A new way to navigate Tumblr

If you use Tumblr on a web browser, you might have noticed us testing a brand new navigation on your dashboard in the last month. Now, after some extensive tweaks, we’ve begun rolling out this new dashboard navigation to everyone using a web browser. Welcome to the new world. It’s very like the old world, just in a different layout.

Why are we doing this? We want it to be as easy as possible for everyone to understand and explore what’s happening on Tumblr—newbies and seasoned travelers alike.

Labels over icons: When adding something new to Tumblr in the past, we’d simply add a new icon to our navigation with little further explanation. Turns out no one likes to press a button when they don’t know what it does. So now, where there’s space, the navigation includes text labels. Since adding these, we’ve noticed more of you venturing to previously unexplored corners of Tumblr. Intrepid!

What’s already been fixed? Thanks to feedback from folks during the testing phase, we’ve been able to make some improvements right out of the gate. Those include returning settings subpages (Account, Dashboard, etc.) to the right of the settings page instead of having them in an expandable item in the navigation on the left; fixing some issues with messaging windows on smaller screens; and streamlining the Account section to make it easier to get to your blogs.

What’s next? We’re looking into making a collapsible version of this navigation and improving the use of screen space for those of you with enormous screens. We’re also working on improving access to your account and sideblogs.

That’s all for now, folks. For questions and suggestions, contact Support using the “Feedback” category. Please select the “Report a bug or crash” category on the support form for technical issues. And keep an eye out for more updates here on @changes.

new tumblr labs feature: packs

Way of making a timeline you can follow that consists of a "pack" of blogs. If I had to guess, this is for integration with the Tabbed Dashboard feature, but it seems like this is in very early stages. You can be invited to follow these packs, and they will have tags to let people find groups to follow.

Since, presumably, Tumblr staff are going to start trying to kill me with their minds or something if I don't start saying this outright: these features are prototypes and not representive of any final feature in the future. What you see is not what you will get, it's just things they are looking into.

the comic sans really sells it, thanks 🌱

i'm hoping we can post about this one on @labs and open it up for some beta usage soooooon 🤞 and what you're guessing is not exactly its intended usage. but you'll just have to wait and see.

WAIIIT. THE NEW IN-DEVELOPMENT TUMBLR LAYOUT WITH COLLAPSED REBLOGS.

IT REMOVES "NOTES" ALTOGETHER AND SEPARATES EVERY INTERACTION LIKE ON OTHER WEBSITES

I DO NOT LIKE THAT AT ALL

Also it generally doesn't make sense at all. It shows the last reblog of the chain. Which means you only see someone's answer to something, without seeing what they're actually responding to.

This is such a weird change.

Being able to see the whole conversation is half the fun of this website!

it’s confusing, because you’re not supposed to see that, but this is NOT the “in development collapsed reblogs” that was mentioned in the staff post.

this is a totally different, completely unfinished experiment we’re working on in @labs. the design and “rules” for what it’s doing don’t make sense yet.

please don’t judge in progress experimental stuff like this. it may never end up as something we launch to anyone. if it gets to a place where we’d actually let you folks use it, we’ll post on @labs and ask for your feedback.