How could Xero improve the homepage?

Ability to resize widgets (vertical size, at least)

Hi Kelly, just to follow-up on a comment I've seen made several times in your responses. Specifically this:

"[...] changes to the 'Cash in and out' and 'Chart of accounts' widgets so when customising your view you'll now have the options to 'Make larger' or 'Make smaller'."

This option doesn't really address the main feedback point - at least from my perspective. These options simply "stretch" the widget from 1 to 2 columns, and back again.

With the chart of accounts widget, they do not change the height, and consequently do not get rid of the scrollbar, and still prevent us from seeing the full list easily.

In respect to those widgets with graphs, they simply stretch the graph. If 6 months data is shown in 1 column view, then 6 months is still shown in 2 column view - it would be much better if the additional real estate was also used to increase the actual data shown (e.g. 6 months when the widget is 1 column width, 12 months when the widget is 2 columns wide).

I do appreciate the feedback and updates, but it really does sound in many cases that the product team are really missing the crux of our feedback points, and do not seem to be addressing the underlying usability problems.

If you are not going to give us the option of staying with the old layout which I much prefer, please let us make the widgets smaller. I extremely dislike the new layout, so big and in you face it's horrid. Definately not made by an everyday user.

I don't like this new Homepage concept. Space is filled completely and cluttered. I much prefer the old layout. If you're going to do anything, please enable the "Chart of Accounts" to be resized to what it was before (it's now too small - even on the largest size setting), and allow us to insert blank spaces so that we scan spread things out if we wish to do so.

Just out of interest, why are you tampering with the homepage layout? The old layout was fine and very functional. This new approach has been painful to have to deal with.

OK am I reading this right? What Kelly has written is that they have made two (2) only two of the many widgets the ability to resize?!

OMG..... What?!?!?!?

Not a fan of the new homepage. The widgets are too big with so much whitespace it makes you wonder why. Surely they can be resized to smaller tiles. They lost the graphs even though they are bigger!

Scrolling the homepage just to see what bank accounts need to be reconciled is missing the point of a dashboard. The 8 bank accounts we have dont even fit on one screen, making it at least a 3 page dashboard if you want any of the even bigger tiles

The simple fact it's called "Watchlist" would point to a widget that showed the accounts you want to see.. Not have to scroll up and down :)) Which ever group meeting thought that widget was any good has no idea how or why the old watchlist worked... I've tried sorting the Home Page into a usable format but the shape of the widgets and font sizes is frustrating.. + the lack of control in the widgets them selves and the data/format they shown has not improved so not really seeing a benefit other than it looks busier and less useful...

I would dearly love to be able to resize either the line item font size or the size of the widget for the chart of accounts widget, so that I no longer have the names of accounts wrapping over two or three lines.

Actually, I'd like to be able to resize the fonts throughout the entire thing so that the headers within tables aren't tiny compared to the table contents (which makes the table more functional and is a basic design principle) and change the colour of certain things to something more user-friendly but everything new in recent years has been programmed without basic user-interface design principles (such as keeping the number of variations of font, font size, and font colour to a minimum) in favour of 'pretty' things that are unusable if you have any kind of Accessibility requirement. So I don't think Xero wants me or my clients to pay them money.

simple in theory, to be able to enlarge or reduce the size of the widgets depending on needs. when attempting to personalise my dashboard and with all the widgets moving around I was trying to resize them so they were all the same size so they could all line up etc with some big and some small is can be confusing, or having one big for profit & loss and the others all small... more customisable.

Could you have a resize option to make the tiles the size you would like, the same as when cropping a photograph rather than a choice of smaller or larger

Agree that widgets should be able to be resized. Also the graphs with the bank account widgets need reinstating urgently as this is an easy way to see how the balances are fluctuating over time.

Yes, like Jennifer Grauer says, it would be good if the tiles had a background colour, to make it easier to see where each widget begins and ends. (or if the background of the webpage is a colour, and the tiles/widgets are whilte)

Compress home page box sizes, with just New Bill / New Invoice tabs seen. Like a double click to open full box view

Like many of the comments here, I find the new layout hard to read.

The lack of distinction between the bank account widgets, especially when all need to be reconciled of a morning is chaotic and overwhelming at first glance. There is none of the calm professionalism of the original dashboard.

Maybe give the widget titles a background colour to help distinguish the widgets we are looking for easier.

Also, a major function I use daily is the Accounts Watchlist.

Can we please have the ability to:
- extend the length of this widget to 3 rows
- drag and drop our most important accounts to sort by a custom order
- move the YTD column slightly to the left so it is not impacted by the vertical scrollbar

Thank you

I would like to add.. the bank account widgets are physically about the same size as the old dashboard but do not include the little graph (which I quite like as a visual person)...
So if the graphs are not going to come back, the widget size is totally disproportionate to the data being shown... with the extra column available I would be expecting to display all my widgets without having to scroll down, but I feel like I am scrolling more than before.

I completely agree with others that the GUI designers have made everything extra large, when there was absolutely no need to... a re-design, sure, I like the idea - but just shrink things back down to where they were, it's now far to in your face...
Definately needs a 'make smaller' ... i've had to manually zoom out to 80% on my browser to reduce the overwhelm that it creates ..

And to add, as a very visual person, all the widgets for bank accounts look the same to me now... I've got a fair few 'accounts' and now the graph is gone there is no point me having any of the accounts on my dashboard anymore because it does not give me the visual overveiw that I want to be able to see.

Having played around a little more, I'd also suggest that some of the widgets need a "compact" setting - especially the account watch list - to reduce the amount of spacing between each of the rows.

Using both "compact" and being able to resize the height to enable all watched accounts to be shown in a list without the scrollbar would be far better to detect discrepancies quickly.

I agree the new home page feels much clunky and cluttered, I far prefer the old layout, it is cleaner and easier to navigate

I'd like to see the option to drag the widgets by the border to resize. Currently there is just a 'Make Larger' and Make Smaller' option (only on some of them) which is annoying as I want to reduce the height on some of the widgets further. It could snap to grid, at logical sizes like each centimetre and I also agree with other's comments that the ability to change (reduce) font size would be very good. Flexibility is key. You've allowed a small level of customisation, but not the level we expect from something that looks like Excel charts but doesn't behave like them.

I do not want link to other apps on my Homepage. I want the ability to set the sizes of all widgets and decide what I want to see. It is my Homepage so please remove the clutter.

I think we are all getting tired of SAAS companies deciding what their customers need and want. I run a software company and just because a functionality is possible or "cool" does it mean that it is necesarry.

The question is sometimes asked in focus groups "Do you think this looks better", or "Do you like this functionality" and the answer will nearly always be positive. But if users were asked "Would you be willing to pay $5 extra per month for the improved Homepage" then the answer would be a lot different.

Thanks

Make the Chart of Accounts widget resizable in height.

It now has a scrollbar within the widget. I preferred the old widget that shows all the accounts in a list without the scrollbar. Alternatively, provide an option for it to be dynamic in height based on the number of accounts being shown.

I now have to scroll the widget view itself to see important accounts, rather than all accounts being visible immediately. There's a good chance I might miss something important.