Thanksgiving arrived a couple of days early for BLR

administrator

Everyone at BLR breathed a collective sigh or relief last week. Did
you hear it? It happened about Monday at 9 a.m. eastern time. That's
when we peeked at the results of our survey on the navigation of the
new HR.BLR.com site, currently released in beta.

We've been
working on this redesigned site for months - struggling with the
details of making it as easy as possible to navigate and use. We
thought we had some good ideas about how to reorganize the site and
position the content, but we weren't sure because most of the ideas are
untested, even revolutionary. Last week, many of you told us we are on
the right track - and for that we are thankful!

But aside from
being grateful many of you liked it, we are astounded at just how
positive your reactions were. More than 90 percent of you reacted
positively on every aspect of the navigation! " I find it user-friendly
and very informative," wrote one subscriber. "Your efforts have
produced a wonderful, easy- to-use research site. You have simplified
the search for articles, job descriptions, laws, etc.," wrote another.
Wow!

Although most subscribers liked everything they saw, the
favorite new feature was the side-by-side display of national and state
topic analysis. "This is the BEST feature for me," wrote one
subscriber. "It makes it so much easier to get the state perspective on
issues, especially since the state's laws frequently supercede the
national ones. Very nice feature," she continued. "We work in
multi-states; this will be very beneficial to me!" wrote another.

We
asked subscribers to tell us what they liked least about the new site
to draw out opportunties for more improvement, but negative comments
were minimal. "I really didn't find anything to dislike," wrote one
subscriber. Many others wrote, "Nothing." That's not to say there
weren't some criticisms. Several complained the site needed more color,
and we are already thinking about that - but carefully, because several
others called the site's appearance "clean," and "easy on the eyes."

If
you were among those who looked at the site and took part in the quick
survey, thank you! If you are among those who have not weighed in,
please take a few minutes to check out the beta site and then tell us what you think about it. And as always, send me a message if you have any thoughts you want to share with us.

Until next week,

Kim Ryan
Senior Project Manager
New Product Development
BLR