We recently launched a new, more modern design for Firefly, full of usability and accessibility improvements.

If you'd like to try the new theme on your Firefly site, register your interest here.

The main areas of improvement

Let’s look at each in more detail:

Optimised the main navigation bar

We’ve combined the two separate bars that used to go along the top of the screen, and moved them to a navigation bar on the left to make more space for your content. The buttons are in two groupings:

  • A set of buttons link to the main features of Firefly.
  • A second set of buttons link to useful tools and pages that are specific to you.

The navigation bar is more responsive in smaller screen sizes and is more compact, using the limited mobile screen space more efficiently.

The Resources list is not longer limited to 10 items. All your Resource sections will show in one scrollable list.

Better use of space

Content now fills the width of the screen, which means more content is visible at a glance, and results in less scrolling.

The ‘View Site As’ indicator is more subtle. It will still remind the user that they are viewing the site as another user, but it will take up less space on the screen.

Buttons are in more consistent places

We’re beginning the process of moving all the main actions to be at the top of the page. Some of the most commonly used actions have already moved to the top of the page. You’ll see more buttons move there over time.

The ‘Set a Task’ button is now at the top of the page on all Tasks pages, and Markbook pages.

The ‘Create Page’ button is now at the top of all Resource pages.

The ‘Control Panel’ and other admin options for managing Resources, such as ‘Import/Export’, ‘Manage Files’ and ‘Show Deleted Pages’ are now under the ‘More’ options on each page.

The options for managing Resource page content are at the top of the page content area.

‘Edit Page’ is in the page content area header.

‘Copy a Page to Task Description’ is now renamed as ‘Set Page as Task’ and has moved from the bottom of the page to the page content header area.

More responsive in mobile

Resource pages are more responsive on mobile. 

The Resource section navigation is more compact in mobile view when closed, therefore it takes up a lot less screen space. 

It also sticks to the top of the screen as you scroll so that you don’t have to scroll all the way up again to navigate elsewhere.