Staying "Connected" with New Navigation

We promised that v3 would allow us to do amazing things. You've seen some of them already with new features like Computer Analysis and Bughouse. The next big thing? Staying connected to Live whenever and wherever you are on the site. What in the world does that mean if you're not actually playing? It means that your friends no longer have to be in Live to challenge them to a live game. It means you can keep an open chat going with friends or your favorite club anywhere on the site. Would you like to know whenever your favorite GM starts up a blitz game? How about watch the top games or events without having to connect to Live first to find them.

We are considering making changes to our navigation to make all of this possible, and can use your thoughts and feedback. 

Play

For play, you'll notice a bit play button at the top. That will default to the last format you played. If that's you're favorite format, you're ready to roll. If not, switching that is a quick click away. That's nothing too cool though. The cool part is at the bottom where it shows your friends who online and ready to be challenged.

Watch

Next up is a new nav section called Watch. You can find videos here, see what's streaming on ChessTV, and all the top games being played at the moment.

Clubs

Over the next couple of years, Clubs will become more fun and a more integral part of your daily Chess.com experience. It's only fitting that you would have ready access to your favorite clubs, right?

Chat

Last of the new items is Chat. This is my favorite because it will help us all stay better connected. From this menu, you can start up a chat window with any of your friends (with their permission) or open the chat for your favorite club.

What does a chat window look like? It's a window that you pop open or closed that is fixed to the bottom right side of your browser.

What do you think? Worth building?

When will it come out?

I'm Beta but still didn't get the update.

(btw translating for my fellow countrymen)

That's AWESOME.

Thanks Chess.com!

I have been waiting this for months (if not years).

It dosen't work for me, even though I'm beta

I would definitely like to see these changes and features! 

cool! that would be great.

Yes!!! Totally worth building!!

Agreed.      ̿'̿'\̵͇̿̿\з=( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)=ε/̵͇̿̿/'̿̿ ̿ ̿ ̿ ̿ ̿

This all looks really great!  The top level groupings are logical, and will get you directly to more of the areas of the site than the current groups do.  I'm in favour of this!!

We've decided on a bit of a restructure here when it comes to the nav which will allow us to simplify what had been proposed here. We are considering a section dedicated to Practice. This will include Tactics (which will likely be renamed to Puzzles) Drills, Vision, and Daily Puzzle. More will be added here in the future. Both Puzzles and Lessons will get preview boards. Those can be dismissed if you don't like them, but will be helpful in directing users (especially new users) to these valuable tools. Lessons is going to be getting a HUGE revamp this year, and will become something we will all want to use daily. Here is the new direction, let us know what you think!

Home

Play

Learn

Practice

Connect

Watch

i love this even better!!

I agree with @tyler. I like this better :-)

I wasn't sure at first, as I really liked the high-level "clubs" group from the initial proposal, but after spending a bit more time looking closely at the organization of both scenarios, I too like the second one better.  The headings are more logical for the top-level, and I see that there's a "quick-list" for both friends and clubs under "connect".  Question: would the selection of the friends list vs. the clubs list be sticky? - I would use the clubs list much more than the friends list, so I would appreciate not having to specifically click on the clubs tab every time I came to this menu.  Also, I really like the way "learning" and "practice" have been grouped - it nicely groups the various components of chess.com that fall into two important ways of learning: the interactive and instructive "learning" features, and then the "put-into-practice" reviewing/testing features.  Thanks! 

Thanks for taking the time to review and consider, Scotty-Mac. I'm glad you decided the second suggested approach was better. I will request that we make the Friends / Clubs selection sticky.

Chess.com is getting better all the time!