Introducing The Brand New WA Experience. This is BIG.
The day is finally here, we have just released the brand new UX (User Experience) here at Wealthy Affiliate. If you are reading this, you likely know how different the new platform looks compared to the old. It is MUCH improved.
About this time last year we started our idea development as per how we could design the Wealthy Affiliate platform to better suit the needs of our users, how to make it more intuitive to navigate, clean up redundancies within the design, set it up for a much improved mobile experience, and make it much more beautiful.
A year later, here we are releasing what I believe to be the most significant and exciting evolution to date at Wealthy Affiliate. There are many reasons I believe this and I want to take a few minutes to explain just why the new UX here is such a big deal to you as a member, as part of the community, and as an Internet entrepreneur.
Before I get rolling, Kyle has created a new walk-through of WA. Check it out when you get a chance.
(click below to watch in a new window)
You can also access a tour of the new platform through the Profile menu (Click your profile image from the main menu, then choose "System Tour".
New Design, Refreshing Your Experience
We are a technology company. We have a great team of brilliant software engineers working hard behind the scenes and both of our personal backgrounds stem in computer science.
One of the main issues that we were running into is that our past design was that it was becoming unorganized and was starting to feel a bit dated...we knew we were capable of much better!
We took this opportunity to showcase the latest conventions, designs, and technologies to make your experience here at WA a much more comfortable one. Appearance wise, it is 2018/2019 ready and is a platform we can comfortably build out without trying to "bolt on" feature after feature. My previous few blog posts over the past month or so have been to help showcase and prelude what the design was going to look like...feedback has been outstanding and I thank every single one of you who left comments on the posts, and for a handful of dedicated WA members who offered to help BETA test the platform.
To all the BETA testers who took us up on our offer to help out with the launch and preparing the new platform, THANK YOU! Thanks for your help and thorough messages to me with ideas, feedback on the platform, and helping us suss out any bugs that were existing!
Easier to Navigate, "Lots of Clicks" Removed
Every time you have to "click" it slows you down. Some platforms and systems within WA that are widely used were difficult to find in the previous UI, often times stuff deep within a complex navigation system (the rabbit hole as we call it).
We have put a lot of thought and detail into the navigation at Wealthy Affiliate, simplifying it drastically. We have limited the number of main menu links, and we have also organized them in such a way that makes much more sense.
We have moved away from the "brand names" for our platforms and used labels that make a lot more sense. Naturally, a newcomer was getting confused by terms like "SiteRubix" and this has been replaced with "Websites". Jaaxy didn't make sense to people either, this was replaced by "Research".
This level of navigational clarity is going to lead to much more efficient interaction with the platform and a lot of people accomplishing much more here within WA.
The menus and how they work have been improved on, with many of them offering "actionable" items within them.
For example, within the Websites menu you can initiate the creation of a New Website, and a New Article right there. You can also log into your most recently used websites, and access your last updated articles in SiteContent (see image below).
Although this may seem nominal, it leads to a lot more clarity and saves an incredible amount of time over the course of the year. If we can save you a few minutes per day on your efficiency here at WA, this adds up to many days worth of time through the course of a year that you could be applying to your business (and making more money)!
Live Events, They Are Now Beautiful (and Visible).
Where are the "live classes"? Where can I find the replays? In the OLD WA the live classes, one of the brilliant platforms here for advancing your skill set, were very difficult to find. In fact, for Starter members they had no way to see where the live classes (events) were.
You can now see the past events and register for upcoming events within any easy to navigate menu.
We are also going to be showing you the exciting education in a much more visible manner as we are going to be scheduling months of live training at a time so you can see upcoming training that is going to be taking place. For the person holding the event, it is easier to be prepared. As the person viewing the event, it is nice to see what is coming up! Keep an eye out for many more "RED DOTS" on days within the events calendar to show up soon. You can subscribe to any of them as a Premium member :)
When a live event is taking place, it is also going to show live directly within your activity feed.
You may be wondering why we have called this "events" instead of classes. The reason is that they are in essence events, and we are going to be evolving the types of events that are offered as well as "who" can offer them. Look for this as we evolve this platform through 2018. Lots of exciting changes coming in this respect to get you exciting, timelly and LIVE education on various topics here in WA!
Help Has Been Centralized.
One big focus with our new designs was help. We have lots of mediums in which you can get help at WA, but conventionally these have been scattered in a very decentralized manner. With the new UI, you are going to have two main menu items that streamline all help, support and coaching here within WA.
- Live Chat. If you need instant support, want to help others within the community looking for instant help, or are carrying on an ongoing conversation, you can access a Live Chat directly within the main menu. This will notify you when new questions have been asked (a green count), as well as when someone has replied to you within the chat. This will allow you to efficiently multi-task here within the WA. Also, lets say you are stuck on something within the training, you can simply pop open this live chat and ask any questions you may have. It is ultra efficient and useful. We have also redesigned the live chat interface. It is much cleaner.
- Help Center. The Help Center is where ALL the various help channels here within WA are located, along with the coaching that you have access to. This is divided up into the four categories.
- SiteSupport, where you go to get help with all of your hosting and technical issues with your websites.
- Ask a Question, where you can go to get community feedback in a articulate manner, within minutes.
- Live Chat, where you can get live help and network with others in a live format here at WA.
- Private Messages, where as a Premium member you can contact fellow members privately and get personal help and have private discussions.
This centralization is going to remove the confusion about where to go to get help as it is all in one place now.
We Strive for Perfection. It's Unachieveable.
Our goal has, and always will be, to get better. With each day that passes we are continually working to build Wealthy Affiliate into the best platform it can be. One where all internet entrepreneurs can hang out, live, operate businesses with maximum efficiency, and get all the education/tools/support they need to create their own respective success stories online.
With each day that passes, we are making this more viable for a larger group of people. We are also making it much more efficient to do so.
As a result, people are happier with the service, they stick around longer, and they more easily reap the many benefits of the platform.
Our update today is a direct reflection of our ethos here at WA. We care about you and your journey moving forward. This is only going to continue to be apparent and our new experience & design is setting us up for many exciting years ahead.
New platforms coming. Many, MANY new innovations coming. System upgrades and improvements coming that have been developed for the new WA that we've released today.
Expect brilliance from us, we cannot wait to deliver.
I hope you thoroughly enjoy the new design here at WA, the new features, and the many improvements. We would love to hear your thoughts, feedback, and of course being a new platform if you find any bugs or issues, please let us know right away in the comments below and we will get these addressed.