Please use this thread to provide feedback on the new website and digest. I would like to personally thank Justin Kuntz who designed the site and digest and Brian Loomis who performed the data wizardry that allows both to function. Both Justin and Brian spent thousands of hours over the last two years to make the site and digest possible.
Thanks also to Amanda Kilburn who cleaned up and indexed three years of past listserv posts to make that wealth of information available on the new site. For a little additional fun, Amanda also reindexed all of the articles and cases. Without Amanda's indexing efforts the ability to quickly locate all content for a specific behavior, such as car pooling, would not be possible. Finally, thanks to Jan Aceti who has been updating the articles database with new material each month.
We hope you find the new site and digest useful in your work and we look forward to your feedback.
Best, Doug
Doug McKenzie-Mohr
President
McKenzie-Mohr & Associates Inc.
Canada
http://www.cbsm.com
Feedback on New Site and Digest
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On my computer I hold down Ctrl and scroll the button on my mouse - this increases/decreases the size on most word, email and website documents.
Hannah Sanger
City of Pocatello
United States
www.pocatello.us
Precisely. I know they've likely used younger eyes to create this. It is a royal pain on every site to have to enlarge everything on multiple sites. It reduces productivity and in the end one does not get to read as many sites.
I copied a phrase, above, into MS Word and sized the font to be equivalent in length and realize that you've chosen a font size of 8. That is Too Small by at least 2.
Maggie Clarke
Maggie Clarke Environmental
United States
www.maggieclarkeenvironmental.com
On a Mac, it's command (flower key)-shift-plus. For both platforms, you have to press the shift key to get the plus. It's the "=" and the shift key.
But in general, if you let people with young eyes do the layout, they use tiny fonts. The rest of us have to accommodate and then the layout falls apart. There is a middle ground, people.
Virginia Bruce
Vice-chair
Citizens' Participation Organization
United States
Thank you for the information on increasing the font size. On my PC, I held the "Control" key while pressing the "+" key, and the font enlarged. I was able to enlarge it twice.
Karen Deeter
Assist. PW Dir./Waste Mgmt.
Alachua County Public Works Dept.
United States
www.alachuacounty.us
I agree - font size is (unnecessarily?)too small. Appreciate if you bump it up a point size or two.
Plus + doesn't work on my PC either.
Hugh Tyrrell
Tyrrell Associates
SouthAfrica
Hitting control-+ is what increases the font size on most PCs
Sarah Bruce
NC Clean Water Education Partnership
United States
www.ncCleanWater.org
Hitting plus key increases font size? Really? Doesn't work for me.
I agree with Maggie's comment. Seems like there's more green border than needed.
Val Loewen
government of Yukon
Canada
Maggie: Thanks for the feedback. You can increase the font size by hitting the plus key on your keyboard.
Best, Doug
Doug McKenzie-Mohr
Environmental Psychologist
McKenzie-Mohr & Associates Inc.
Canada
http://www.cbsm.com
Nice and attractive, but the font size could be a bit larger for myopic eyes...
Maggie Clarke
Maggie Clarke Environmental
United States
www.maggieclarkeenvironmental.com
Kady: The ability to search for information cross-referenced by a tool is coming in an advanced search page that we are working on. However, I would encourage you to search first using just the tool that you are interested in. Some of the best examples of a tool being utilized, such as Su Beran's use of commitments with farmers, would be missed if you search by a tool and a category, such as energy.
Best, Doug
Doug McKenzie-Mohr
Environmental Psychologist
McKenzie-Mohr & Associates Inc.
Canada
http://www.cbsm.com
Sarah: Thanks for your feedback. I'll need to defer to Brian on your question regarding the RSS feed and being able to open the site in multiple tabs. Amanda did a wonderful job in allowing information to be searched by a specific behavior across the site -- I believe over time that this will become the most used aspect of the site.
Best, Doug
Doug McKenzie-Mohr
Environmental Psychologist
McKenzie-Mohr & Associates Inc.
Canada
http://www.cbsm.com
Aye, while most people wouldn't know what an RSS feed is, they'll still use it to integrate their FSBM reading into Google Reader, or some other notification dashboard without realising what the technology they're using is.
Kieren Diment
Australia
it would be great to search for articles by category cross-referenced to tool.
