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This is a monthly newsletter published by Gear Patrol's Corporate team to highlight important technology platform updates. To stay in the loop between editions, follow along on Slack in #technology-platform-updates.

Our goal for the V1 launch of Wayfinder has been achieving 1:1 parity of key features and business needs met between the old and new sites, along with a light reskin. As a direct result of our team's hard work and collaboration with 10UP, we have been able to cut the expected allocation of hours for the Discovery phase in half, allowing us to re-allocate these hours toward building new features and conducting a more in-depth UX refresh, including an enhanced search experience, better global menus, robust product embed functionality, and more.

As you may have seen in the #dev channel, due to a change in Hearst’s technology, commenting is no longer a feature on our site. As a result of this change and a parallel recommendation from 10UP, the new GP website will launch first with no logins, commenting, or bookmarking features, with these features to be built in the months post-launch. The above screenshot features Disqus, a prospective commenting vendor for the new site.

Throughout June, key stakeholders have been presented internal wireframes of Wayfinder's new feed pages and global elements such as the homepage, sections, and search experience. In response to a survey on the new designs, 3 out of 4 respondents said that the new components meet business needs much better than their MOS counterparts; 1 respondent said new components met business needs about the same as their MOS counterparts. Next up are article components, expected in early July.

While the new GA4 launched on July 1, it will be business as usual with no changes to where you access analytics and dashboards until Q4 2023. More update to come on our data and dashboard strategy at the top of Q4.

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