A New Look for the Trailblazer Community

This Trailblazer Community update is so fresh, I swear I saw the site go down briefly while they made the update. Just in time for TDX...

This Trailblazer Community update is so fresh, I swear I saw the site go down briefly while they made the update. Just in time for TDX (that’s Trailblazer DX now for those of you that haven’t been keeping up), the online home of the Trailblazer Community’s got a little bit of a facelift today to improve the experience and unify the UX across Salesforce’s various web pages, communities, etc…

Between product pages, Trailhead, Salesforce Support, the Trailblazer Community, etc… navigating Salesforce’s non-platform web properties could, at times, feel like opening an endless series of doors, like a Scooby Doo chase scene (made worse by the fact that some of those “doors” would be locked behind the same login you’d swear you just entered). But no more!

Salesforce has officially rolled out their Global and Contextual Navigation to the Trailblazer Community, bringing it more inline with the broader Salesforce.com site and, at least in theory, making navigation more straightforward.

Now, not only are all of the Trailblazer Community components more readily nav-able via the menu at the top of the page, Salesforce has also rolled out the following updates:

• With updated links and resources across pages, we’ve made it easier to find the information and pages you need, including quicker access to your Feed, Groups, Topics, and Events.
• Easy-to-find direct access to important support channels, like Help and Learning on Trailhead as well as contextual search.
• Support for nine languages in contextual navigation to improve accessibility for global Trailblazers.
• A new Community-focused Code of Conduct page with access to the Salesforce Program terms.

Of course, as with any new change, folks are already quickly taking to the comments with critiques, criticisms, and the inevitable growing pains of any UX update. (Including but not limited to some fairly funny images of stacked nav-tools eating up a good chunk of screen real estate).

Personally, I will say I appreciate the ability to quickly bounce between my Groups, Events, and my broader Trailblazer Feed and the openness and rapidity with which Salesforce is receiving and responding to the inbound notes on the update.

All in all, this looks to be a huge step toward unifying the online, but not in-org, Salesforce experience and, if it makes it easier for people to navigate the Trailblazer Community, it will be a huge benefit to the ecosystem as a whole and the careers and lives of the people that make the platform so awesome!

So give it a spin — leave your notes for Salesforce in the comments here, and be sure to let us know in these comments what you think as well!

Until next time, keep working hard, smart, and happy. And we’ll see you in the cloud.