and experiences, and the neighborhood aspects were secondary, only.  If a wordpress blog on my own site is what it takes to keep me feeling like I can easily get my thoughts out into a written medium, I won't hesitate to go that route.  We'll see, though.  I still have faith that the Vox admin can turn this around – I just hope that my neighbors don't all jump ship without giving them a chance.  And if you are thinking of leaving for somewhere else, PLEASE leave a forwarding address.  I want to keep track of my neighborhood, even if they are scattered to the four corners of the internet.  (And I'll be you didn't even know the internet was a quadrilateral, eh?)

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