Hey all!
As you may or may not know, ATAR Notes recently celebrated its tenth birthday - very exciting!
(https://78.media.tumblr.com/d3ef6b11a69712a9536c3a62aeba7c62/tumblr_nqo112H4rJ1sfmnojo1_500.gif)
If you think about where you were ten years ago and where you are today, I'm sure heaps has changed for you - and it's the same for ATAR Notes. From what was originally a niche website called "FreeStudyNotes", AN has since become the largest online high school student community in Australia. We now offer:
* Free lectures multiple times per year across several states
* Free study notes
* Free forums
* Free articles and other content
* Australia's most innovative and affordable tutoring program (TuteSmart)
* Low-cost study guides
And, in the future, a whole lot more. ;)
That's all been developed from scratch in the past ten years. But the thing is, over that time, the website itself has become dated, and hasn't actually changed that much. Plainly, it hasn't received the love and attention it deserves. Why? Because time and effort has been thrown toward other projects, such as the free lectures etc. outlined above. That's obviously not a good reason to let the site become dated, though, so things are going to change!
With the site as is, functionality is limited, and we're actually really confined in terms of what we can change moving forward. A lot of the site is custom-coded; different developers have done bits and pieces over the last decade as needed at the time. This has been all well and good up until now, but as you can imagine, it's simply not a sustainable system. What the custom code means is that, if we try to change anything a little too much, it could break the entire site - and that's obviously not what anybody wants haha.
In short, we've come to a point where change is both appropriate and necessary. And I can promise you this: the changes to the website will be very, very, very exciting.
Sweet - so what's actually gonna happen?
As a belated tenth birthday present to the entire ATAR Notes Family, I'm happy to announce that the ATAR Notes site is going to be re-built - from scratch (don't worry: existing stats and posts and stuff will remain).
Now, this is going to be a big project. Like, really big. People have literally been hired specifically to oversee the process, because as I'm sure you can appreciate, it's super important for us to get this right. At the end of the redevelopment, what we foresee is a completely modern, intuitive site that simply allows you to do way more than you can do now - and more easily.
We're undertaking this project because we recognise the current site has flaws. In some cases, very considerable flaws! And that's inconsistent with what we want to provide (namely, the highest quality resources available). Trust me when I say that everything - from the smallest details to the biggest changes - will be carefully considered. Literally every single element. For that reason, we want - and need - you to be involved in this. Who knows the site best? You. Who uses it the most? You. Well then, who should be involved in the redevelopment? Quite obviously, you - and you will be.
I joined ATAR Notes in 2012, and in those 5-6 years, have seen a lot of changes happen to AN. With some of those changes, I was frustrated by a lack of transparency - things seemed to happen out of the blue, or without much consultation etc. I now work for ATAR Notes, and part of my role throughout this project is to connect the AN Fam to this redevelopment. It just makes sense on every level, and that's what this thread is ultimately for - to provide updates, get feedback, field questions and so on.
Of course, it would have been really easy for us not to mention this until the launch of the new site. We're still talking a long time until anything noticeable changes, such is the scale of the project; indeed, we're pretty much at the starting line of a 42km marathon. In fact, the new site probably won't even be live this time next year. But there's no good reason to keep users in the dark (as a fairly prolific user of the site, perhaps I'm a little biased hahaha ;)), so here we are!
tl;dr: ATAR Notes will be changing over the next year or two. It's a long project, but I'm making this thread specifically to keep the ATAR Notes Community involved. If you think about it, this community is the crux of ATAR Notes - it's at the very heart. And, as such, it's the community who needs to drive the change.
Heeeeeellllllo hello hello! Bit of a quick update here on the new site - very exciting!
First of all, sorry it's taken this long to get things underway. Will definitely be sharing more screenshots and the like to get your feedback as they come through, because that's obviously a big part of why we're doing this in the first place - to make ATAR Notes easier to use/better to use for all of us here. ;D
The first update might seem like a pretty small one, but it's one I'm amazingly enthusiastic about haha.
(https://i.imgur.com/3gX8JpZ.png)
Obviously, this is an idea for a new main toolbar. It's got all the same stuff as normal, but also a notifications system (see far right of the screenshot above), which is something I've personally wanted on this site for at least half a decade haha. What this will mean is like, if you get quoted, you get notified - stuff like that. Muuuuuch easier to use the forums that way, at least based on my experience on other forums with similar systems.
What do y'all think? Improvement from the current?
Heeeeeellllllo hello hello! Bit of a quick update here on the new site - very exciting!
First of all, sorry it's taken this long to get things underway. Will definitely be sharing more screenshots and the like to get your feedback as they come through, because that's obviously a big part of why we're doing this in the first place - to make ATAR Notes easier to use/better to use for all of us here. ;D
The first update might seem like a pretty small one, but it's one I'm amazingly enthusiastic about haha.
(https://i.imgur.com/3gX8JpZ.png)
Obviously, this is an idea for a new main toolbar. It's got all the same stuff as normal, but also a notifications system (see far right of the screenshot above), which is something I've personally wanted on this site for at least half a decade haha. What this will mean is like, if you get quoted, you get notified - stuff like that. Muuuuuch easier to use the forums that way, at least based on my experience on other forums with similar systems.
What do y'all think? Improvement from the current?
I REALLY like how it’s a lot more compact
Heeeeeellllllo hello hello! Bit of a quick update here on the new site - very exciting!
First of all, sorry it's taken this long to get things underway. Will definitely be sharing more screenshots and the like to get your feedback as they come through, because that's obviously a big part of why we're doing this in the first place - to make ATAR Notes easier to use/better to use for all of us here. ;D
The first update might seem like a pretty small one, but it's one I'm amazingly enthusiastic about haha.
(https://i.imgur.com/3gX8JpZ.png)
Obviously, this is an idea for a new main toolbar. It's got all the same stuff as normal, but also a notifications system (see far right of the screenshot above), which is something I've personally wanted on this site for at least half a decade haha. What this will mean is like, if you get quoted, you get notified - stuff like that. Muuuuuch easier to use the forums that way, at least based on my experience on other forums with similar systems.
What do y'all think? Improvement from the current?
Love the idea of a notification system
The new toolbar looks really great - I like the even spacing around each word, the subtle vertical division & drop down arrows.
I'm really interested in what the drop-down menu for "forum" will be, whether it includes the admin/community section, has horizontal branching (I'm not sure if that's the right term but hopefully you understand what I mean) etc.