Upcoming projects: UI overhaul

[Pricelessbrewing]

Part of our upcoming projects is to provide an overhaul of the sites navigation sections (header/foot/user profile dropdown), standalone calculators, and the core of the recipe builder.

In order to provide the best product to our users, we’ve outlined the following steps. The exact details and order are not set in stone, as we’re still in the planning stage. More details to come!

1. Integrate the water calculator directly into the recipe builder. Eliminating the linking/update necessity with a focus on improving workflow and user experience..
   
   
2. Streamline workflow and eliminate cumbersome steps. Ie. Review the user contribution process for ingredients, specifically the green toggles and how the submission process works.
   
   
3. Migrate the recipe builder sections to act as reusable components and replace the standalone calculators for a more cohesive product. The mash infusion calculator, and the mash calculator tab of the brew sessions should be the same as the mash guidelines section for example. This will reduce maintenance on our end, and make things more consistent throughout the application.
   
   
4. Integrate the Yeast starter calculator directly into the recipe builder.
   
   
5. Use more of the screen space for desktop users. Currently the recipe builder occupies half of a typical 1920 monitor. We’ll use more of the sidebars for the recipe builder. Potentially for things like the recipe stats, or a navigation sidebar to open utilities like the yeast starter, water calculator, or open and edit your equipment.
   
   
6. Create a more mobile friendly approach by consolidating the sections into groups, and using tabs and icons to navigate. You can then switch from the fermentables section to the tops by clicking the tab at the top. These groups may be customizable through layout adjustments in an edit mode, or adding and removing the sections to create more customizable layouts to fit each users preference. If you always want to see hops and fermentables, you should be able to add an additional “ingredients” section and move the hops tab to that section.
   
   
7. Design changes to the Header and footer of the website.
   
   
8. Consolidating and re-organizing the user sections for user profile in the top right vs “My brewing”
   
   
   
   
   
   

1. Minimize frustration from changing UI for existing users by having a long testing period on a separate domain to avoid rolling out unwelcome changes and gathering thorough feedback from users.
   

I hope you find these planned changes welcome. If you have any concerns, suggestions, or desired changes left off of the above list please do not hesitate to reply.

Please keep related comments in the corresponding threads.

Thanks for using Brewer's Friend!

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

These all sound like excellent changes!

 

[Sunfire96]

Do you have more info about the separate domain if we would like to test the new changes as they roll out?

 

[Pricelessbrewing]

Do you have more info about the separate domain if we would like to test the new changes as they roll out?

I'll be sure to post as we make progress and it's available for public testing.