If you use Mix, you probably noticed something new today. Lost weight? Tan? Haircut?
Yes to all of the above, applied to a web app. Mix got a branding makeover last night, among other things, to reflect more closely its siblings in the *.oracle.com family.
You may have noticed less chatter on this channel about Mix. That’s not by accident. Since we’ve moved our primarly focus to Connect, several Friends of the ‘Lab in Marketing have taken lead roles in the future of Mix. These dudes work closely with ENTP to keep the Mix community happy by rolling out new features and bug fixes.
We haven’t stepped away completely; Rich still does heavy lifting when new code is deployed, and I still do some community stuff. However, for the most part, Mix has left the AppsLab nest, which is as it should be.
Oh noes!
Never fear. Because Mix and Connect are essentially the same code base, we share features between the two platforms. For example, we borrowed the digest email feature from Mix, and when we finish OpenSocial, it will roll out in some form or another on Mix.
Think of it as Mix going off to college, if that helps. Actually, it doesn’t help me that much.
Moving on, what do you think of the UI change, which you may recognize from Rich’s Connect mockups. No, we didn’t come up with it, but it’s essentially the same color pallet. Let us know in comments.
Other new features and fixes deployed last night:
- Cleanup of the Ideas page.
- Mark an answer as helpful.
- Flag and unflag content as inappropriate.
- New help text for the un/flag as inappropriate feature.
- Improved sorting/filtering on the Ideas page.
- Tuned the queries for sorting/filtering.
- Other super-secret features I’m can’t discuss.
There’s more coming for Mix as it matriculates and takes some classes. I know, the college metaphor is bad. Here’s a shot of the “mark as helpful” feature.
I’m encouraging the new Marketing shepards of Mix to start an official “all things Mix” blog for stuff like this because you need more feeds to read, don’t you?
Thoughts on Mix, the redesign, anything? Find the comments.
Ah, Oracle red is gone. I have to accommodate my eyes to the whiteboard page background 🙂
The Oracle red isn't gone. We were using a darker red and more of it. So, that's gone in favor of the new, more Oracle-compliant UI. The new red is the official Oracle red, and there's more white, silver and gray.
What do you think?
I don't want to tell you guys your business, but frankly Oracle's standard appearance is pretty uninspired. Mix may in fact be an innovative idea catcher but it's look now shouts “enterprise software” which in my experience is synonymous with unusable and slow. Great work marketing. There goes my hopes that Oracle might learn a thing or two from the AppsLab experiment.
Don't worry, UI isn't my business 🙂 Don't give up hope just yet, we'll keep on trucking; people are listening.
Thanks for dropping a dime, I appreciate the honest feedback.
I can see that the site had to go with the std. Oracle look and feel, but I really liked the old Mix, which had a very contemporary look with the bold reds and nice gradient fills. I know it's the same content, but it definintely looks less visually appealing than it used to, in my opinion.
I think it's a work in progress too, meaning they will continue to tweak it over time, adding more of what the old Mix had. So, ideally, it's not set in stone, and some of the elements you liked will return.
@Jim: Thanks for the good feedback. Jake is right this is not set in stone.