Reworking the Opportunities page

Since releasing the newly designed version of the site in August, we've received lots of great feedback from our users. The page that lists and searches the opportunities has received the most feedback, and we've been working hard to incorporate that feedback into the site design.

Feedback for this page has included comments such as:

• Nothing is returned when I do a search
• It's much harder to quickly scan the page and decide whether an opportunity is appropriate for me
• The page is too confusing
• Bring back the tabs!

We have made a number of changes to the page to address these concerns and have put up a new version of the Opportunities page for feedback. It is not currently the default view: you must go to http://www.yaptracker.com/opportunities/opportunities-alt-view/ to view the new version of the page.

First, we updated the search box. We tried to merge the basic and advanced search from the old site and we think the result had too many options which overwhelmed our users. Therefore, we've removed some of the more advanced search options and put them back in a separate advanced search.

Second, we've reworked the results that are returned when searching by name. In the new site, searching for a company by name was limited by the status selected (i.e. if you had the default status of current opportunities selected, only results whose deadlines hadn't passed would be returned). Therefore, if you searched for a company whose opportunity had passed, you'd get no results if the status wasn't set to Past or All. This behavior was different from the old site (which returned current and past opportunities). Many singers reported having trouble with this change, so we've reverted back to results including past and current opportunities.

Third, to address the scanning the page issue, we've moved deadlines and audition locations into their own column. A number of singers found it hard to find important information in the list view when so much was displayed in the one column. We hope the new layout will make it easier to scan.

Finally, the tabs. I am sorry to say, the tabs aren't coming back. We loved the tabs too (they were one of the first ideas we had when designing the site in 2005!). Unfortunately, with all the new functionality and opportunity types added over time, it became difficult to fit all of the new program types and features within the old framework. We found many new users clicking the Auditions tab looking for opportunities or clicking the Applications tab for available online applications. That being said, there still seems to be a general need to quickly access, 'just the programs' or 'just the mainstage auditions'. It's something that we are still working on and will share shortly.

We look forward to your feedback and ask that you send it to help@yaptracker.com. Please know, customer satisfaction is our top priority, so any constructive feedback you can provide is always welcome.