How could Xero improve the homepage?

Totally agree, the new layout is so over the top.

A lot of us using Xero are regular people trying to run our business in which we pay a premium price.
That in which we do not mind as the interface is incredibly easy to move around, however the new interface is far from that. 

It is cluttered, even with removing the features that are not relative to our business, it is overwhelming and unnecessary. 

YES!!!! My brain hurts as soon as I open Xero new homepage. Please give us open to keep the old

Totally agree with all of Perry's points. It's as if Xero is making change for the sake of making change, not because there was anything wrong about the existing home page. I would like the existing home page to have an option of making the graphs smaller, not larger, or supressing them altogether. Please do not make us all go to the new home page on Feb 14.

Martin

The amount of available screen real estate isn't at all the issue here. It's the design. It's unreadable, overwhelming, poorly thought out.

* You can't re-arrange things in a sane way because it keeps auto-shuffling everything else around. It's like trying to move app icons around on an iPhone - a usability nightmare.
* The individual widget boxes are white on a blue that's practically white. There is no clear delineation between the two like there was before (old layout the boxes were outlined). This makes everything appear to mush together.
* The old layout had useful graphs for account balances so you could see at a glance if the balances over time. I found this very useful. That's simply gone in the new one.
* Cash In and Cash Out should be configurable so you can change the timeframe. Six month rolling balances are utterly useless to me. All I want to see is year to date and maybe comparison with same months last year. (This was the same in the old layout, but at least it wasn't gigantic
* The old invoices widget showed Drafts, Awaiting Payment, and Overdue all next to each other. Now they're spread around all over the widget. Why? Also, you should be able to customize what's shown here. We don't "Approve" invoices so that item is not something we care about at all. The invoice is made, it's sent out, that's it.

I am using a screen that's 2560x1440 pixels. Hardly low resolution, yet two widgets are off the bottom of my screen because they're so huge.

This is about bad ux, not screen real estate.

Just a thought: Xero has different subscription options which give access to different functions according to the subscription rate. Would it be possible to offer "different" screens linked to the subscription too? That way, small and micro businesses could have a more functional, less overwhelming, summary homepage whilst larger organisations could have the all singing, all dancing one that contains more information than a micro business or simple self-employed person needs?

Adam Willemse suggests that part of the issue is people who don't want to "treat themselves to screen real estate" or are working for stingy companies. If only that was the case.

Happy to see I am not alone - spent time trying to "adapt" and can't do it -

DON'T LIKE - sorry please leave old one as option.....

The 'old' dashboard was great...the new version is atrocious. So busy and cluttered. My eyes are confused! I have multiple accounts and this is making life more difficult. Please listen to your users and return to the previous dashboard. I miss it and switch back constantly.....the opportunity to do that is running out...crying out loud!

I am fairly new to Xero.

The new layout is awful.

What is really concerning me is the lack of response from Kelly Munro/Xero. Are Xero really this bad for listening to customer feedback? All these comments and NO RESPONSE. What is the point of having a community manager who does not respond.

I am getting the impression this will be forced upon users and all this 'share your ideas' and 'we want your feedback' is lip service.

Frustrating

The new dashboard is an assault on my eyes. I hate it. If I am forced to use it on Feb 16th as advertised at the top in a panel that I cannot dismiss, I will move from Xero to a different platform.

I would 100% prefer the option of sticking to the original and not this new version, it's too distracting and takes away from the important

I do like the Task section though

Every business is different, be great if we could custom it the way it suits our business

How about leaving things the way they are? Or have options so people can choose to use them or not. I HATE the new layout of the Homepage. Totally disappointed once again with your changes.

I might have to go back to MYOB. Truly considering it. At least they didn't muck around every two months changing things, which in the end really make NO difference.
And as you get used to things, they change again. Time consuming! Will you pay me for my time?

How about instead of changing things, you actually work on Xero to match up expenses correctly with the bankfeed? That would be helpful, because if I dont check each entry individually I would create umpteen hours of more work having to undo and reconcile again. Xero needs work, not stupid superficial changes. Thank you. Please try and take our comments into consideration, but we know as per every other time, you still do what you want, so don't bother asking us again?

It would be good if when customising the homepage the widgets didn't move and were anchored, as sometimes when you move one it moves another somewhere else and is quite frustrating and time wasting to resolve.

Was there something wrong with the original? Where users complaining?.... I obviously missed all this in the comments

Does anyone know of a product that is close to what the old xero was? Love to hear ideas of what to switch to.

It's cluttered, overly complicated and disorientating. I got dizzy just looking at it. Seems like Xero are making another change for the worse for the sake of making a change. Can't get more than 20 invoices or 5 bills on a basic plan, but are subjected to endless fiddling that ruins the experience. It was once a clean simple, and intuitive interface, now it's a giant mess. Oh, and the price will go up to pay for this because of course.

Follow up - As a suggestion, maybe having a Feed page on its own, and the anayltics page on its own instead of trying to combine it.

Completely agree - althought I like the analytics the new homepage offers, the page is too busy. Each box should have a border. My one client has 6 locations and atleast one credit card for each location. Trying to get the feeds all on the home page was very challenging. And I have no room for the analytics for this client. Also, moving the feeds to where I wanted them was extremely challenging. It kept realigning things on its own. It's still not how I want it, but after trying for quite a while I gave up.
For my smaller clients it is helpful

Agree, the new layout may offer greater insight but the basics are missing - I don't want to have to search, click & scroll to find key data