Breadcrumb change with today's release

[mudaba]

Some of you have already noticed (hopefully) that we have a new dropdown to navigate to Chowhound boards. We have now released phase two of this change, which is the removal of the "Choose a Board" module and the implementation of breadcrumbs across the site. In this context, breadcrumbs are not crunchy stale bread cut into tiny cubes, but the links at the top of the page that help users know where they are. For instance, you will see at the top of this thread the words "Home > Chowhound > Site Talk." Those are the breadcrumbs. Hopefully they will help orient you to where you are on the site at all times. Additionally, we have added a save feature (the yellow star) that helps you save the boards you are interested in visiting over and over. Those boards will now appear in the "Chowhound Discussions" dropdown when you are logged in.

All of these changes are aimed at streamlining navigation and helping people get to threads more quickly. Hope you find them helpful.

Meredith

[janniecooks]

It's difficult to see the positives to these navigational changes. Another victim of this new "breadcrumb" design is the inability to click on the page title to refresh the page. Now it is necessary to either select the refresh button on the browser toolbar, or reselect the board if one wishes to refresh the page. Another navigational convenience that was removed, making the site less useful for end users.

[carolinadawg]

Is it really any harder to click the refresh button as opposed to the page title? Really?

[janniecooks]

no of course not, and I didn't write that it is. what is objectionable is this sits removal or elimination of navigational conveniences that are standard and which elimination degrades the user experience, especially in the new visually unappealing design.

[carolinadawg]

Any degradation of the user experience caused by clicking on the refresh button is highly minimal, imo.

[Melanie Wong]

Actually, it is harder if one is scrolling on an iPad or laptop and not using a mouse. The addition of "most recent discussions" is not a substitute for refreshing the page since on busy boards, the number of threads with new posts will exceed the six thread limit of the box.

[carolinadawg]

I'm not sure why it's harder to click the refresh button on an iPad...it seems fairly easy on mine.

[Melanie Wong]

It requires a few inches more scrolling on my laptop and stretching the cursor to reach the refresh button on the browser toolbar at the top of the page vs. the title of the message board. In Firefox, one can use the F5 button to refresh the page but that takes my hands off the track pad. On the iPad, the title of the board was easy to punch with my left thumb when holding the iPad on my lap and easing duty for my overworked right hand.

I do find myself using the message board link at the bottom of the page more. But that's only helpful when I'm reading a thread where the last recent post is at the bottom of the page.

[donovt]

If you just tap the top of the iphone/ipad screen it goes to the top where the refresh button is. No scrolling necessary.

[Melanie Wong]

Thanks, I've edited my post to make it more clear on laptop vs. iPad.

[donovt]

Yeah, I figured you knew that already but couldn't hurt to mention in just in case.

[janniecooks]

And to further illustrate the stupidity of this latest redesign, if one has navigated beyond the first page of a board, and wishes to refresh the board, it is necessary to navigate back to the first page and refresh. the prior design allowed the user to click on the board title, which refreshed the board and returned the user to the first page. One mouse click instead of two.

[JoanN]

I don’t get all the dislike here and even more so on the “Dropdown” thread. Works great for me, perhaps because I have only five saved boards. Still just one click to get where I want to go. I just scroll over “Chowhound Discussions,” my saved boards drop down, and I click on the board I want. Also love that I can now, from within any board, click on the “Chowhound” breadcrumb, and go directly to all the most recent posts and that I can click on the breadcrumb of the board I’m on and it refreshes that main page. Do agree, though, that the color of the breadcrumbs makes them hard to see.

[SnackHappy]

All those options were already available with fewer actions. I don't see any of this as an improvement except for freeing up space for advertising. Saved boards were available at the top of the page and links back to the whatever board you were reading and to Chowhound were there also. The breadcrumbs just seem to encourage people to go to Chow by calling it Home. I don't read Chow and my home here is the Quebec board so al these new bells and whistles just get in my way. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way.

[JoanN]

Evidently many agree with you and I'm in the minority, but I don't understand how you can have "fewer actions" than one click. Didn't even realize that Home takes you to Chow; I don't read it either.

[SnackHappy]

It's not one click. You have to scroll over the link, wait for the menu to unroll, scroll down the board you want and then click.

The old method involved one scroll, then one click.

[JoanN]

Is your menu slow to unscroll? Mine is immediate.

[SnackHappy]

It varies, but no matter how quick it is, it's still annoying. I really hate drop down and fly-out menus on web pages.

[tcamp]

It took me quite a while to figure out to click the star in order to save a board. At least 6 minutes, which is an eon in screen time. Of course, I was not yet fully caffeinated.

[Quine]

I use Chrome, so the star is instinctive, as it is what I need to click to bookmark a page/site, browser-wise.

I *do* find the "breadcrumbs" a useless "feature" Not like Chow or CH is SO "vast" that one can get so deep into the woods, that you have gotten lost, what, you can only be a few places. And those are in the drop down menu. You can be three places, only one level in on Chow. And in CH and only one level in.

[ChinoWayne]

I think it would be better if the color scheme of the bread crumbs matched the CHOW red color. That light shade of blue is easy to miss and clashes with the overall color style of the page.

[SnackHappy]

Nothing good can come of this.

These "improvements" have seriously slowed-down site navigation.

[iluvcookies]

Now I can not navigate between boards as easily as before... I have to choose "See All Boards" to do that.
What is the reasoning behind taking away the Choose a Board feature? Did people really complain about not knowing which board they were on?

[Dave MP]

Now that there's a Chowhound dropdown navigation, you can access the most popular boards, as well as your saved boards, there. You can have 9 saved boards in the dropdown, plus another 9 that are always there on the left-hand side. It's true that you'll need to go through "See All Boards" to access any boards beyond that....but that was the case with the Choose a Board feature, too.

You can find more information about this change in this thread: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/854055

[iluvcookies]

I don't like it. I don't want to learn a new navigation system. It was fine the way it was.

The old way I was able to use the "See All Boards" right from the top of the page. And it was fine.

[toodie jane]

fiddling with the new dropdown, making clicks, etc. keeps those ADS in front of our eyes for many seconds longer. It's all about AD revenue.