Kady Cowan
UHN
Canada
Hi Doug et al.,
Again, my kudos on the new site. Couple more questions:
1) why is my RSS feed (Sage) not picking up a feed from anywhere on the site? I'd like to add a feed for the Water pages.
2) It would be handy if when opening a new tab (in Firefox) maintained ones login status. I had to log in again when I opened "link in a new tab."
Marvelous work, especially appreciate Amanda's indexing of the old posts to make the site useful from the get-go. Tres cool to see that I've already "participated" in the forums!
Best! ~s
Sarah Bruce
NC Clean Water Education Partnership
United States
www.ncCleanWater.org
Kieren: Thanks for the feedback. We actually had an RSS feed built in, but in delivering workshops and talking about the upcoming site most people did not know what an RSS feed was for or how to use it. As a result, we replaced it with email notifications and bookmarks. The feed will likely find its way back in under a future update. Thanks again for taking the time to provide feedback.
Best, Doug
Doug McKenzie-Mohr
Environmental Psychologist
McKenzie-Mohr & Associates Inc.
Canada
http://www.cbsm.com
The new web forums look good but are missing one thing - an RSS feed. If this was available I'd be keeping a much closer eye on the forums, and I think that would go for others too.
Kieren Diment
Australia
Virginia: Thanks for the feedback. We decided against having a table of contents at the top of the digest as it would take up too much room. However, we do have a plain text version of the digest that you can receive by changing your digest preference from html to plain text in your "My Account" settings. The plain text digest does not presently have a table of contents, but that is something we could look into adding. Doug
Doug McKenzie-Mohr
Environmental Psychologist
McKenzie-Mohr & Associates Inc.
Canada
http://www.cbsm.com
I get the digest email, and I keep graphics turned off unless I want to see them. So I really miss the text at the top of the email listing the topics. I usually don't bother to load the graphics and scroll down any more.
If it's not too difficult, I'd recommend putting that back!
Virginia Bruce
United States
Doug,
I just wanted to say that the new digest format is wonderful! It is so much easier to read than the previous format.
Thank you, and please thank all the folks who worked behind the scenes to develop the web site and the digest.
Best,
Karen Deeter
Assist. PW Dir./Waste Mgmt.
Alachua County Public Works Dept.
United States
www.alachuacounty.us
Hi again,
I'm sorry to bother you but it seems that I must be doing something wrong. I attempted to locate the article I am interested in but typing in both the thread title and the author email address (separately) but to no avail. I also did a test on my email address and received the same note that my search was too specific (see attached screen shot). I would appreciate any guidance you might be able to offer.
Cheers,
Leila
Leila Greenfield
GreenBlox
Australia
Meaghan: Thank you for your feedback. The purpose of the site is to explore how to foster sustainable behavior, with a particular emphasis on how community-based social marketing can be applied to encouraging these behavioral changes. The miscellaneous items you mention, where appropriate for these forums, can be be addressed under general discussion.
Best, Doug
Doug McKenzie-Mohr
Environmental Psychologist
McKenzie-Mohr & Associates Inc.
Canada
http://www.cbsm.com
Hi!
Maybe creating another forum for miscellaneous items?
There isn't really an opportunity to post for: Fashion Production, Marketing initiatives, retailing, industrial design, graphic design, production, film, theater, office management... etc...
Because of my background I look for this, and including this could greatly expand who uses this site. So far this website is very esthetically beautiful, but the content isn't relevant or easily navigable to the industries I touched on above.
Also, maybe you could have a sections for companies you recommend?
Meaghan Orlinski
Sustainalbe Design Deciple
Deadly Nightshades Midnight Bike Riding Crew
Canada
nightshadesbikecrew.blogspot.com
Leila: Yes, you can search for an author simply by typing that individuals last name or email address into the "Search the Site" field found in the sidebar. Thanks for feedback on the site.
Best, Doug
Doug McKenzie-Mohr
Environmental Psychologist
McKenzie-Mohr & Associates Inc.
Canada
http://www.cbsm.com
Jay: Thanks for your extensive feedback. We have fixed the two issues that you mentioned with the digest and the contact page is now functioning properly. As for attachments, we are unable to send them out with the digest for both size and security reasons. We should, however, clarify in the digest header that attachments can only be viewed online. Finally, regarding speed, we are doing two things. First, we are transferring the sending of the digest over to a separate server. Once the transfer is compete the site will speed up. Second, in a few weeks we will transfer the site over a unix based server which will result in an additional speed increase.
