From today, we’ve made some improvements to the design of our Sitter Welcome Guides.
Our aim is to make it even easier for you to navigate and find the important information that the Home Owner has prepared for you, for example; details of a home security system, WiFi passwords, pet routines, and more…
Here’s a screenshot, just for a quick look, but you can also head to the website, as the improvements are now live!
@Jenny
Thanks, but how do we (sitters) view the new format WG in the website?
Currently on a sit, so only have the app on my phone, no access to a laptop or PC.
TIA
@Jenny, I’ve checked new Welcome Guide format for a future confirmed sit.
As full-time housesitters, we typically convert each Welcome Guide to PDF format and save locally on both our iPhones. This means that we have immediate onsite access - even if in location with poor cell data connection (e.g. walking a dog in the countryside where no cell signal).
For us, while this feature makes same content (seems no new content) prettier on the iOS app or website then we don’t really use it in that way. And more subfolders/menus increases our workflow in PDF creation.
So as-is this is not really an improvement for us. Unless it encourages/requires improved disclosures by Pet Parents.
But it would be great if there were an export-to-PDF feature. Or if changes also required Pet Parents to complete content of the Welcome Guide (e.g. amenities, wifi) or indeed required Pet Parents to complete the Welcome Guide in a timely manner relative to date of listing or housesit confirmation.
Did the changes go live yesterday? Because I updated mine for an upcoming sit, and while I noticed more fields for information that would probably be helpful, the format of all the different areas to go into is really unwieldy. I get why some HOs just don’t bother updating (I update for every sit).
Agree that a Print to PDF function that encompasses the entire WG would be the most helpful change!
I’m not keen on this new format, you have to go Back to Home to move to the next section instead of continuing forward as previously. And I can’t find the reminder section at all.
Sitters have often expressed their wishes: the possibility to get a document that is searchable and easily printable. It happened often that I knew that I had read some piece of info in the WG but that it took time to find it back.
But it seems that the main issue with the WG is that it is difficult for owners to enter the information. It would be good to open it for different formats, maybe supply templates (for a Word document etc).
Thanks for the feedback you’ve provided so far, as always we do collect feedback and pass it along where we can.
Since posting this yesterday the team have made another update so that it’s now possible for owners to print/convert their welcome guide to a PDF which can then be shared with a sitter e.g. via email. This is just available to owners at the moment, but it does mean they can share a PDF with sitters in advance which can be viewed in the event that there’s poor data connection.
As always if I hear anything else, I’ll let you all know.
What are the improvements? It seems to be worse. Now I have to go back to the home page repeatedly to get to the next section. Could you share what the actual improvement are? It just seems to be a change in layout.
@Jenny Would it be possible for the welcome guide to just be one scrollable, searchable document?
The newest version seems worse to me, because there’s no next button. And for my uses — I’m on my 21st sit and always get robust welcome guides from my hosts — the guides would be easier to use if it wasn’t necessary to hop back and forth.
And for hosts, of course, the guide template would be used more reliably if it were easier to produce and edit. From what various folks have complained about for a long time, the template is a pain. That means potentially skimping on producing or updating it.
Hi Jenny, I realize you are just the messenger but given the responses here, I’m wondering if you know what the re-design process was? Was input solicited from both sitters and owners? In other words, was this driven by the experience of the actual users, especially those who sit or use sitters often, or did the in-house staff just do what they thought made sense?
I was a communications professional for 30+ years, creating guides and manuals, websites and handbooks and all kinds of stuff, and the number one thing I learned to practice is to always proceed from a user-centered viewpoint. I’ve noticed that this principle seems to get forgotten a lot these days, especially in designing social media sites, websites and online resources and tools. The designer/programmer point of view is really QUITE different from the regular user POV.
I just took a look at the .pdf version of my WG, and it’s awful. I had carefully listed out relevant items on separate lines, but in the pdf it’s just one long paragraph. Exactly what I was trying to avoid.