I recently stumbled on what I see as a divergence in philosophy between how many of the visitors perceive the browse experience on Inkshares and how how it was designed.
The browse page seems to be designed for exploration, and thus emulates strolling through a brick and mortar store, drawing your finger along the spines and picking them up as they jump out at you.
Online purchasers tend to like the maximum amount of information density possible for their time visiting a page. For me, and some like me, the browse is slow because I am used to finding books on sites like Amazon, where I can find books through a list of genres that dial down through breadcrumb list into even more refined genres. In this search format, I can find all the books of a certain genre quickly, sort through reviews, find recommendations based on other books I’ve purchased, all in moments.
I’ve seen much of this functionality in the backend of Inkshares. The search box provides access to genres, once you back one book the site brings up recommendations of others you might like. (Just some quick examples.) But what isn’t currently on Inkshares is quick access to information about books in the same way it can be found on Goodreads or Amazon. We’re still in a brick-and-mortar mindset about user experience, and that slows access to many books.
Now if Inkshares is fine with browse continuing to be a meandering sort of experience, that is fine. It feels much like Netflix in that you come on hoping to find just a nice fantasy book, but end up scrolling through covers until you find something that *might* fit the mood you’re in.
I just find that for users like me who are used to online book purchasing, I expected less of a treasure hunt when it comes to finding books.
