Jump to content

New ROH website - 2019 and 2022 versions


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 613
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Guest oncnp
2 minutes ago, art_enthusiast said:

Just a quick question, are people able to easily access the ROH website in different countries? E.g. the U.S.?

 

Or did it require a browser VPN or anything?

 

US here - easily accessed with standard browser. No VPN or proxy server required.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...

The Dancers of the Royal Ballet section on the ROH website featuring biographies of RB dancers had been unavailable for several months. Just recently, information about Principals & Principal Character Artists has appeared while the other ranks remain unavailable - presumably while they are being updated.  The new version contains just one photo of the dancer, where there used to be a lovely portfolio of pictures you could scroll through depicting most of the roles the dancer had performed in and occasionally rehearsal or portrait photos. There is no listing of current season appearances,  and roles danced and created are all together in a single paragraph. 
I would have assumed any new page design would be an improvement not the diminished, rather paltry and unimaginative result we now have in place. 

  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Odyssey said:

The Dancers of the Royal Ballet section on the ROH website featuring biographies of RB dancers had been unavailable for several months. Just recently, information about Principals & Principal Character Artists has appeared while the other ranks remain unavailable - presumably while they are being updated.  The new version contains just one photo of the dancer, where there used to be a lovely portfolio of pictures you could scroll through depicting most of the roles the dancer had performed in and occasionally rehearsal or portrait photos. There is no listing of current season appearances,  and roles danced and created are all together in a single paragraph. 
I would have assumed any new page design would be an improvement not the diminished, rather paltry and unimaginative result we now have in place. 

 

Its a pretty poor show frankly - the new website has been up and running for some while now and I find it hard to believe it can take that long to update the profiles of the non-principal dancers

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

36 minutes ago, MJW said:

 

Its a pretty poor show frankly - the new website has been up and running for some while now and I find it hard to believe it can take that long to update the profiles of the non-principal dancers

It's not just the updating it's trying to find dancer's biographies and so much more. On the old website there was a very useful series of links at the bottom of the page so you could click on things like Dancers, cinema broadcasts etc and go straight there. It wasn't at all intrusive and if you didn't want the links you could just ignore them. Now, I've no idea how to find dancer's biographies and many other things so I just Google them. No big deal but so much easier when I could just click on a link.

Similar with the calendar that used to be produced annually after the announcement of the new season.  Every production was listed under season with a link and if you wanted to buy tickets or check casting you could do so easily without ploughing through pages of irrelevant entries. Of course this was so useful it was discontinued. I know there is a calendar of sorts there now but you need to know dates of what you're searching for and it doesn't give all the dates and information about a particular production all together. 

Edited by jmhopton
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Odyssey said:

The Dancers of the Royal Ballet section on the ROH website featuring biographies of RB dancers had been unavailable for several months. Just recently, information about Principals & Principal Character Artists has appeared while the other ranks remain unavailable - presumably while they are being updated.  The new version contains just one photo of the dancer, where there used to be a lovely portfolio of pictures you could scroll through depicting most of the roles the dancer had performed in and occasionally rehearsal or portrait photos. There is no listing of current season appearances,  and roles danced and created are all together in a single paragraph. 
I would have assumed any new page design would be an improvement not the diminished, rather paltry and unimaginative result we now have in place. 

I used to enjoy rereading all the biographies and scrolling through the photos. I also liked seeing the upcoming roles (and previous ones) being listed. These are features I miss. The biographies were missing for months and I was really frustrated by that (still am). I don't really understand why it's taking so long to update them all or why the photos were removed.

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, jmhopton said:

It's not just the updating it's trying to find dancer's biographies and so much more. On the old website there was a very useful series of links at the bottom of the page so you could click on things like Dancers, cinema broadcasts etc and go straight there. 

