The Public Platform team would like to announce another release in a series of planned work for the Review queues. This release focuses on refreshing the queue user interface in preparation for further improvements to the user experience. Starting today, we will roll out these changes in three phases across the network.
Roll-out plan
We have planned for these UI changes to ship in three distinct phases affecting specific queues across the network. We will update this post as each phase is rolled out.
| What | Where | When | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 | • Home page (/review) • Close and reopen votes queue • Stats/History view • Steward badge |
Meta Stack Exchange Meta Stack Overflow |
Shipped! January 28, 2021 |
| Phase 2 | • Changes from Phase 1 • Suggested edits queue • Low quality posts queue • First posts queue • Late answers queue |
SuperUser Ask Ubuntu |
Shipped! February 16, 2021 |
| Phase 3 | • Changes from Phase 1 + 2 • Triage queue (SO only) • Help and improvement queue (SO only) |
All network sites | February 23, 2021 |
UI changes to all queues
All review queues will be adopting a new user interface that focuses on providing reviewers with context to make deliberate, thoughtful decisions on review tasks. We shared an initial design proposal in our product discovery phase and made sure to include that feedback into the final design.
Responsive/Mobile-friendly design
We utilized Stacks to update the visual design in the review queues. As part of this update, we were also able to make the queues responsive and utilize mobile-friendly UI components.
Changes
Actions menu - We’ve removed the actions buttons for a menu-style component. Selecting an action now requires a bit of pause and mitigates robo-reviewer behaviors we've seen in the past. Instructions are now always visible and associated with each action.
More context - Users can now toggle between the review task and the necessary context (original question, answers, and comments) on the task page to assist in making educated decisions on a task. No need to open new browser tabs!
Vote controls and follow feature - We heard from you that being able to vote directly on all tasks as well as the option to follow posts and receive updates on changes would help in the reviewing process. These features will be available in all queues.
Filter button - We’re highlighting this feature (where it’s available) with a button and replacing the easily missed text-link.
Review count - We’ve removed the badge progress bar in lieu of keeping track of how many tasks you can complete in a queue (don’t worry, the badge bar isn’t gone).
Review home page
The review homepage has received a Stacks update as well, setting it up for forthcoming plans to create better onboarding for new reviewers. This page now provides a bit more information to new reviewers.
Changes
Only the queues available/earned by the user are clickable
Includes additional text about necessary reputation to earn access to new queues
Available queues are prioritized to the top and then sorted by the number of tasks in each queue
Additional updates
All aspects of the Review queues are receiving some much needed design attention. Here a few more changes you can expect to see:
There is more incentive to continue reviewing. The Steward badge can now be earned multiple times for every 1,000 reviews in each queue. If you have already completed 2,000 or more reviews, we will backfill any additional Steward badges that you have already earned. You can expect to see them accrue over the next few days.
History view - Added and rearranged a few UI components so that users can better navigate and utilize the page
Stats view - Updated badge progress bar
Feedback
Please leave any feedback or bug reports related to this release below this post. We will be reviewing responses on this post for one month following Phase 3 (March 23, 2021). After March 23rd, please create a new post to report any new issues.