Thanks again for your feedback. Doug
Doug McKenzie-Mohr
Environmental Psychologist
McKenzie-Mohr & Associates Inc.
Canada
http://www.cbsm.com
Hi,
I think the new look and function of the site is really wonderful. I am currently trailing through my back-up of FSB listservs and was trying to locate a previous thread in the new system but seem to be unable to do so. Is there a function where you can search by or access a particular daily digest or by a particular post author?
Thanks,
Leila
Leila Greenfield
GreenBlox
Australia
Hi Doug:
The new site looks great and performed well for me. Congratulations to all of you who have been working on it. I had no problem at all getting a new password sent to me today, and logging in to the system. Since you asked me to look for errors and issues, I do have a few notes:
1. The site took a while (20 seconds or so) to load the first page the first time. I'm on Vista with Explorer 7 and lots of RAM.
2. on page http://www.cbsm.com/pages/services/contact, there was the following error massage at the bottom of the page
array: (pair: (-nothing)=()), (pair: (-database)=(cbsm)), (pair: (-operatorlogical)=(and)), (pair: (-maxrecords)=(30)), (pair: (-skiprecords)=(0))
3. The Digest looks great too, although on my monitor the font size was a little small for my comfort.
4. Typo at the top of the Digest - Please find below **** todays ****** posts
5. I was able to access attachments from the forum but not from the Digest and it wasn't clear to me that that was going to be the case
Hope this helps - great resource -
Cheers, Jay
Jay Kassirer
Cullbridge
Canada
Nicoletta: Thanks for your feedback. We are moving the digest to a separate server over the weekend. This move should speed up the site. Several weeks from now we will be moving the new FSB website over to a unix-based server which should give us another 20-40% improvement in speed.
Best, Doug
Doug McKenzie-Mohr
Environmental Psychologist
McKenzie-Mohr & Associates Inc.
Canada
http://www.cbsm.com
Hi I have been browsing a little throught the forums, it is very clear the way you can configure your own views and the stylesheet is very pleasant and clear. I found the reply time a bit slow sometimes,3-4 seconds on a Saturday morning Greenwich time, when Canada is still asleep, so when there shouldn't be lots of traffic. Could performance become an issue when more people will use it heavily? Just a suggestion to keep monitored. Well done, looking forward to see the new digest. Nicoletta
nicoletta landi
United Kingdom
Jess: I doubt that we will add the ability to format comments as it would create problems for the digest that we send out daily. We have discussed adding a spell module to the comment area. We will discuss the pros and cons of allowing users to edit their comments. Thanks for the feedback.
Doug McKenzie-Mohr
Environmental Psychologist
McKenzie-Mohr & Associates Inc.
Canada
http://www.cbsm.com
Andrea: Thank you for taking the time to comment on the site -- glad that you like it. I would suggest that you add a post to the new forums requesting information on communities that are utilizing cbsm. I suspect that a number of subscribers to the forums would find the answers helpful.
Best, Doug
Doug McKenzie-Mohr
Environmental Psychologist
McKenzie-Mohr & Associates Inc.
Canada
http://www.cbsm.com
Thanks to all concerned. I find the format very readable and easy to access - I feel as though I'll make much better use of the info now than I have done in the past.
Sue Bellinger
Manager
SB & Associates
SouthAfrica
That is, "THIS is nitpicky..."
(Add to that, the ability to edit a post!)
Jess Sand
Owner
Roughstock Studios
UnitedStates
http://www.roughstockstudios.com
Yes, I think it's just a matter of getting used to the different format. The nice thing about a traditional forum layout is that you can quickly see the latest threads in each category without having to go through multiple clicks.
Another feature that would be nice (two, actually) would be the ability to format comments and the ability to reply to a specific post within a thread (to effectively create a nested thread).
Again, though, these is nitpicky feedback - I'm a designer/writer by trade, so critique comes maybe too easy to me! ;)
Best,
J.
Jess Sand
Owner
Roughstock Studios
UnitedStates
http://www.roughstockstudios.com
Love the site!!! It works for me, being someone who knows about and is a fan of CBSM. For someone totally new, there needs to be a simple definition/explanation of what CBSM is.
