As we hinted yesterday, some changes have been afoot here at FeedBurner. It started with a new coffee maker that doesn't harm anyone pouring a cup of coffee before it's done brewing. This welcome enhancement was inevitably followed by thoughts of "Should we do for the site what we've done for the coffee?" We put our heads together, brought in some new and existing users to test our hunches, and a few weeks later we've got the redesigned FeedBurner application you can visit right now after you've logged in.
All of the changes have occurred below the “public surface” (what you see after signing in) — they are primarily changes to your feed configuration and account management experience. Our No. 1 goal was to make it easier to offer our publishers more new services and stats reporting tools in the coming months without further stretching the limits of socially appropriate vertical scrolling. So, instead of presenting all 15 of our services (and counting!) on one page, everything is now available from logically organized tabbed menus and sidebar. This is a more scalable solution and helps us keep up with our highly energetic Product Development and Engineering teams. See a service you want? Click its title, enter its options, and click its Activate button. It goes to work on your feed immediately. We have integrated the feed awareness and promotion capabilities into this management interface, and we have also tried to make solving feed problems easier with a new “Troubleshootize” feature for every feed you burn. We have simplified your account's My Feeds page to report circulation statistics at-a-glance and provide you with timely updates from FeedBurner headquarters.
The rest of the public website — outside of a signed-in user account — is unchanged. You can expect improvements there in the near term as we expand our services to reach new audiences and syndication markets. For now, all remains as it was.
One final note: there are no new publisher services effective with this launch — If you have a feed burned with us, it's completely unchanged. However, we hope future enhancements will be easier to apply.
For a quick guide to some of the key changes (and to help re-orient yourself), check out our redesign guide. Have comments for the design team? Send them in!
Posted by Matt at August 31, 2005 10:55 PM | TrackBack | Post A Comment | Email This PostI do like the new layout. The tabs and arrows remind me of Digital Web, and that effect works well.
One thing that I wanted was an easier way to flip thru feeds. When you are on the 'analyze' tab, for example, there is the link to the right of the tabs that states 'My Feeds'. It would be cool to have a dropdown there that would allow a person to flip between their other feeds directly (ala Basecamp when you switch projects).
Love some of the language in there!
Posted by: Mike P. at September 1, 2005 05:21 AMAre you all having trouble reading my http://www.flashitup.com/blog/atom.xml
When I go to the web page all I see is the Atom.xml and not the web page I selected from the friendly browser service. I did all the test ans validations, which pass. What is going on here please.
Best regards
Toby Mack
sweet, I love the new design!
I check my feeds almost every day and I always have to option-click each "stats" button for my 3 different feeds and then individually check out each page... the mini 7-day recap and estimation on circulation number in the new design is extremely helpful and exactly what I needed - thanks!
Posted by: Jesse J. Anderson at September 1, 2005 02:39 PMThe new design looks fabulous!I love feedburner even more. But in the mean time, I still have a problem unsolved. I try to use feedburner to burn a smart feed for my xanga blog.You know Xganga does have feed. it's http://www.xanga.com/rss.aspx?user=XANGAUSERNAME. But the smart feed created by Xganga orginal feed doesn't live up to smart feed's promise--I mean it can't be read by any feed reader and only can be read by online rss aggregator like bloglines but not desktop rss reader like feeddemon. Have you even been aware of this problem, please don't leave Xganga users in cold. Cause they want some fabulousness of feedburner as well.
Posted by: levisu at September 2, 2005 12:12 AMLooks good, now just redesign the "ClearFeed" theme in the "BrowserFriendly" service.
Posted by: Jeff Adams at September 2, 2005 01:30 AMSorry, I have to give a thumbs down to the new design. Now I have to go through multiple pages to see all the information I want, information that was previously available almost instantly.
But I suppose you can't please everyone with any change.
One thing I'd like to point out (and that we'll be tweaking in the coming days, no doubt) -- you still have quick access to an individual feed's stats reporting page by clicking on either the Circulation number or the Last 7 Days chart shown on the new My Feeds view. We're always responsive to feedback, of course, so if you have other suggestions, please feel free to post. The best place to keep the design discussion going is our Wishlists and Enhancements Forum: http://forums.feedburner.com/viewforum.php?f=4
Posted by: matt shobe at September 2, 2005 09:36 AMHonestly, I prefer the old format. I need a page where I can see the current subscriber count for the last 24 hours. Their doesn't seem to be such a page in the new format.
Posted by: Randy Charles Morin at September 2, 2005 07:28 PMHi Randy -
Under the "Analyze" tab, click "readership". That's still pulling the last 24 hour circulation, while "Feed Circulation" is actually showing the last full day's circulation.
--Rick
----
Rick Klau
VP, Business Development
FeedBurner - http://www.feedburner.com
rickk@feedburner.com
AIM/Y!/Skype: RickKlau
office: 312.756.0022
cell: 630.362.8911
I love the look and feel of the new layout. It feels...snappier.
I do have one issue: after signing in I'd much prefer to land on the Analyze tab than the Optimize tab. If I had to guess I'd say that most users would agree. I use Analyze almost every day, while Optimize and the other tabs are likely to be less often used.
All this would do is remove one click from my typical use of FeedBurner, but sometimes one click is too many! Again, I love the site, but I wish there was some way to make this small area better.
Posted by: Andrew at September 7, 2005 06:49 PMThanks for all the feedback folks! A couple of individual responses...
Randy: You can see current circulation for *all* feeds on the My Feeds page.
Anonymous (no name): What information would you like to see all on one page?
Andrew: We'll be making this change soon. So stay tuned! (But in the meantime, you can click your circulation or the 7-day chart to go straight to stats for that page.)
Posted by: John Zeratsky at September 7, 2005 09:04 PMHmm. I think I'm in the camp of those who prefer the old design, but I also recognize that UI changes are always unpopular at first even when they're an improvement, so I won't complain about it too much.
I do have one request, though: can we please, for the love of Strunk & White, excise the horrible monster word "Troubleshootize" from the earth? Every time I look at it, a small part of my brain dies. Thank you.
Some creative liberties just can't be rolled back once they've gained momentum. We couldn't help ourselves, for better or worse!
If it's of any consolation, how you pronounce 'Troubleshootize' makes all the difference.
Posted by: matt shobe at September 8, 2005 10:40 AMWhat I'd like is the last 24-hour circulation for all my feeds, all on one page. This way, I can visit one page to determine if there's any spikes.
Posted by: Randy Charles Morin at September 9, 2005 02:19 PMI love the new design, and I think the usability is fine. I think most of the principles we can learn from Jacob Nielsen are realized in a nice way.
Best regards,
Nat Emory
http://alierra.com
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