How could Xero improve the homepage?

Please make it so I can choose how many columns and rows I have, or just allow me to keep the original homepage.

I logged on today using my laptop and discovered the home page displays differently on different devices - rather confusing to say the least. Could you fix this so it stays the same on all devices used please?

Huge thanks to Andrew G for this improved custom CSS (which is well worth updating for anyone else using it). It now functions exactly the way I'd like to see it implemented in the product (aside from the left-right sorting issue that they mentioned).

If anyone needs help enabling it in Firefox, I followed these instructions through Step 4 and it worked perfectly (noting that the file to update is userContent.css, not userChrome.css). https://www.reddit.com/r/FirefoxCSS/wiki/index/tutorials

Regarding the new Homepage in general - all I can say is that I've fully made my peace with the new look (and actually quite prefer the "quantized" widget sizes), but this sorting and especially scaling behavior remains 100% inexcusable.

The fact that people are talking about CSS hacks to fix this surely should tell you something, you've made something worse in the need for endless "improvement".

Please please give us the option for 2 columns or to use the old home page permanently. Why get rid of it? Then you can be A/Bing pages.

Hi Kelly.

Thanks for the notification that you have no plans to fix the issue that we all have.

As has already been discussed below, the screen size "FIX" is no fix at all.

It is also immensely annoying that every time you log in you have to change the view back to the original. The "NEW" layout is absolutley awful, and nobody who has ever used Xero likes it.

Why do you (Xero) insist on changing things that work into things that don't? (Not expecting a reply, as usual.)

I just posted this in another thread, if you're comfortable installing a CSS addon/plugin to apply your own custom CSS to the Xero site, you can use this hack to fix the number of columns.

Choose either 2 or 3 columns based on your need (delete the lines you do not require):

@-moz-document domain(go.xero.com) {

/* EITHER: Fix columns to 3 columns regardless of screen size */
.dashboard-template-beta-grid { grid-template-columns: repeat(3, 1fr) !important; max-width: 1360px !important; }

/* OR Fix columns to 2 columns regardless of screen size */
.dashboard-template-beta-grid { grid-template-columns: repeat(2, 1fr) !important; max-width: 900px !important; }
}

This will ensure that your fix-column dashboard remains centred in the screen, with the fixed column count.

NB: For anyone using my previous hack to fix the number of columns, I've updated/improved the coding here to work better. Keep in mind you'll need to ensure that every screen resolution (2, 3, and 4 columns) has the correct layout saved as Xero now remembers the saved layout based on screen size.

This does not unfortunately change the ordering left-to-right, which means it does not fix/allow us to have some columns longer in length than other columns (meaning you still cannot have all 50 bank accounts in the first column only).

100% agree. I am faced with TWELVE different widgets when viewing on my monitor, from border to border of the screen. Absolute information overload. I need the ability to reduce the number of columns. I don't understand how after all this time you guys don't seem to properly test what you release...

Allow Widgets to be ordered into Columns.
My preference as below; but at least then everyone knows where to find a specific Widget - not in some random pool like it is now.
Column1 = Bank accounts;
Column2 = Tasks, invoices to chase, bills to pay;
Column3 = Business Performance.
(I have 30+ (multi-currency) bank accounts and currently there's no point trying to find them on the new Homepage).

Please allow the widgets to be organised in columns - currently it automatically arranges them in rows. OR allow the auto arrangement to be turned off so I can put them where I want.

The new home page wraps columns and assumes (incorrectly) that I want four columns.

The classic screen was superior.

Please allow the user to arrange the dashboard in two columns, central on the screen. The columns can then be configured with my selected widgets.

Widgets should remain static once placed and should not wrap or snap to alternate locations. I.e. A simple grid.

The new layout is really confusing because the widgets move when the screen changes size so unless you always have Xero full screen they are never where I expect them to be. I don't need to be hunting for widgets on my Home Screen.

Please can you make it possible for me to anchor some wedges to the left hand side of my screen so they always appear in a column on the left margin. I want my bank accounts to appear in a column on the left, and then the other widgets can flow around if you wish in any space to the right or below. At the moment it is stressful to use.