I'm crafting something like this for my local councillor to bring to council. I would also like to see a page listing the businesses, organizations, and governments that have used the system. I am aiming to use the 'block leader' approach on my councillor to make the point that progressive and results-oriented organizations are using this system on a number of fronts.
I scrolled through some cases, but listing academic journals won't be as effective for my purpose (and I need to submit it tomorrow).
Again, a million thanks for offering this resource up to us all - it's a treasure trove that I recommend to anyone likely to be interested!!!
Andrea Jones
Raising Spaces
Canada
thanks- this looks great and I love that the case study section has more detail rather than just the reference. This new format will definatly encourage me to make more active use of the site.
leah knapp
Town of Mosman Park
Australia
Jess: Thanks for the feedback on the forum layout and site. If you explore the pull down menus just above the main body of the forum landing page you'll see that you can quickly drill down to just the posts that are related to a particular category. For example, in the attached screen shot I have selected the category transportation and sorted the category by newest first. Of particular interest is the list of behaviors shown at the bottom of the screenshot. You'll note that they are all transportation related behaviors. Clicking on one of the listed behaviors will allow you to drill down to just those items related to particular behavior, such as bicycling.
Thanks again for the feedback.
Doug McKenzie-Mohr
President
McKenzie-Mohr & Associates Inc.
Canada
http://www.cbsm.com
Wow, what an improvement! Nice work all around.
The only issue I have is with the forum interface. I suppose I'm just a traditionalist, but I much prefer the conventional format of:
CATEGORY 1
Thread title 1 / date of last post et al.
Thread title 2 / date of last post et al.
CATEGORY 2
Thread title 1 / date of last post et al.
Thread title 2 / date of last post et al.
Etc...
I just find it easier to browse and keep up with. But overall, this is lovely. I'm also glad you're sticking with an html version of the digest, rather than putting the kibosh on it in lieu of the forum.
Thanks so much,
Jess
Jess Sand
Owner
Roughstock Studios
UnitedStates
http://www.roughstockstudios.com
Nancy: Completing the site and digest have taken longer than I anticipated. When I return at the end of February from a speaking tour in Australia I'll continue work on the presentation. I'll send out an announcement to the listserv when it is ready. Thanks for your patience and sorry that it has taken so long.
Best, Doug
Doug McKenzie-Mohr
President
McKenzie-Mohr & Associates Inc.
Canada
http://www.cbsm.com
Sean:
You will continue to receive a daily digest as before regardless of whether you post to the online forums. The new daily digest is wonderful in comparison to the old listserv (thanks Justin). Your first digest should arrive tomorrow. I've attached a screenshot of the new digest both so that you can review it, but also to demonstrate our new ability to attach reports and graphics.
Doug McKenzie-Mohr
President
McKenzie-Mohr & Associates Inc.
Canada
http://www.cbsm.com
I like the web-site. The one thing that I was looking for and couldn't find was a power-point presentation that summarises CBSM.
Nancy Hill
AECOM
Canada
I really enjoy the new format! It is very attractive and easy to use.
Although the listsev was very convenient - I hope that everyone on the listerv continues to participate. Am I right that unless you are taking part in the conversation you won't be notified about new posts?
sean magee
Sustainable Schools Coordinator
Check Your Head
Canada
www.checkyourhead.org
@sarah
Thanks for the tip, it was quickly corrected.
Brian Loomis
Lead Software Developer
Virtual Relations
UnitedStates
http://www.virtualrelations.us
Sarah:
Thank you for bringing that error to our attention -- fortunately, it is a quick fix. Thanks also for the kind words about the site.
Best, Doug
Doug McKenzie-Mohr
President
McKenzie-Mohr & Associates Inc.
Canada
http://www.cbsm.com
Fantastic work, all! This new design is downright inviting!
I did find one confusing message - on
http://www.cbsm.com/notifications/list
the message you get when you don't have any notifications talks about "Bookmarks" not "Notifications". I thought I had clicked the wrong link by accident.
But so far I am super impressed - WOW!
~sarah
Sarah Bruce
NC Clean Water Education Partnership
UnitedStates
www.ncCleanWater.org
FYI:
Specifying type size in pixels (px) is a common practice, however, it makes type tinier on high-resolution displays.
Specifying type size in points (pt) gives a more consistent product to more users, because it renders the type closer to an absolute size rather than rendering it dependent on the users' display.
Virginia Bruce
Vice-chair
Citizens' Participation Organization
United States