Stay Tuned! The new look of Podio is almost here.
Dear Users,
You asked for it and we made it happen! The new Podio UI is just round the corner.
We understand that our customers have been longing for more Podio improvements in 3 major domains: performance, UI/UX and new features. We are glad to have been able to address some of the calculation performance issues recently and continue exploring on more such improvements. In parallel, Podio team has also been revisiting our user interface, updating it to a new and more modern theme, that also aligns Podio UI with Citrix brand bringing us closer to the larger portfolio of Citrix products.
We have conducted multiple customer interviews to understand user sentiments about the new look. This new look has been open for testing by hundreds of Beta Users. We also did a customer facing Webinar in Jul 2021 giving sneak peak into our new look and taking feedback on what customers like vs dislike. If you have been part of the webinar, we're sure you have been eagerly waiting for this release. If you were not, then you have a surprise in store!
Excited? This is how you can switch to the new look.
- Click on your "My Account" icon.
- You will see a new link "Switch to new look" on the pull-down menu.
- Click to switch and that's it! Start using our new UI.
- Once on the new UI, you will see the link has changed to "Switch to old look". This allows you to switch between both the UIs till you get comfortable with the new UI.
P.S.: This "Switch to new look" option is only available for the web users. The mobile app users will be automatically upgraded to the new look on the latest version.
What's new for users?
- New and fresh teal theme: "Fresh", "Modern", "2021" define the customer sentiments from users who helped us test this new look. Our new teal theme with new fonts gives us a fresh visual look while simultaneously aligning to the new Citrix branding on both web and mobile apps.
- Modern and retina ready icons: All icons are being updated with retina-ready icons, while preserving the essence of what each icon means. A one-to-one mapping between icons in old and new UI will be maintained.
- More category colors: With our new color palette, we now support 16 category colors that gives you more flexibility with categorizing your data items, meetings etc. The old 8 colors are mapped to the 8 lighter shades of the new palette.
- Modernized components: Alert Modals, Charts, Polls and multiple other components are being updated as per modern standards
- Mobile apps are being updated across all platforms: Android, iOS and iPad.
- Email templates are being redesigned and consolidated into a standardized pattern for different types of email notifications.
- App Market and Extension pages are also planned to be modernized soon.
Here's a small trailer of our new look.
User Testimonials from Beta Testing:
"Love the new colors available for categories looking great so far 😎" - Damien Ruggieri, Citrix Podio Partner
"For the elements I use, I am finding it a lot crisper and easier on the eye. The categories are certainly standing out better for me now in a list. Overall enjoying it so far." Stephen McCurry, Podio Beta User
"Kudos - very smooth and clean UI 🤩 " - Caroline Vrauwdeunt, Citrix Podio Partner
"I appreciate the effort. It shows maybe you are working towards listening to your customers more" - Feedback during Customer Webinar
Is that it?
Of course not! This new UI is a stepping stone for many more additions to follow. The story does not end here. Our current effort has been focussed on the visual look and feel of the UI, without disrupting the usability. We do not want our users to go through an all new learning curve through a major UX overhaul all of a sudden. So we plan on making it a progressive change with both minor and major feature updates over the upcoming year.
Will we always have 2 looks to choose between?
- We will continue supporting the old look of our UI (blue theme) over the next couple of months only (as a transition period), and then deprecate it.
- For the next few months, you will have the flexibility to choose which look you want to work with. However, we believe and are almost certain that you would love our new look and not want to switch back. :)
- IMPORTANT: Any new features additions and UX changes we do from now on, will be supported only on the new look.
P.S.: Only Podio web UI is going to support these 2 looks. Mobile apps, once ready with the new theme, will not have 2 options to choose from.
Release Timeline:
- The new look on our web UI will be released this week (It's now LIVE!).
- The new teal theme is already available for the Android app users and will be available for iOS users soon too. More exciting updates to follow on mobile apps in an upcoming Product news item.
