In response to your feedback about the new EP design and layout, we have made a few changes, mostly to the homepage.
These changes are designed to make it easier for you to meet new members to the site, make new friends, read a wider selection of blogs and generally facilitate the interaction of everyone within the EP community!
Back by popular demand……The list of most active blogs! The list of last posted blogs has been shortened slightly and you can now see the list of most active blogs.
Please welcome our new members!
New to the site is a list of the latest EP members, who have recently signed up, made their first post and are looking to meet people and give and receive support. You can also see where that user is from to make it easier to find those bloggers speaking the same language or from the same country and to welcome them to the site.
Wish EP members a Happy Birthday!
We have added a list of birthday bloggers, so you have an extra reason to make initial contact with a member and share their special day. This means that everyone gets to be on the homepage!
Plus!
New weight loss graph options
We have also added a new option in the weight log section, as requested by several of our users. You now have the option of not showing the weight loss graph on your blog, or selecting whether it shows your weight loss from the start or over the last 7, 15 or 30 days.
Also check out the EP user quotes, with links to their blogs – if you would like to add a comment about the site then let us know.
Keep your eyes peeled for the next set of changes/improvements/developments coming soon! We are working on the other feedback we have received and some other major features.
Keep on blogging and meeting new people!
The Extrapounds.com Team
Posted By: extrapounds
Comments to this post:
02/27/2007 12:02
Thumbs up on the home page changes
I love the "most active" blogs as opposed to keeping the same ones up there as "most visited". This makes it fair for new members (after all, someone who just joins the site will never catch up to someone who's been a member for years and has 20,000 hits). It also took care of that annoying problem of people getting to "most visited" and then abandoning their blogs.
I really like the New Members section as well. The Birthday section will have to grow on me, but it's nice. I didn't realize either feature was there because I have to scroll down so much on the page (and I have a large monitor). As other people mentioned, that huge banner at the top (with the stock photos of people who seem to have never had a weight problem) is still too large. I can't think of anyone who would miss that OR those people!
Regarding the weight tracker, it would be nice if the exercise tracker worked the same way. We can keep track of our own exercise on here, but there's no graph display for it and a lot of members on here (formerly me included) need motivation to exercise. I think seeing on a chart, how much you've exercised (even a bar chart like the weight chart) would be great. But that's something that can be considered in the future. No biggie.
I really really REALLY would love to have a smaller banner to display on other sites or even something the size of the buttons on the home page that say, "Recommend this site" and "calculate your ideal weight." A lot of us bloggers have our own web pages too. Make it easier for us to advertise for you and it will benefit you greatly !
Here are a few examples for you. These are sites that ask webmasters to help advertise for them. Notice the different size of the buttons!
All in all, great improvements (I wasn't real thrilled with the last set of changes, which you could probably tell by my comments). PLEASE keep up the GOOD work!
Thanks for taking the time to tell us your very constructive feedback, this is really useful, especially the links so we can see exactly what you mean - great, we are looking at some possibilties for this. We appreciate receiving opinions, whether they be in favour of the changes we make or not, it is all positive feedback for us as it means we can develop the site as the users need and want it. Your previoous comments about the last set of changes were just as valuable, and thank you for continuing to contact us.
We are woking on alternatives for the photos, rest assured we are changing them!! and we will look into the point you raised about the banner.
I agree with you about the exercise graph and we are hoping to introduce a more complex summary of the user's progress, which wil include something for exercise undertaken.
There are certainly more changes and developments to come and we are always working on new ways to keep everyone blogging and motivated to lose weight.
On the birthdays, it would be helpful if the members who have posted say in the last 4 months had their user id name in a different color. That would help us wish happy birthday to the folks that are active members rather than clicking on their link to find they (i) haven't been here in a year or (ii) have deleted all their posts. It's just time consuming the way it is. Or have them sorted with the most recent posters on top down to the least active posters.
I agree with deserve better, if you got rid of those pics on your banners that would make people feel alot better and maybe replace them with real EP people.
The other section I would like to see is a "EP Shredders" section where you can place all the blogs of people who already have reached their goals, it would be very easy to find not to mention motivational for those of us who are still in the midst or starting our weight loss journey's. There is nothing more motivational then to see actual people here on EP who have already made it to goal.
I really like the changes you've made in the last couple of weeks. All of them are useful and add to the blogging experience. I must agree with brownbabe that putting all the EP Shredder/Eliminator people in one place would be nice.
Your previoous comments about the last set of changes were just as valuable, and thank you for continuing to contact us. 
and we will look into the point you raised about the banner. 
