BOS redesign
Over the past few months we've been working on a redesign of BOS. This redesign will improve the appearance of BOS to survey respondents and also to those authoring/administering surveys. In addition to the redesign we are also introducing some new functionality requested by BOS users. We've summarised the changes below (well in advance of the redesign being applied) and will also be issuing documentation in due course to help users familiarise themselves with the new look BOS.
What is changing?
The main BOS site, administration area and surveys using the BOS default skin will all have a different design. Surveys that use custom skins will continue to use a custom skin and will only have very minor visual differences, if any.
Why are you redesigning BOS?
We are changing the design to make BOS look more modern and, most importantly, to make it easier and friendlier for all users. Although the most obvious change is how BOS looks we have also improved a number of other areas in BOS. BOS will follow Web standards and best practice much more closely and this means surveys not only look better and are more user friendly but also more accessible to users with disabilities. The changes also result in more efficient pages that should be quicker to load.
Are you adding new functionality?
Yes, we have taken this opportunity to add a few new features and have some other exciting features that will be released shortly after the redesign is launched. Important changes that are being released as part of the redesign include:
- Survey respondents can now receive a unique reference number that can be provided to survey authors and tallied with data exported from BOS
- The time of submission can now be exported with survey responses
- Follow-on questions that are not relevant to a respondent are now disabled and hidden
- Most survey questions now feature explicit HTML labels which improves accessibility and usability
- The 'Continue' button has been centred to make it more obvious to respondents
- Improved French translation
- Administrators can now filter "My Surveys" to only show their surveys instead of everyone's (if the account has fine-grained account security)
- The "Account Details" section now gives a breakdown of all the cost options applied to an account in a single overview
- Improved survey preview
- Improved printing of results from BOS
- Added upper and lower quartiles to "Extra Statistics" in the results area
My organisation uses a custom skin, will we see the benefits too?
You custom skin will still be applied to your live surveys so their appearance will not change. These surveys will gain the technical improvements outlined above also. When previewing surveys they will adopt your custom skin and appear as a respondent would see them. Your custom skin will no longer be applied to the admin area of BOS and the admin area will adopt BOS's new design so you also get the improvements here too.
When will the redesign be launched?
The redesign is currently undergoing final testing and we plan to make the changes at the end of May/beginning of June. In the middle of May we will confirm the deployment date and also publish some documentation to help users familiarise themselves with the new look and feel in advance. Following that we will send another reminder one week before deployment.
Want a sneak preview?
New home page:
My surveys:
What do I need to do?
You do not need to do anything to prepare for the change as it will be automatically applied to all accounts. All surveys (live, building, closed etc.) will be unaffected other than having the redesign applied.
However, you may like to warn your users that a redesign is coming so that they know to expect a change. In addition, if you have any internal training documents or other information then you may wish to contact the BOS team to find out what, if any, changes may need to be made to this information.
The BOS team understands that the redesign of any popular website can be quite a shock and we are more than happy to answer any queries you may have ahead of the redesign being applied. That said, I'm sure you'll also agree that the improvements to BOS that are part of this redesign will improve the service provided to all users.