What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

It's clear that many of us aren't thrilled with the new FIRST website, but I'm sure in time it will grow on us. I wanted to start a thread not to point out our own opinions on the design or style of the site, but but rather to bring attention issues of functionality and usability such as broken links, content that is missing, etc. I'm hoping by listing our issues with the new www.firstinspires.org in this thread, we can help FIRST improve the site for everyone. Things that were on the old site that are no longer on the new site should be included on this list.

I'll start:

Regional event pages do not include dates of the event. Example: http://www.firstinspires.org/team-ev...event?id=17507

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

Working links to all the old game stuff are not working. Sometimes I go look at old KOP information to try and find instructions for some of the old boards we have, or just to know what came in an old KOP. First took them off the website, however you used to be able to google for the old links. However now those old links don't work, and you can't find the old KOP information at all.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

FRC calendar still hasn't been ported.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

On the team-event search, switching between Team and Event resets to selecting all programs. It would be nice if it didn't unset my filter (to just FRC for example). Also, I can no longer type in a state code like I used to, and now have to scroll down the page to "MI". It might also be nice if some distinction was shown between inactive and current teams.

http://www.firstlegoleague.org/ also recently updated.

It's issues:

• No information on past years' challenges

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

Event search:
- I'm not sure if this is broken or intentional, but when I first go to the page it's sorted for events within a 100mi radius of my zipcode, yet when I reset fields it goes to all events between the current date and a year from that date
- The "state" field for international teams often lists numbers--not sure if this what they filled in or if it's being randomly added

Archived Game Documentation:
- The "Game Summaries" link is broken
- Match/awards footage aren't linked to
- Regional/champs results aren't linked to

Footer:
- This might be something to do with facebook and not the website, but the links in the recent tweets are hyperlinks, while the one under facebook is just text (the facebook post does have a hyperlink)

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

It's worth noting that much (but not all) of the old site's content is still available here:

http://archive.firstinspires.org/

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

There's no RSS feed to get updates from when the site changes.
They expect everybody to read the site everyday and exhaustively search for changes.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

Thanks !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

The event search just plain useless compared to the old website.. The event list on the old website is a billion times better.

You cannot see all events.

You cannot even see all the events within a district.

To an outsider looking at the event list, what was one of the worlds largest competitions just became tiny.

And when you look at an event, you can see the team list, but you can no longer go to their website.......

need to put this on the site somewhere https://my.usfirst.org/myarea/index.lasso

arrrrgh, this is frustrating beyond words......

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

I try to use the archived site exclusively. Way more intuitive and easy to navigate than the new site, not just because I'm used to it. It's just laid out in a more efficient manner (IMO).

Do we really need a "Drive in" movie (for you older folks like me) playing in the background?

Better download and personally archive as much as possible now before it disappears or is ridiculously difficult to find. I tried to do that last year with all of the documentation for the previous control system. Looks like it paid off.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Dan

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

Yes indeed, I'm downloading and archiving stuff, plus I put some links on our team website just to make it easier to get to, especially the event/team lookup. http://www.kellrobotics.org/article/...nce-technology under the "FIRST Website Resources" section.

I'm beginning to wonder it we will have to rely on alternate websites to get to information.

At the old website when you look up team you can click on the link for the website, but not at the new site.

If you go to the Blue Alliance, you can click on some website links, but not all. I'm not sure what that is about.

I hope they keep up the old site until the new one gets fixed.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

The team information page doesn't even list the team number.

http://www.firstinspires.org/team-ev...team?id=304197

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

This about sums it up.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

Numbers? We don't need no stinkin' numbers! </sarc>

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

Another thing that is making me nuts about the new website is it is spatially sparse, it too visually open, takes too much scrolling. You have to zoom out to about 75% to make it comfortable. The fonts are too big,,,,,, kinda of like this annoying post.

After re-sizing the screen, it made a giant ton of difference in my ability to surf the website and grasp everything.

I like the Dashboard, I can see that working out very nicely. The resource library looks like it can fall into place. But this team/event lookup ?? arrrgh.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

A few days ago, I was looking at some of the FIRST scholarships the other day, and it looks like they removed the checkbox filters that used to be off to the side when searching for a specific type of scholarship. That meant I would have had to scroll through many pages of scholarships to find one that would be "usable for all schools."

Luckily, I did not need to.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

The resource library seems like a great idea, but the way some of the items show up is just screwy. For example, the Standard Alignment Map shows up as a image. When I click the usually useful download or preview buttons it shows just picture of the spreadsheet. To actually download the file, you have to click the link at the top of the page that you can only get to by clicking on something that doesn't look like a hyperlink. And then that text doesn't say download or any other easy way to tell that it's how you download it. I think this might just be an isolated example though...

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

I don't think the person that created the article loaded it or understood it correctly.

If you click "FIRST Robotics Competition Standard Alignment Map" - the blue text you will get the spreadsheet, which is what should have happened if you click the download or view links under the 'image icon'. The items you get by clicking the links right now is some JPG of something that seems useless.

How do you get to the curator so they can fix this ??

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

Is there a good link for scholarship search. Can't seem to find it. The one I found just has a printable brochure.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

Here is the 'site map'

On the map is the scholarship page then keep scrolling down until you eventually see the stuff, just keep scrolling.

http://www.firstinspires.org/scholarships will also get you there.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

1. The images in the carousel have too much motion and camera movement.
It makes me ill when trying to find a link. (+1 Drive in Movie).
The carousel images are too large.
Also the carousel should have a pause button.

