New Feature: Better User Bar!

From Rapidian staff*:

If you are a logged-in user of The Rapidian, you may have noticed the slightly retooled user bar in the top right-hand corner of the site.

This little bar should help address some of The Rapidian's biggest usability problems—mainly that it's difficult to get to your user page, and, if you are an editor, to get to the list of content available to edit.

This update should make your life on The Rapidian just a little bit easier.

User pages

Previously, every time you logged in to The Rapidian, it would default to your user page. That was great, but if you stayed logged-in to The Rapidian for days at a time like I do, it's difficult to get back to this page. This page is where you can change some of your user preferences. More importantly, it's where you can most easily access your published and unpublished stories. This is a critical page for managing all of your journailistic masterworks in progress. You can now get to it from any page simply by clicking on your username or adorable little icon up there on the right.

Editors

Similarly, those of you who are editors can now get to that pesky "edit content" page simply by clicking on, well, "edit content." This was really annoying before. Some of you know what I am talking about.

Adding articles and events

It may not have been totally clear before, but any registered user of The Rapidian can add events to our community calendar.  As long as you have an approved account, you can let us know about your PTA meeting, block party or whatever cool thing you have going on. Just click "add event" in the user bar. You can also apply to become a reporter while you are up there by clicking "be a reporter!"

Those of you who are already new reporters, reporters or Nonprofit Neighbors can click "add content" to add an article or an event.

Keep the suggestions coming!

This new feature is the direct result of some incredibly useful user feedback. I can't tell you how much the feedback provided in the Beta II Feedback Survey factors into our development process. It's a lot. Do you have any suggestions, comments or critique for The Rapidian? Please don't hesitate to let us know. We are still in development and are figuring this out along with you.

Thanks to the users who brought this to our attention and to Ron Woldyk, our fabulous web developer, for  implementing the changes above.

 

*Each week, a member of the Rapidian staff will publish a piece relating to goings-on at The Rapidian, developments in the world of citizen journalism and tips for making the most of the site.