The Update No One Asked For

[Alexander_McArt]

I think it's clear that the vast majority of the Airtable Community has rejected the new dashboard/home screen design. For every 1 person complaining here (and there are many across the threads), there are many more unhappy people that are not posting (like my 7 staff members). 

It's clear the Product Team & decision-makers have no interest in accommodating or reversing this update after removing the option to roll back to the previous version, regardless of the negative feedback already received then. 

Yet Airtable Management needs to address us. So if it isn't regarding a solution to our concerns then I would like to ask;

1. why did you 'fix' something that to so many of us wasn't broken?
2. what methodology or use cases determined dashboard navigation & layout? 
3. what artistic school/philosophy/strategy determined the new colors/designs? 
4. why was the initial roll-out done without warning & why now are you forcing everyone to use the new dashboard instead of allowing options? 
5. should we expect a similar approach to roll-outs & business practices in the future? 

As a developer, I understand the challenges. Spending my day trashing the team's hard work is the last thing I'd want to do. But it's impeding our day-to-day, and how this was handled has me to the point where we will be migrating to other platforms during our slow season. Unless something drastically changes before then.

Thank you
- Alexander

[ScottWorld]

Totally agree with you 1,000,000%. 

[BillH]

i agree totally.  The same thoughts can apply to so many recent cases, the changes to the record detail thread has a long stream of similar comments, and that's just the latest one that I can think of.

Some other options that I've been avoiding are starting to look better and better right now.

[Heidi_Anderson1]

The questions are thoughtful & can hopefully drive the point that what ever the methodology or process, or lack thereof, it is not working well and in some cases is unexplainable and damaging to use and scale-up.  

What gets me most about the home screen change is that it is so far impossible to find a work-around to adapt to the new design. Today, to lose even more time and gain further frustration, the all encompassing priority of last used (which I never need as priority unless managing administrative archive and clean up) reared it's ugly head in that I found my airbase quickly (commonly accessed beyond the min 3 pin allowance) but it opened the wrong base because it appears the screen went through refresh & reshuffle as I clicked.  The excessive use of screen space for poor layout I could adapt to but it's the constant hunt & peck. We have just begun this year to expand dbase usage to a growing team and they are all now frustrated, making it more difficult to get them off spreadsheets.

[jennyo]

I've never once complained on a forum about a product, but this change has forced me to. It is completely counterintuitive and makes it so inconvenient to use I avoid using the platform altogether. What is most confusing is why this was a mandatory change for all users rather than an optional view for those who wanted it. I've wasted so much time finding content - this tool is no longer an asset to my business. This change needs to be rolled back asap.