We really hope, with this news and new look, we are able to bring in a smile on your face, as bright as our new color palette 😄
Eager to know how you like the new look! Please comment below to share your feedback.
Cheers and Stay Tuned!
Pallabi - Podio Product Manager
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Benedict Stalder I have an iPad Pro and am able to update my templates just fine. The only issue I have is that I have to use a mouse (either external or on magic keyboard), as the screen does not seem to be responsive when touching with your finger.
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Pamela Alexander you are right; the Magic Keyboard does the trick! Solves a problem I had for a long time. Thank you very much!
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I have been testing out the Beta and the colours are super hard on the eyes! When you are staring at a computer screen, it is horrendous. I have even adjusted the settings on my monitor to try to help with reducing the brightness. If that can be revisited, we would TOTALLY appreciate it!
Amy Bailer
Fire Plan Strategies
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Podio has looked the same for... well, a long time. Many apps are making huge strides in working on a cleaner, easier-to-use UI/UX and all Podio does is change the color palette and fonts. *smh
THE MAIN REASON PEOPLE USE PODIO IS CUSTOMIZATION.
This is where you missed the mark. Make it so people can customize everything to their company/brand. The header color, the layout, the font (even if just a few choices)... Customization is your BIGGEST selling point. How can you not use that to your strength?
Making everyone switch over to this new UI is a negative in my book. This actually makes me want to use it less because I feel like I'm putting my trust and business into a product that looks like it's slowly dying.
Apps like Clickup get this. Heck, they even have a dark mode!
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I don't agree people want customisation... We're using Podio for our back-office, not towards customers. What I do agree with is that we need a nice clean UX/UI.
I think the new design is a good start. What would be next steps for me:- Make better use of space (decrease whitespace, allow collapse/expand, maybe some inline editing of relational objects). Maybe even allow a compact mode.
- Search in filtered tables: this has been missing for a while. When you filter down a table, you still want to be able to decrease the results by searching within it.
David
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Well... most of us have a lot of wishes for features depending on our own circumstances.
What would really be interesting to know and what would put everything into perspective, is if you Pallabi Patnaik could share with the community how many developers you have exclusively working on Podio.
I know there are a lot of shared resources in Citrix making sure the servers are spinning and who are doing day to day maintenance, small fixes etc., but how many, if any (my guess) are actually working exclusively on developing podio as a platform?
If we know that there is only 0,5 dedicated developer(s) looking into new features and upgrades, then it is completely understandable that nothing is happening on the platform.So... please let us know
Thanks,
/Tue
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I posted two months ago with UI thoughts and received no response by the Podio Team. I have begun to use the new UI on good faith, but cannot look past this one concern and am posting again. Podio Team, please let us know the reasoning behind the need for the header bar to be an increased height to the existing one? As mentioned before (pasted here again) the current 'midnight blue' Podio header bar is thin and demands little space on my screens. Your new 'teal' header bar is taller, just enough that I have lost precious and valuable screen space. A side by side comparison is attached. Is there a need for the new header bar to be taller than the current header bar? Can you compromise and reduce the height for us, to maximize screen space? Or provide an option to compact? I await your response. Thank you.
Prior comment posted two months ago:
2. The height of the new teal header bar. This is a biggie for me! I spent most of my days on a 13" laptop. I have spent hours hours moving around fields to ensure that I can see as much of my important data on the screen without scrolling as possible. The current 'midnight blue' Podio header bar is thin and demands little space on my screen. Your new 'teal' header bar is ever so much longer in height, just enough that I have lost precious and valuable screen space. Is there a need for it to be taller in height than the current header bar? Perhaps a happy compromise for those of us not a fan of teal would be to reduce it in height so that it matches the current header bar, or perhaps is just a tiny bit more prominent to give it that 'new' feel? I get that you need to make this change but please consider reducing the height just a smidge. It unnecessarily consumes too much of the page. And for what purpose? Most of us spend very little time using icons in the header bar - serious Podio users go to their data. Go ahead, compare the new and the old side by side on a laptop screen (I'm sure you did). You'll see how it eats up more space. Thoughts?