2. Navigation drop down is transparent and thus has a small amount of contrast, which makes it hard to read. (not accessible for low vision users)

3. The "For Teams" landing page looks the same for each age group. It should have some noticeable differences in addition to the title.
Example: I found myself on the wrong TIMS page, but didn't realize this until trying to sign in.

4. Since I only support FRC, I would rather have a dedicated, stationary navigation link with the title "FRC".
Even better, the site would remember me and my preferences.

5. Organization of the site and navigation titles.
For example: "For Teams" is meaningless as all content is for a team.
A better title might be "Team Management". I also miss quick access to technical resources.

Dave
a UX Designer

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

Event data can't be scraped/pasted with formatting into Excel.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

I just noticed this earlier today, it looks like they've updated their match scores pages, it shows some event info now that might help you:
http://frc-events.usfirst.org/2015/ARCHIMEDES

and

http://frc-events.usfirst.org/2015/A...qualifications

They also published an API a while back:
http://archive.usfirst.org/roboticsp...ce-for-FMS-API

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

Thank you, but this information is a bit outdated. The 2016 API will be helpful when it gets released.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

If you don't have/don't want a key for the FRCAPI, you can also use the TBA API.

@Navid, if you want help with getting data, PM me and I'd be happy to give a hand writing a Google Apps script to generate whatever spreadsheets you need.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

Last I heard TBA and FRClinks were still pointing toward the old domain's event pages? I'm looking to pull FIRSTinspires data. There has been inconsistency between the two at times. If that's not the case, I'll gladly work with TBA's API.

Thanks!

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

We flipped a switch last week to feed TBA 100% off the FRCAPI (which is finally populated for 2016), so the data should be identical to the firstinspires pages. If you find any discrepancies, let me know and I'll get them fixed.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

Awesome, thank you.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

Also, all the Championship information is still 2015. They don't even have the dates up for 2016. Given that it's just over 4 months away and hotel reservations have already opened, it seems like they should get on this pretty soon.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

While we are on the subject, I have tried to find the new logos for download (the high res ones, they have zip files for the old logos on the old site), are they not on there yet or have I not looked in the right places?

Thank you!

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

Thank you, I don't know why we couldn't find that last night. :)

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

For some reason I think it might have to do with the plethora of both structural and technical issues mentioned in this thread.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

I have been unable to locate the "Stronghold" graphic. Does anyone know if it has been released yet? If so, where?

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

Visually, the FRC calendar page at http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/calendar is not as functional as the old one. The new one has too much white space and requires too much scrolling. It doesn't show enough on my screen at one time without scrolling.

Also, the entire site is in dire need of "breadcrumbs" across the top, that shows you where you came from and how you got to where you are, with clickable links that take you back to a higher level. The old site had this in a nice maroon colored bar at the top. See: http://archive.usfirst.org/roboticsp.../calendar/list

To not have that functionality on the new site is a big downgrade in my opinion.

One example of a place that I think does it pretty well is the NewEgg website.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

Amen. The old site for this was much better.
http://archive.firstinspires.org/rob...egional-events

I liked the ability to see all events sorted by week.

Why the 100 mile limit? We do an overnight trip to a 2nd regional, and are willing to go 500+ miles if it is the right week. Also, being in the Midwest, a 100 miles as the crow flies could be 200+ miles as the car drives around one of the Great Lakes.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

Very surprised to see there is no link to the webcast or mention of the kickoff on the home page of the FIRST webpage.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

There is not a clear starting point for rookie teams or those new to FRC to find information about the control system.

Under "Game and Season" there needs to be a "Start Here" or "What to do First"

I visited 3 rookie teams and one 2nd year veteran team in my area this past week after the kickoff and not one person at these teams knew about the "Getting Started with the 2016 Control System" from WPI. There is no mentioning of it at a high level. You must already know its name to be able to search for and find it.

You try it! Pretend you are a rookie and try to find help on what you should do, step by step, to set up your control system starting at
http://www.firstinspires.org/robotic...ame-and-season

It is not under “Manuals / Game Q & A”
It is not under “Kit of Parts” (This is where it was located on the OLD usfirst.org web site)
It is not under "Technical Resources"
You can find it under “Resource Library”. But down 3 pages pass all the Position Summary for the volunteer jobs at the competition.

Some of the team member said they had looked at Resource Library but “there are too many documents”

Remember we were all a rookie once.

We need something that the rookie teams can find very easy that gets them started without them having to already know about it.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

"Download latest copy of Q&A" link doesn't work.

https://frc-qa.firstinspires.org/Questions.php

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

On this page ( http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/awards ) there are two issues:

1. The link to Woodie Flowers FInalist Award Winners at the bottom of this page takes you to a page that does not list any Woodie Flowers Finalist Award winners.
2. There should be a link on this page to the awards manual, and there is not.

Also, generally, I'm not a fan of many pages containing main navigation links to the right side of the content. It's counter intuitive to the English language (and many others) which are read from left to right, and many software workflows that go from left to right.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

The Q&A still has the old favicon.

Re: What's wrong with the new FIRST website - a running list
 

If someone just links you to any page such as this one, the "Back to Search" button does nothing at all, if you didn't come from a "search" on their site.

Team pages do not indicate team sponsors like the old site used to.

The 500 character limit on the Q/A system is pretty tight to phrase certain questions well.