Double Click on Field Name - Restore Customize Field Functionality!

[Paul_Warren1]

Hello Airtable, Please, please please reverse this change!

Double-clicking on the field name now only modifies the name of the field. It is a pain to have to right-click to access this menu. I don’t want to be overdramatic and claim this will totally ruin Airtable, but it’s much less efficient than the old method.

I also noticed that when creating a new field, the field type is now the first dialog. Then we are prompted to put in a name. This is fine and I can get used to the new workflow. I understand that this reduces the number of times I use “Tab” to move between dialog boxes.

I love Airtable and hope it continues to make progress! Just not the progress I don’t like :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

[Olpy_Acaflo]

Happily I didn’t get the ‘Beta’ you are talking about !
Please @Taylor_Savage, @Jason leave my account as it is now, many thanks,

oLπ

[ScottWorld]

Bill.French:

There’s only 3? …

Haha, oh, there’s way more than 3. But I don’t want to get banned from the forums. :winking_face:

[ScottWorld]

@Olpy_Acaflo, hopefully you never get this beta. You will be entered into a world of pain. I have no idea how the Airtable Engineers could have ever thought up this monstrosity.

[Olpy_Acaflo]

Hi @ScottWorld,

I could ‘like’ your message but I don’t because even if you are right to express your dissatisfaction, which I share in reading all of the above, I don’t share your tsunami expressed in this thread and in others about the Airtable team that sometimes interacts with us in this Community.
Of course I could also share some disappointments, but unless I rewrite an airtable myself that is 100% suitable for me, I have mourned some things and delegated others to MiniExtensions.
But it doesn’t matter: you are a Consultant of this Community and I respect your Person and your Know-How, and you are free to express what you wish to express.
Good evening,

olπ

[Zoe_Bridges]

Hey all – thanks for all the feedback and discussion here. I will start by saying that YES we do look out for constructive feedback shared in our community forums. It’s one of many sources we use to identify new product features and improve people’s experience.

Now on to the questions about the “add field” flow. As @Justin_Barrett suspected, we’re exploring ways to expose more of our field types. We’ve heard from many people, particularly newer users, that they often don’t know about or understand how to use the variety of field types Airtable currently offers. With this type of feedback, we often decide to run a test so we can gather real-world data to understand if one experience is better than another. This data helps us validate anecdotal feedback we hear in forums like these so we can decide whether to launch the feature to everyone using Airtable, continue further testing, or scrap the plan entirely. We typically announce features only once we’ve learned they’re useful to a majority of people using Airtable.

We know that tests can be disruptive, particularly for power users who are deeply familiar with our features and settings. But our goal with every test is to create a better experience for everyone on Airtable. Many of the features people know and love today are the result of tests just like this one.

So as we test potential changes to our “add field” flow we’ll continue iterating based on this and other feedback before making any decisions on how to move forward. In the meantime, given the clear reaction from folks in this thread, we’re removing you from the test so you will revert back to the “add field” flow you were accustomed to. If you know of others who have similar concerns – or if you want to continue helping us test potential changes to “add field” – please reach us at support@airtable.com.

Thanks again for your feedback and your continued support of Airtable!

[ScottWorld]

Thank you so much for your response & your community engagement here, @Zoe_Bridges! :slightly_smiling_face:

It is very refreshing, and I am deeply grateful to hear from you regarding this. :slightly_smiling_face:

My account hasn’t been removed from this beta test yet, but I also thank you in advance for removing me.

One thing I would consider is that if users aren’t understanding how to use the variety of field types that Airtable currently offers, it doesn’t make it any easier for them by shielding them from the different options associated with those fields. It only makes things more difficult for them, because then they have to go through an unintuitive discovery process all on their own.

For example, if you create a “Last Modified Time” field, but you no longer show them all the different options that are associated with that field, they might never realize that there is a whole world of options available to them that are associated with their brand new field. They would have to somehow figure out on their own that there are more options available, and that they would need to choose “customize field type” to see these options. But at first glance, “customize field type” just seems like you are changing the field type — not that there are suddenly more options available. (This applies to all fields, not just “Last Modified Time” field.)

