July 2020: Nordic Listings Reviewed and Alerts Now Shown in Red
In July 2020 we reviewed Denmark, Norway, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, and made listing alerts and team types display properly. We also set out ideas for new features, such as facility-type filters.
In our July 2020 pool listings update, we report on the Nordic countries we reviewed and on several improvements to how listings display. With the last small bugs in the site's basic functions worked out, we can now turn to new features.
Site improvements
Listing alerts now appear in red type. We use the Alerts field to mark a pool that is closed for renovations, to flag something we think you should know right away, or to note that a listing stretches our usual requirements. The contents of that field now show in red beneath the facility name in the table of listings, in the map point and in the listing itself.
We also fixed the far-right column of the listings table, which shows the types of clubs and teams that train in each facility. A problem in the underlying database had stopped those team types from displaying correctly. They now appear as intended, which should help team swimmers, particularly Masters swimmers.
Ideas for new features
With the basics working, we are considering several additions:
- Place notes. Notes tied to a country, region or city, such as the dress code for men at French pools, where boxer-style suits are almost never allowed (see our travel tips for swimming in France). They could also link to lists of every pool in a city or county, including the outdoor, seasonal pools we do not list, and to the websites we found most helpful in our research.
- Translation and search. An automatic translation feature for listings, and a free-form text search, for example to show only 50-meter pools or pools with diving boards.
- Social media links. We have been adding pools' official social media pages to the Notes section of listings, and we are thinking of moving those links into the Facility Overview section.
- Filters. A user suggested a way to filter certain types of listings out of search results. Others may want to see only certain types, such as hotels or YMCAs. This may be the first change we make, because it should be easy to do.
Listing reviews
In July we finished reviewing all of the listings in Denmark, then worked through the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland and Norway. We are now working on Sweden and expect to finish it in August. As with Denmark, we also rearranged the County/Region groupings in Norway and Sweden to match administrative changes in those countries.