Behind the scenes: the Desk, arranged by team

As the Studio Desk grew, its menu got crowded. We rebuilt the layout around the people who use it, so each team has its own corner and each person can choose which ones come first.

Seven teams, plus Home

• Home: the dashboard, Add something and the review queue.
• Studio work: boards, email and Drive.
• Writing and lore: stories, wiki entries, the timeline, eras, maps and worlds.
• Marketing and press: projects, press resources and the media library.
• Website: pages and shared sections.
• Store: store products.
• People and hiring: people, departments, job postings and form submissions.
• Admin: people and access, and the system checks.

On a computer, a rail of team icons runs down the left, with the open team's sections beside it. Tablets show those sections as tabs. Phones get a bar along the top and a full-screen menu, and long lists turn into stacked rows that fit the screen.

Finding things

Every team has a hub page listing its sections and how many items each one holds. Go to, or Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on a Mac), finds any section or action by name. Under Your account, each person ticks the teams they work in, and Home shows those first.

What someone may open is still set by their role, and the server checks every page whatever the menu shows.

Fixed along the way

• The Media library, missing from the live Desk since launch, is in place.
• Pictures over 1 MB upload properly, and so do Drive files over 10 MB.
• Following a Desk link while signed out now lands you on that page once you sign in.

Readers never see these screens. What the teams make with them is on the home page and across the site.