Mumsnet Beta site - can you spare a few mins to have a look around?

[JustineMumsnet]

As trailed last May, we’ve been working on a new version of the Mumsnet Platform for a while now and we’re aiming to release it in a few weeks' time. We’ve been testing the site with Mumsnetters since July last year and we’ve been incorporating their feedback along the way. Now we're ready for the next stage of testing and we’d love as many of you as possible to have a play with it and tell us what you think/ uncover any glitches or concerns.

Our main objective in re-platforming is to move onto a new code base that will allow us to develop and improve features much faster. We have kept the functionality largely unchanged for now, aside from small improvements to the user experience and to a few features that don't function at all well at the moment. So, for example, there is a new version of Search. We've also been working on improving Private Messages although they’re not included in the Beta site just yet but should be released next week - we'll post here when they are.

If you’d like to help us test the new platform:

• Please go to beta.mumsnet.com

• When you access the beta website you’ll be asked for a passcode, please enter 246810

• Once you have accessed the Beta, we’d be super grateful if you’d complete this survey www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/CDW3SZM and tell us what you think

You can log in with your existing Mumsnet username and password.

For this test - we’ve taken a snapshot of the live site as it was at the end of 31 January - so any new posts, or changes you’ve made since then, won’t be reflected on the Beta site.

Whilst navigating around the Beta site, if you notice any usability issues or bugs, please report them via the “feedback” tab you’ll see on each page (see screenshot above). Any time you can spare to have a play (be it minutes or hours) will be hugely useful and much appreciated.

A few final things to note

1 - For now we're just focusing on the web version of the site, so if you only use the app, then we don't need you to participate just yet - we'll be looking at that in due course.

2 - If you’re a Premium member, this won’t be reflected on the Beta site just yet.

3 - If you’ve registered on Mumsnet with a social account, you may need to reset your password to login

Big thanks!

Sorry, I don't like it. I know the bigger font, lots of space and putting everything in a narrow column in the middle of the screen probably has some great design behind it but it puts me off.

Problems

1. Half as many threads on one screen (7 or 8 compared to 15 now)

1. Lots of dead space around the text

1. Ads seem bigger and more intrusive.

1. Thread list is all bunched towards the middle of screen which means thread titles are mostly going onto two or three rows

While threads I'm on is missing posts from the last year or so, I am enjoying reading my posts from way way back in the dark ages. Are there supposed to be 15 years worth of TIA coming up?

Repeated.

@OhYouBadBadKitten

Repeated.

That doesn't look right! Sorry about that.

Can you tell me what page you're looking at when you see this please?

Thanks

@Akire

Have to say don’t like new fonts like shouting in your face! Plus headings have changed I have larger text on phone so can’t see full headings. What jumps Up loudest is names of users when 99% of time you are not going recognise them Or really need know who’s posting the lighter font worked perfectly fine for this.

Agree. Plus it all feels like an app interface. I use my phone but not the app as I like that there is more information available in a small screen

Mentioning someone using @ is pretty broken, it breaks editing in the input box.
Don't forget to test on phones where the user may have set fonts to be bigger, it all looks a bit wrong on mine.

I so t like the counter next to the thread title as it counts replies, not posts.

It'll mean threads end at 999, very odd.

O don't like that threads aren't locked.or deleted after a set time. Seeing threads from 2, 3, 4 years ago is confusing.

Beside that, it's shockingly average.
5/10

Nothing particularly awful, nothing particularly awesome.

Some of the headings are smaller while other parts of the text are bigger, this makes the site less accessible to me as I need to magnify my screens - the dead space makes this harder. Looks like it's designed for mobile devices which I cannot use. What changes I noticed were for the worse. Nothing I liked better. Sorry.

I'm glad this is a real thing. I've been sent a load of messages this evening asking me to click on links and then input a code I supposedly would have been given. Now I've found this thread, I know what that refers to, but since I don't normally hang out in 'Site Stuff' this is the first I've heard of it all. I thought it was virusy spam, a look only reinforced by the number of emails - 3 in 7 hours (so far).

Do you think you could have sent out emails explaining what this was all about and politely asking if I would mind sparing some time to do free beta testing for you? You would have been more likely to get a reasonable number of responses that way. As it is I feel I've spent enough time on this already.

@MattTech I'm still getting it this morning. It's when I try to shift from P183 of TIO to P182.
Apparently I have written a huge amount of rubbish over the years.

Had a few minutes to spare so thought I'd click through to the beta. Gosh, that's almost unusable compared to the app. Videos, ads, lots of blank spaces. No thank you.

I just re-joined MN for this. I find it annoying that I am opening threads and finding that they are old ones that I didn't want to read the first time round.
An indication of when the OP was made would be useful to see before opening the thread. It would also help with the age old (hmm) zombie situation where a million year old thread is updated and people don't realise it no longer applies.

It also took me a while to find site stuff, I used to be lazy and use search but this time I got lots of threads mentioning it but none that took me straight in so had to do it the longer way, as intended.

Doesn't work with older operating systems

Way too much dead space in the buts that do work

Agree, too much dead space, no refresh at the bottom of Trending so have to scroll to the top which is painful (hand pain) and time wasting.

It is like scrolling down a huge poster or a childs book page in terms of wasted space. Takes so much longer to get where you want to be.

I use the 'go to page ..' feature in order to get to the page I want to start reading on a thread. This is no longer available on the Beta version, so I have to go to whatever is there to choose from and then keep wading through until I get to the one I want, takes up too much time so means I won't bother with the threads in future if they have a lot of pages.

And I keep getting signed out.

So far I am not impressed, it seems less user friendly than the old site and having just re-joined I am not sure I will be staying as it isn't the sleek, user-friendly experience I was expecting. I prefer the old clunky version TBH.

And I don't use Survey Monkey, I don't like it.

@ClariceQuiff

Wouldn't work at all on older version of Safari

Yup

Oh I finished the survey without having an opportunity to give general feedback. All the questions were related to specifics such as starting a thread. I’d assumed there was going to be a general feedback but at the end and there wasn’t. So I never got the opportunity to say what I thought about the site. 🤷‍♀️

Too much blank space and not enough text on screen. Takes forever to keep scrolling.

I've slightly narrowed down the 500 Error.
I've 189 pages of TIO. It's when I try and access pages 99-182.Sorted Most Recently Updated.
If I sort by Old to New then it is Pages 7 to.... I can't be asked to keep pressing back arrows or page numbers.
IOS Safari

There has got to be a date for when the thread was started in active discussions!

Unless you are finally going to deal with zombie threads in some way?

Apart from that, it looks horrible - can't even see the full thread title in threads I'm on. Can't see who started a thread in active or TIO. There is just too much space everywhere. If viewing on a phone (which I do as the Android app is so crap) you only get 1-2 posts per screen - endless scrolling in ridiculous!

We will end up with sore thumbs!

@GrannytoaUnicorn

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

I did not request for this to be withdrawn??? 🤔🤔🤔

TIO doesn't work at all for me. Won't load.

What on earth are 'expert posts'? Who decide who's an expert on a thread?

There's a really weird stuttering as you scroll down thread lists too. It's like the refresh rate isn't high enough to keep up.