New way to shelf your books
Posted by Otis on June 11, 2008
We launched a new interface for adding books to your shelves last week. You should now find it much easier to add books to your to-read shelf, or add a book to multiple shelves at once - both highly requested features!
A quick usability study:
Problems with the old shelves UI were:
- Members often didn't understand that a book had to be on one of three default shelves (read, to-read, currently-reading)
- Members often didn't know they could create their own shelves
- To add a book to the 'to-read' shelf (our most popular shelf by far) it took several clicks
The new solution:
- A new dropdown that visually makes clear that the default shelves are exclusive and others are not.
- The new dropdown also makes adding a new shelf much more apparent
- A hover menu over the 'add to my books' button that easily with one click lets members choose read, to-read, or currently-reading.
Note: Some tag-savvy members sometime ask why we didn't just call our shelves tags - after all, they are essentially the same thing, with a slightly more constricted interface. The answer is that tags are just still not mainstream. They are getting more so, but why make it confusing for the 70% of the popular that doesn't know what a tag is - when they all know what a shelf is?
New hover menu to easily add a book:
New "dropdown" to edit shelves:
Old add/edit shelf dropdown:
We launched a new interface for adding books to your shelves last week. You should now find it much easier to add books to your to-read shelf, or add a book to multiple shelves at once - both highly requested features!
A quick usability study:
Problems with the old shelves UI were:
- Members often didn't understand that a book had to be on one of three default shelves (read, to-read, currently-reading)
- Members often didn't know they could create their own shelves
- To add a book to the 'to-read' shelf (our most popular shelf by far) it took several clicks
The new solution:
- A new dropdown that visually makes clear that the default shelves are exclusive and others are not.
- The new dropdown also makes adding a new shelf much more apparent
- A hover menu over the 'add to my books' button that easily with one click lets members choose read, to-read, or currently-reading.
Note: Some tag-savvy members sometime ask why we didn't just call our shelves tags - after all, they are essentially the same thing, with a slightly more constricted interface. The answer is that tags are just still not mainstream. They are getting more so, but why make it confusing for the 70% of the popular that doesn't know what a tag is - when they all know what a shelf is?
New hover menu to easily add a book:
New "dropdown" to edit shelves:
Old add/edit shelf dropdown:
Comments (showing 1-3 of 3) (3 new)
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I realize you can create your own shelves, but it would be so much easier if the default shelves were not exclusive. It's annoying that if I re-read I book I technically have no longer read it, as I am reading it. I would really like to be able to leave it on the 'read' shelf and add it to the currently reading shelf. Considering that I re-read almost everything, that would really be simpler. I don't like moving the books around. (I moved Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry several times before deciding to put it on 'currently reading' and a custom shelf, 'currently re-reading.' I would like to have actually 'read' it though, since I read it years ago.)
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