The new dashboard view appears to order by row, rather than column, which means that if you drag a widget from B3 to B1, A2 suddenly moves somewhere else rather than everything in column B just moving down. For me, it super unintuitive. If it needs to be responsive then stacking columns would be work better for my needs.

Please leave classic view available until the layout works properly.

The new homepage doesn't allow you to drag and drop modules into any order/position - it forces you to fill the screen left to right. Previously I could have our the bank account details (and their $ totals) in a lower position that was visible only by scrolling down. Now it is always there, and also visible to anyone else near my screen. This new layout won't let me move it down/away unless I put in other (unnecessary) modules to fill that gap, which would then force the bank details into the spot where I'd like to have it.

Thanks for the update.

I can only reiterate Elliot's remarks below. On the face of it, this sounds to miss the mark, and won't address the concerns we have with the widgets getting scrambled when customising the dashboard, nor when resizing the browser on any given display (e.g. when pinning to the left-side of the screen and reducing browser width by half).

If this update remembers the layout on a per "mode" basis (i.e. 2, 3 and 4 columns, rather than actual browser/screen width) then that's something, but still doesn't help people who only want/need a 2 column layout no matter the browser/screen width.

Overall this feels like the design is being pushed by a technical development team rather than end user scenario and usability analysts.

As an aside, you say you're going to monitor this - how do you propose to do that? You have no visibility if people are using the CSS hacks I shared earlier to fix the number of columns on the dashboard. Are you monitoring screen size, AND browser window size - both or just one? For example, if I'm using my normal browser size then pin to the left-side of the screen, will you see the change in # of columns behaviour in your monitoring when I'm using the same screen?

Edit - I tried saving a layout, and can confirm it remembers per-mode (i.e. 2, 3 or 4 columns) not by screen or browser window size. The problem that still remains is that there are no "blank" or "filler" widgets for the unwanted 3rd and/or 4th column, meaning that this is still problematic when we're trying to maintain consistency of widget placement for our own performance/efficiency when using multiple monitor/screen/browser widths. In effect we have to remember a different layout for every screen/monitor width we use, rather than having a consistent layout tailored to our needs.

Thanks Kelly for this update - I appreciate the effort towards providing a solution, but based on my limited understanding of what you're describing, I feel that tying the saved layout to each device/display misses the mark for two reasons:

1. Most fundamentally, on any given display, I might use Xero at a range of browser widths (namely, half-screen or full-screen), and I'd like to see the same column layout in each of those widths.
2. Even when moving between a large display and a small display (e.g. external monitor to laptop), I still want to see the same column layout, regardless of the size of my browser window on either device (half-screen or full-screen) - and if the "saved layout" for that device is tied to the (scalable) number of columns that fit in a window, I'm going to see a different number of columns regardless.

To put it most simply: ***my eyes are trained to look for any given account widget in the same place on the homepage*** regardless of the display or browser window size - and without fixing the number of columns, that becomes impossible.

Forcing your users to memorize the locations of several (nearly-identical) widgets, on multiple homepage layouts, across the many multiple Xero organizations we manage, is frankly an insane UX decision!

I hope that I haven't fully understood the proposed solution, and that the updated instructions will clarify things further - but just in case, I wanted to add this feedback. Thanks!

I use Xero every day on my 4 entities. I rely on the widgets staying in one place so I can see at a glance what my bills vs cash/invoiced work is to ensure I keep on top of my cash flow. Now that they have moved to an HTML flow (no doubt to save having to produce different code for different devices), they just move of their own accord as screen size is increased and decreased so there is no familiarity.

A huge step backwards and one that will make me seriously consider moving all my entities to another platform after 15 years of being happy with Xero

Please stop changing the layouts, it makes using Xero inefficient as we have to relearn the new layouts and it slows us down.

This is an accounting platform. I want it to deliver quietly in the background. I don't want ideas or new releases, I just want it to work and not go backwards. This new homepage is a massive step backwards

Allow me to place widgets on a page rather than put them in an order that flows from one line to another. The new layout is completely unusable.

I use Xero for 4 entities at the moment and have done for about 15 years and this one "feature" is enough to make me seriously consider moving all of them to a different accounting platform with all the pain that would involve and all the loss of history.

It is THAT AWFUL

Andrew G, thanks for the CSS override info. It works beautifully!