I was quite interested on firing it up this week to see some new looks and organization coming at me. After going through the process of sending out my weekly evite I get the distinct feeling that the goal was “take what we have and add ajax”. I’m not completely against this by any means – single components may often be singled out as great candidates for ajaxification. But when adding ajax (or any navigation changes) the goal should really be to _improve_ your sites flow – and I feel like that mark was missed.

Many things were added that seem like good ideas but just kind of don’t quite go all the way… breadcrumbing is good – but keeping an additional button that says “cancel” which means “step backwards in breadcrumbing” is necessary

Every week I use “Let guests specify date” – a process that allows all the members of my group to vote on what night of the week is best for the majority. Today, the “choose your dates” component popped up with js instead of being on it’s own re-rendered page. They did add the capability to say “next Tuesday” instead of finding the date which I really appreciate. but the calendar didn’t popup (and I don’t get an error). and my absolute favorite evite bug is still present: the days are not listed chronologically on the evite – this is just plain comical. I type in “next Monday” “next Tuesday” “next Wednesday” – and they show up for my guests in the order “next Tuesday” “next Monday” “next Wednesday”. At least now they’re in english which is easier than numeric dates that are mis-ordered.

The address book pops up in js/ajax – but it’s exactly the same as the old one.

I think I can pretty much sum up how I felt about using Evite last week – and how I still feel after the recent changes by just saying:  It’s a system that gets the job done – it’s really not bad. It just could be much better.