I love how you’re continuously working on this stuff, and everything is getting so much better!
The Discover page seems fine for people who are new and just want to browse a wide range of things. I far prefer to use the search function to narrow down what I’m looking for - I can look by Status + Genre, which is fantastic. In thinking of what I would want to suggest, I decided to be smart and check to see if it already exists, and...
GUYS. Maybe everyone knew this and I didn’t, but YOU CAN SEARCH BY ANY WORD IN THE SYNOPSIS!! Which means you can tag your stuff - feminist, LGBTQ+, humor, etc etc etc, AND PEOPLE CAN SEARCH BY THAT STUFF!!! I’m so excited!
And it works to search by a term and then narrow it down by status and genre, so I could search for, say, "humor" and then narrow it down to Currently Funding + Science Fiction, and see the humorous scifi books that I can pre-order!!!
Of course, it’s not very functional if nobody knows you can search that way. Readers need to know they can search by general terms AND authors need to tag their books in order for it to be useful, but the functionality is there!!!
I recommend, then, some sort of note or guide for when authors create their projects so they know they can include a tags section to make their projects easier to find; and also a note underneath the search function letting people know they can search by general categories besides just the status and genre ones (ex: young adult, humor, werewolves). (Yes, I know YA is a genre, but search for that term and you’ll see lots of YA categorized as fiction, scifi, fantasy, etc that doesn’t come up when you choose just the YA genre.)
I know, I know, this stuff might be obvious to some of you. But I didn’t realize the functionality was already there, and I sure haven’t tried adding any sort of tags beyond whatever words are already in my synopsis naturally.
Great changes, Thad. Excited to see the iterations on the page. Some thoughts:
- I love the way the Search page is laid out, with covers to the left of titles, descriptions, and other data. It’s by far the most robust way to find new books.
- I think the Trending page might benefit from a similar treatment, if it were to extend beyond ideas and into drafting/recommended/near-campaign-end items. As it is, it’s great.
- I’m not sure about other folks, but I find the side-scrolling mechanism (like the Bookshelf and Browse pages) to be a slow browsing experience that doesn’t draw me toward any title in particular. Also, there’s an odd bug on my machine (OSX 10.11.4 running Chrome V. 50.0.2661.94) wherein if the window is larger than three books wide, no more books load.)
I feel like there’s probably a helpful, articulate thought in there somewhere about the browse mechanic, but right now I’m drawing a blank. I’ll hop back in when I figure it out.
The Discover page seems fine for people who are new and just want to browse a wide range of things. I far prefer to use the search function to narrow down what I’m looking for - I can look by Status + Genre, which is fantastic. In thinking of what I would want to suggest, I decided to be smart and check to see if it already exists, and...
GUYS. Maybe everyone knew this and I didn’t, but YOU CAN SEARCH BY ANY WORD IN THE SYNOPSIS!! Which means you can tag your stuff - feminist, LGBTQ+, humor, etc etc etc, AND PEOPLE CAN SEARCH BY THAT STUFF!!! I’m so excited!
And it works to search by a term and then narrow it down by status and genre, so I could search for, say, "humor" and then narrow it down to Currently Funding + Science Fiction, and see the humorous scifi books that I can pre-order!!!
Of course, it’s not very functional if nobody knows you can search that way. Readers need to know they can search by general terms AND authors need to tag their books in order for it to be useful, but the functionality is there!!!
I recommend, then, some sort of note or guide for when authors create their projects so they know they can include a tags section to make their projects easier to find; and also a note underneath the search function letting people know they can search by general categories besides just the status and genre ones (ex: young adult, humor, werewolves). (Yes, I know YA is a genre, but search for that term and you’ll see lots of YA categorized as fiction, scifi, fantasy, etc that doesn’t come up when you choose just the YA genre.)
I know, I know, this stuff might be obvious to some of you. But I didn’t realize the functionality was already there, and I sure haven’t tried adding any sort of tags beyond whatever words are already in my synopsis naturally.