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I found an issue with the new font that I'd like to address. I have a specific way of labeling my files and Podio items. Most follow a scientific format of YYYY.MM.DD - Item Name. This allows me to do a quick sort and have all files line up by date (first, or last, whichever I choose). I've spent a decade transitioning to this format from a more loose, creative labeling system. I love it, as it makes everything line up nicely and look great.
I've been making an effort to use the new Podio interface to slowly get used to it. I just now noticed something that I do not love and I would love some feedback from the Podio team. The new font, while easy enough on the eyes and not terribly different than the old font does have an inconsistent width to each character. If you look closely at my screenshots you will see how the same data in the old format and font lines up perfectly vertically, indicating that all numbers have the same width. However, in the new format and new font that is not the case, it zigzags. It looks to me as if #1 might be a culprit (it's more narrow than the other numbers) and perhaps other numbers as well, it's difficult to tell. I have not run a test for letters.
Can you get back to me please to let me know if this was an intentional choice that you do not intend to address? Or, if you are open to font design tweaks and might consider widening #1, and/or making all alphabetical and numerical characters the same width so that those of us with a little bit of OCD are happier each time we view a column with near identical data?
I look forward to your response!
Thank you,
Maeve Richmond
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Hi Maeve Richmond Thanks for sharing this detailed feedback. And we love users with OCD because that challenges us to keep improving our product further. I will definitely take this feedback (on the width of numbers and letters) back to our design team to evaluate if this can be made better. However, this has not been a common feedback, so I may not be able to guarantee an improvement here as of now.
Also regarding your feedback on the broad teal header: This has actually been a common feedback from multiple customers and our design team is already looking into it. The header size was increased to unify our branding look with the other Citrix products and also to match with the modern industry design standards. But we understand how important the screen real estate is for our Podio customers and so, we are working towards making it it better.
/ Pallabi - Podio Product Manager
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Hi Kenneth Oronsaye Thanks for raising this issue. We will try to reproduce this and definitely fix it.
Germán Gutiérrez Hernández Dark mode is on our radar - on both web and mobile. I just do not have a definitive timeline for it as it would not be a quick item.
Richard Kennett Thanks for adding your kind words and loving Podio. I totally agree and like I mentioned in my earlier comments, color is a subjective matter, so I am not surprised if the choices vary. In fact we also get business cases where companies want to update the color to match their company branding. We may not have color customisation in Podio right now, but we are working towards similar user value with Citrix Podio and Citrix Workspace together. Stay tuned for more news on the same.
Geoff Chatham I hear you and I would not say you are wrong. Customisation of apps, flexibility of setting up our own business processes are definitely one of the biggest selling factors for Podio. But Podio's power and user base is also owed to its extensive calculation, workflow and automation abilities. There are new tools in the market who have great UI but may not be as powerful as Podio. So we are taking a more holistic approach at continuous improvement on all aspects. (For example, calculation reliability performance was one of them and you would be hearing about some improvements in near future). I too am sad that our UI had not been through a major update all these years, and we know users wanted more than just a look and feel change. Let's just consider this as step1 in that direction. There is more to come.
David Schaap Thanks for adding your thoughts. I would say we have mix of both backend and customer facing use cases, but I do understand the spirit of your comment that there are many companies who are primarily dependant on the powerful capabilities of Podio rather than just the client facing UI. Having said that, we want an improved UI for your employees as well (not just clients) and like you suggested, it actually adds layout and responsiveness updates as a key roadmap item for us. Search in filtered tables is also a very valid requirement and we will add it to our feature backlog.
Tue Roth I am not authorized to share our team size publicly. However, I can assure you that the focus and investment on Podio has been steadily growing and we are positive towards a brighter future in Citrix. In fact if you check our Product News section again, this last 1 year has actually seen a lot of feature improvements related to security features (2SV, SSO) and performance improvements. In addition to that, we have successfully undergone multiple platform updates and maintenance activities over the last couple of years. We are dedicated to keep making Podio better!
