Introducing a Simpler Way to Navigate HoneyBook 🚀

I’m excited about this! Do we have an option to change the colour of the left navigation? 

Chelene

Not at this time ​@Chelene Knight! But love that idea! 

Love this!! 

So happy to hear that ​@Ryan DeVoll! 

i saw this and not used to it yet. i kinda like the ols way. are they all gonna be forced on the side or can we go back to the old way?

Hey ​@Scott Paulk!
 

Totally get that the change can take some getting used to. We moved to the side navigation to improve feature visibility and organize it in a way that many members over many years have requested. To be transparent, we do not have plans to make an option to switch back to the old navigation. I would love to know what parts of the top navigation you miss the most? 

no problem ill get used to the new way. i just already knew how to get around finally and then it changes. 

How things are organized menu wise make more sense than before so yay!! 

ONE thing… It used to be when you selected things like Academy and Community, they would open up in a new window. Now it doesn’t. I loved that they opened up a new tab and didn’t interrupt what I was doing in HB. Silly little thing but the first thing I noticed haha.

Edited to correct, Community + Refer/Earn do not open in new window, the rest do

This is great!  It makes it easier to navigate all parts of the platform.  I’m also glad that lead forms and the contact form are clearly labeled “Lead Magnets!”  It confused me when they were called clients before.  

I really like the side navigation so far! I agree with ​@Ashley Rufino that I would love Community to open in a new window! 

side navigation. What? Are we in 2004?

This was such a pleasant surprise and improvement.  I’ve been a Honeybook user for about two years and never really got comfortable with finding things/navigating.  The sidebar is a massive improvement and I’m already in and out of things more quickly today.

MAJOR PROPS to the design and UX team!!!!

Unless the way humans’ eyes and brains work has changed since 2004, vertical lists/navigation is far easier to visually search and navigate using a mouse. Seems like everyone else on the thread loves it, including me!

#TeamSidebar

My productivity has gone done drastically. The people who get on this board rule which is a small percentage. Would love to hear what the masses think

old way is better. quicker too. 

People are about 10x more likely to spend time to post a negative review versus a positive one. So with that known, the masses are most likely to have even a higher positive response than this thread even alludes to!

the majority are not in community smart guy

It’s ok, friend. Statistics are hard for a lot of people to understand. Good luck in your future endeavors!

Surprises me that HoneyBook would take a step backwards like this. Almost all websites are have gone with the horizontal menu for good reason over the years. The interface just went back to the 2000s and was surprised that a company like HoneyBook completely went away from what got them to the dance. This vertical layout is only going to appeal to certain people. And the screenshot you show isn’t the real screenshot when you get to the page, you see like 15 icons not the list it out text beside it. Go back to horizontal. Or do a vote? Ask every single person that uses HoneyBook, And let us all vote. Not HoneyBook community, but actual HoneyBook customers who pay

Navigation changes are really polarizing (we all have preferences!), so we are not surprised to see some really strong opinions here. We’re monitoring the feedback so thank you for sharing ways we can continue to improve. 

We know there will be a wide variety of perspectives in our community base so this is just a reminder to be respectful to each other even when disagreeing passionately. 

Put it out for a vote/poll to Honeybook users. The “community” doesn’t get a fair sample of your users feelings. 

Put it out for a vote/poll to Honeybook users. The “community” doesn’t get a fair sample of your users feelings. 

​@DJSTIRFRY you are definitely right that the community is not the only sample of the feelings of HoneyBook members and active users. We outline that on the roadmap page (scroll to the bottom). It sounds like we could do a better job communicating with members all the different factors that contribute to reviewing and acting on member feedback.

For transparency for anyone reading this comment, community feedback is one large but not sole source of data for development. Additional important factors that contribute to new releases include data from: market and member research conducted by our research team (including surveys, focus groups, etc), developer resources, and support tickets. 

TLDR: We believe the voice of our community is an important factor in continuing to improve and innovate but it doesn’t come at the expense of more traditional member and market research/user insights to inform decisions. 

I appreciate that changes like this come from feedback and long-term planning, but based on the number of people who engage in the Community vs. the number of total HoneyBook users, it feels like decisions are being driven by a vocal few rather than the majority of your customer base. A fair and transparent way to validate this change would be to run a poll or survey at the full user base level—not just within the Community.

From a UX standpoint, the wider design world has largely moved toward horizontal navigation for good reason. This shift back to a vertical layout feels like a step in the wrong direction—especially when the previous interface was already highly functional. In fact, our productivity has dropped since the update because it’s disrupted familiar workflows without offering clear value in return.

I’m not a new user. Our business uses several HoneyBook features—including Balance and the loan options—and we've been deeply integrated into your ecosystem. But the constant UI volatility and unclear direction make it hard to trust where things are headed. We need consistency to grow with you, not constantly re-learn how to use a product that was already working really well.

I love the change! Thank you!!