We also rolled out a significant change to the user interface for the artist account. After lots of user testing, we found that the majority of users had trouble moving around our site. While it was always easy to go back to the "My Account" screen and go from there, our site lacked intuitive, top level navigation when an artist is logged in. Yesterday we changed that.
Introducing the new Sonicbids. We have bucketed our site into four main sections: Dashboard, Manage Content, Find Gigs, Promote Gigs.
Dashboard: This is a birds-eye view of your entire account. From this page, your can access bite-sized pieces of information which you then can click through and dig deeper. It's meant to be a good place to start and continues the feel of the "My Account" screen from our old site.
Manage Content: This is where you build and edit your EPK and manage all the information and media you are entering into Sonicbids. This includes tour dates, music, videos, photos, press, etc... It all goes here. You can also use this section to edit your EPK.
Find Gigs: This section houses all functionality to find and book gigs. We've made it very easy to browse our gig catalog through various simple buttons in our navigation, allowing you to quickly access our listings with a variety of criteria. We think it'll make finding and researching opportunities a lot easier. Plus, you can also manage your submissions, email your EPK, and more from this area.
Promote Gigs: This is where you go to set up your social network syndication and configure your Facebook Artist Profile [link to previous blog post]. It's also where to go to set up your embeddable calendar widget to publish concert dates directly to other sites.
Universal Search Box: You will also notice that we have added a one-box search on every page of our site. Now, no matter where you are you can always search for a gig.
New Account Header: Finally, we've added a black bar at the way top of the screen where you can access account-level area, such as membership info, email preferences, account settings, and gig preferences. You can also easily get support from this area as well, and see how many tokens you have left.
We hope this makes our site easier to use and understand. We are continually refining the user experience to make using Sonicbids smooth and easy. Let us know what you think!
We've embedded a screencast below showing you the new site as well!