Samuel Artmann Yes upgrading the complete UX and layout changes are definitely on our to-do list. I just cannot indicate any timeline here owing to the massive scope the project would entail. However, we will make sure to give due importance to UX while adding more functionalities on Podio.
/ Pallabi - Podio Product Manager
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I appreciate the team's work on making this UI/UX better. But I haven't seen any significant improvements in that regard. Still looks too close to the old design. And, while the old design colors were less than impressive, so is the new one. I can definitely see hints of improvements and more modern feel here and there, but...
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Pallabi Patnaik, I must have missed it, could you point me in the direction, or give me any information when Citrix will deprecate the old look? The image popped up today as a reminder that the old look will go away
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Hi there. I sincerely appreciate all of your efforts that your team has put into the UI/UX changes, I will explore them when time permits. I have witnessed first hand via usability studies the effect UIX changes can have on users. The reactions can be harsh and pull up all kinds of psychological issues associated with each person. I do however want to bring to your attention a feature request that I deem to be very important for Podio. Many of us build and maintain a large number of workspaces. Better workspace management has been requested over the years (i.e. https://help.podio.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/202504513-Workspace-Organization-and-Menu-Customization) and this in my opinion takes precedence over cosmetic changes to the UI.
If we could get a drag-and-drop menu with nesting (similar to Google Tasks) for the workspace icons, that would do wonders for a great deal of Podio users. I suspect that the code base may not have been built to support this, hence the lack of response from Podio/Citrix development.
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Hi Pallabi Patnaik, I'd like to bump my question - can you tell us when the old look will expire? Per that screenshot I attached to my last comment I infer that the retirement is imminent, but there's no mention of date.
Thanks. -
I'm curious how the modifications are coming that have been requested by the community.
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Ok, dear community, since it looks like changes we asked above were just ignored and the new theme now is obligatory, here are the basic CSS fixes for it. To use them, you would need to install a plugin for your browser that allows to add custom CSS styles for any website, for example, User CSS for Chrome. And then add the following CSS to it. A lot may be done this way, but these are just two things that were the most annoying for me.
1. This will fix the font to support Unicode glyphs like cyrillic and jewish letters etc. (since the now used font Public Sans does not supports them and the theme has no correct fall back):
body,
.header-sub-title,
.header-title,
.app-sidebar-new__current-views,
.sub-navigation .tabs ul>li h5 {
font-family: sans-serif !important
}2. This will reduce the height of the top panel:
:root {
--panel-height: 40px /* set your own height (63px is default) */
}
.content-container {
margin-top: var(--panel-height)
}
body.section-app .content-container {
padding-top: var(--panel-height)
}
#wrapper {
margin-bottom: var(--panel-height)
}
#header-global,
#header-global .nav-box>.inner .user-navigation,
#header-global .nav-box>.inner .user-functions,
.space-switcher-wrapper,
.space-switcher .search .default-title, .space-switcher .search input,
.space-switcher .search
{
height: var(--panel-height)
}
.space-switcher .search .default-title,
.space-switcher .search .img {
line-height: var(--panel-height);
}
.item-topbar,
.is-animated .item-topbar--animate-to {
top: var(--panel-height);
}
.space-switcher .search .img {
margin: calc( (var(--panel-height) - 16px) / 2);
}
.item-overlay,
.item-topbar:after {
top: calc( var(--panel-height) + 50px)
}
.item-activity-wrapper .item-activity {
top: calc( var(--panel-height) + 70px )
}Provided as is, some bugs may be still there, so no guarantees, use it on your own risk :)
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I use the awesome Podio Super Menu checkbox option "make new Teal UI nicer" to tone down the horrid teal banner and another checkbox "Remove animated Glipies" which makes the interface look a bit more professional. Thanks Eugen for the CSS options might give that a go one day. Cheers
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