You’ve reminded me of something else that has also been removed from the new dancer profile pages - there used to be a few links at the bottom of the page, similar to the old website , where you could access media interview /features with the dancer. Now that’s disappeared too. 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Geoff said:

Has anyone tried to find the old material via the Wayback Machine? This is an amazing tool that can recover much of what used to be online:

 

https://archive.org

 

A short introduction:

 

https://blog.archive.org/2016/10/23/defining-web-pages-web-sites-and-web-captures/

 

 


 

Yes that works! ...search http://www.roh.org.uk/‎ in the Wayback Machine (Geoff's link) and you can get a calendar of numerous  dates that the ROH site was copied.   Pick a date when the site was more to your liking, and there you have it...

 

Thank you Geoff, this looks like a brilliant "fix"! 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having corresponded with the ROH on various issues, their reply includes the following: " The website team has just started a review of the user experience, including content hierarchies and navigation".

 

They don't need this and the inevitable expenditure involved - just a bit of common sense.

 

 

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, capybara said:

Having corresponded with the ROH on various issues, their reply includes the following: " The website team has just started a review of the user experience, including content hierarchies and navigation".

 

They don't need this and the inevitable expenditure involved - just a bit of common sense.

 

 

 

Starter for 10 - just bl**dy fix it so that the important information is available!!!

Spend the money on that, not useless surveys on 'user experience'

  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, zxDaveM said:

 

Starter for 10 - just bl**dy fix it so that the important information is available!!!

Spend the money on that, not useless surveys on 'user experience'


That’s what I said in my reply, having already said more initially.

The language used to describe the survey is a joke in itself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 27/03/2023 at 18:39, zxDaveM said:

 

Starter for 10 - just bl**dy fix it so that the important information is available!!!

Spend the money on that, not useless surveys on 'user experience'

I've just had another survey from ROH  - my 3rd in  a month I think..this time about my experience of using my ROH account. I wasn't entirely sure what this covered. Anyway I said all the usual things including a version of Dave's very pertinent remark above....

It's becoming a full time job completing surveys for arts organisations. I had an exhausting one for the National Gallery to do earlier and there are 2 others in my inbox....

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wouldn't mind filling in the surveys if I thought they would lead to change and improvements but they never seem to. It's as if we're taking part in a tick box exercise to satisfy managers or the Arts Council and once its done they can just file it and forget it. At one point I'm sure Graham Boland got fed up with me going on about the old calendar and how useful it was for easy booking (something you'd think they'd want to encourage) but it was never reinstated and I don't know why. It was only series of links that you think could fit in somewhere on the website and be so useful for people like us who want to book multiple casts. Saved scrolling through pages of unwanted events. Sort of thing they used to have in the very useful list of links at the bottom of the website that are also gone. I thought upgrading should be making things easier for booking and information, not more difficult. 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...
33 minutes ago, Richard LH said:

Pleased to notice a good feature of the ROH Website...the bottom of the Cast Sheets page  includes "Past Cast Sheets", currently  linking to the full cast lists for 21/22 and 22/23. https://www.roh.org.uk/about/cast-sheets

 

 

An excellent idea but it seems that not all of the links work. I've just tried the October 2021 Romeo and Juliet links and they all lead to a page with the message 'Technical Error 500'.  Having said that, the January 2022 links I've tried do lead to the cast lists.  Maybe it's still a work in progress?

Edited by Bluebird
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had “fun” trying to book for Manon this morning; longer queue than usual, clunky getting from the waiting room onto the site, kept getting put back in the waiting room when looking at different dates, and finally, having to literally take a stab at guessing which type of seat I wanted (Access member, access companion, or full price).  Black writing on top of a very dark crimson curtain. 🧐🙄

 

I honestly wish they’d never “improved” the website.

 

I did tweet my displeasure at the ROH and got the usual “Sorry to hear that, have you cleared your cache (yes), can you try a different browser (no)”.

 

It’s 2023 and I should be able to use an iPad to book tickets.  
 

310E7401-2A27-440F-9C49-A24406593D10.jpeg

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was just browsing some performances yesterday to check views from misc seats, and without even trying to put anything in my basket (which I wasn't going to do anyway) I got the 'you have exceeded your ticket allowance' message. I mean really.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...