Plus, there is now a disparity between “creating a field” and “changing a field type”. When you create a field, you’re hidden from all the options. But when you change a field type, all the options show up again.

Plus, for experienced users who already know about this, they simply want to set all the options when first creating the field. They don’t want to go through 2 steps just to create the field & then go back again to set the options. It was all one easy & unified step before. It was super intuitive & user-friendly in the past.

Plus, there’s now a 3rd step — you have to rename the field after creating it.

So it doesn’t seem like this makes things easier for new users… it seems like it makes things more difficult & confusing & hidden.

However, one great change here is that you can cancel out of creating a new field, and the field won’t be created.

Anyways, thank you so much for chiming in on this thread. It is very much appreciated! :slightly_smiling_face:

[Zoe_Bridges]

Thanks for describing where the experimental workflow causes confusion, @ScottWorld.

Our Product and Engineering team is actively iterating on this experiment based on the points you make here and additional feedback we have received through support@airtable.com. We appreciate constructive feedback.

[Paul_Warren1]

@Zoe_Bridges1,

Thank you so much for your direct communication! It really is a ray of sunlight! :sun_with_face: :star:

I am more than happy to participate in any new feature trials! I definitely want to have a voice in how Airtable develops. :raising_hand_man:

There are three things that would be a big help and avoid most of the frustration here:

1. An onscreen indicator that I am participating in a Beta.
2. The ability to revert functionality.
3. Can you please clarify what Airtable’s preferred medium of communication from users about Beta features? I have no desire to start nor participate in flame wars :fire: :blush:

From my potentially skewed perspective, it seems like tracking the number of beta users that choose to “revert functionality” will help your team to quickly see how the feature is being adopted.

That being said, I understand that once a decision has been made, legacy support is not a requirement. I might not like your decision, but if you are confident you have tested the feature enough to prove it is worth keeping, I won’t be inflamed that you chose to keep it.

But until the decision is made, we want to participate in the (kind) war of words&opinions! :crossed_swords: :shield:

p.s. that is the most emojis I have ever used in one place, haha

[kuovonne]

Welcome to the Airtable community, and thank you for chiming in on this hot topic!

Zoe_Bridges:

I will start by saying that YES we do look out for constructive feedback shared in our community forums.

Thank you for the clarification on this. While I know that Airtable does read these forums, it isn’t always clear which sections and threads are read by Airtable staff. The official guidelines (which I quoted above) state that we can’t count on Airtable reading any specific thread.

When you do testing like this, it would be nice if you start a community thread announcing that you are doing testing and make it clear that Airtable will read the responses in that specific thread (even if you don’t answer all of them). With the current system you have lots of users blindsided by the changes with no idea where to provide feedback. Plus, when we contact support, the support staff then has to filter the testing feedback from all other support requests and forward them to the proper people. It would be nice to be able to send our feedback in a place that will directly reach those doing the testing, and to put it in a place that other community records can see and react to.

Zoe_Bridges:

we’re exploring ways to expose more of our field types. We’ve heard from many people, particularly newer users, that they often don’t know about or understand how to use the variety of field types Airtable currently offers.

The number of field types can definitely be overwhelming. Would it be possible for you to present field types in categories in addition to the long list? Text based fields, computed fields, linked record related fields, number based fields, date/time fields, frequently used field types, favorites, etc.? Some field types might appear in multiple groups. For example, “last modified time” might appear in both the “date/time” category and the “computed” category. A “choice” category could include single-select, multi-select, and checkbox. You could also include a subtle link to your support website that discusses the different field types.

Zoe_Bridges:

In the meantime, given the clear reaction from folks in this thread, we’re removing you from the test

It wasn’t clear who you are referring to in in this statement, as you post doesn’t have a “reply to” icon attached to it. Could you please clarify? There are several people who expressed dissatisfaction with the current design, but some of them might want to continue to participate in the testing.

[Paul_Warren1]

@Zoe_Bridges,

Another super cool benefit of choosing the field type first is you gain the ability to give shortcuts to field types! I know this is a “super user” comment, but a small number of field types do the bulk of the work in Airtable. Shortcuts could be very nice