New post: The New LDS.org Menu

[johnshaw]

OK... who drew the short straw to re-do all the Getting Started Guides?

[barkeraj]

Also, it appears that none of the applications are using the new menu yet, so when you are in one of the applications, the Tools menu still appears. I assume that will be corrected soon....

LDS.org is made up of many separate projects. While we would love to roll out this change to all sites at once, it isn't practical. You will see more sections of LDS.org update over the coming days and weeks to the new navigation.

[aebrown]

OK... who drew the short straw to re-do all the Getting Started Guides?

That would be Tom Johnson. And he also gets to update help systems for a half-dozen applications, too. Fun times....

[russellhltn]

I can understand the thought in making this functionality.

Yes, I can see benefit to moving to to the top-most line where it can be available in different lds websites. But I'm not sure why it was combined with login and not made a separate menu. It's OK once you know about it, but the idea of having to (re)train all the users .... I'm glad it's not me.

[techgy]

My wife mentioned this to me a couple of days and I thought she was just missing something. Nope ! Guess I should have listened.
After a couple of minutes of searching I finally found the tools menu neatly stuffed within the "sign-in" area. It would have been nice to post a note advising everyone that this change was coming and where to look. How about it fellas? Since more user friendly changes are forthcoming can a note or something be placed to help eliminate the extensive training that's going to be involved?

LDS.ORG is looking nice and I appreciate the overall effort. I simply offer this as a suggestion.

[tomjoht]

Thanks for all the feedback about the new menu structure on LDS.org. BarkerAJ is one of the interaction designers on LDS.org, so be sure to direct your comments and feedback to him. I'm sure the whole design team is interested and eager to hear reactions to the new layout.

Re updating the quick reference guides, yes, that is on my to-do list. Thanks for the note. I don't think this LDS.org menu change will pose too many challenges with documentation updates, though. Usually we just explain to users how to access the application once, and then with all subsequent procedures, we start out assuming the user is already in the application.

[aebrown]

I don't think this LDS.org menu change will pose too many challenges with documentation updates, though.

I guess my specific question was how to refer to the Sign In menu in contexts where the user may already be signed in. In The New LDS.org Menu, the screen shots all assume that the user is not signed in. Given that assumption, it makes perfect sense to call it the Sign In menu. However, it's entirely possible that a user is already signed in to LDS.org, and now they're using some documentation (such as a getting started guide) for assistance in using, say, the Directory for the first time.

The blue banner at the bottom right of the Directory Getting Started Guide says "On LDS.org, click Tools > Directory." I'm guessing that will be updated to read "On LDS.org, click Sign In > Directory," which will work fine if they're not signed in when they try this. But if they are signed in, they could hunt for a long time for a "Sign In" menu and never find it, since it is then labeled "John Doe," not "Sign In."

Are we just going to call that menu "Sign In" and hope that the members can figure out what we're referring to?

[tomjoht]

I think my approach will follow what you mention -- calling it the Sign In menu. If someone has already signed in, then most likely they will have noticed that the tools appear in this location. It's those who haven't signed in who will be more lost. The getting started guides are intended to be brief, but in more complete documentation, in the topic describing how to access a system, I'll note that the menu can have two names depending on whether one is signed in or not.

[JamesAnderson]

Understand about the reasoning to delay changes to navigation. But one obvious 'first' one needing to be part of the 'languages' globe page is missing, country sites for those areas in English such as Africa Southeast and British Isles. Where do I find those now?

[barkeraj]

Thanks for all the feedback about the new menu structure on LDS.org. BarkerAJ is one of the interaction designers on LDS.org, so be sure to direct your comments and feedback to him.

To be specific, I am the Front-end developer lead, so I lead the effort to create the code, not the design. That is another group that we work with.

I used to be an IxD but switched roles, so the misunderstanding is understandable.

I'm giving feedback where I can, being careful not to respond to design decisions as that is not my area to speak to. I know we are getting a lot of feedback, and are working to determine which is valid and which is "you moved my cheese" type stuff.

It's always interesting how releases like this work out. The last major update to the navigation was almost two years ago, and we got the same "ahhh everything moved" feedback. Now people have issue with us moving things from the locations that they didn't like last time. Watchagonnado