Release flash: Cleaning up the preferences

My name is Ulrike Gruel. I have been working at XING for nearly thirty months now, two years of which I spent in community management, listening to the concerns and wishes of XING users. Since last November, I work as a product manager to coordinate the developments on our platform to fit users’ needs better and better.

Whenever we release new features on a Wednesday like this, we talk about some enhancements hidden within the machinery that you do not even notice actively. This week, things are the other way around: we make features that appeared deeply hidden more visible and accessible to you – the preferences and privacy settings.

When we approached the settings enhancements, we did not want to reduce the amounts of choices you have. You are still able to set the visibility of your groups or activate your guestbook, you can still select your motivation to join XING and whether other members can send you messages. But we have made it a lot easier to find those functions.

Edit in place and save some space

The visibility of your groups, your motivation and your guestbook is now located right where the element appears when you view your profile. No need to dig deep in the setting panel – just click on the related button and you can adapt the current options.

Furthermore, we have eliminated the separation between “privacy settings” and “preferences” in the panel. The feedback from our customer support and community management showed that it was not always clear which particular setting belongs to which category. Now, with just one tab to manage your preferences, that is no longer a problem.

The new, refined settings panel.

We are confident that these changes will enhance your XING experience and help you set your proper preferences easily.