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Did You Notice Something a Little Different?
UPDATE: Thanks for all the feedback! For those of you who were having issues with blurriness, we have good news: we pushed out an update this afternoon that improves the sharpness of the font for users who were affected. We’re monitoring all the comments and will keep you posted on any further updates.
If you’re a frequent visitor to Goodreads, you've probably noticed a few tweaks we’ve made to the fonts and colors on the desktop site today. Our goal with these small-but-important changes was to consolidate and refresh our visual styles and lay the groundwork for some design improvements that we’re planning in the future.
What’s different?
To enhance the readability of text on Goodreads, we’ve adopted two new open-source fonts. Lato, our sans-serif font, was designed by Warsaw-based designer Łukasz Dziedzic (“Lato” means “Summer” in Polish). Merriweather, our serif font, was created by Eben Sorkin and was designed to be pleasant to read on screens.
To make it easier to scan the page for information you need, we’ve touched up and modernized the design of common page layout elements like section headers, tabs and links.
To simplify and modernize our visual design, we’ve reduced the number of link colors we use, removed gradients from buttons and the site navigation, and applied a more harmonious color palette to interactive elements such as buttons, stars, and links.
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Comments Showing 3,001-3,050 of 3,113 (3113 new)
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Jane
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Feb 20, 2016 08:12AM
Why in the Good Lord's name can't GR just take these changes out and reinstate what they had before, without all this fiddling around? I'm lucky I have no problems with it so far--maybe because all I have is an old-fashioned desktop with no frills--but I feel for those of you that have those fancy gadgets.
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Jane wrote: "I'm lucky I have no problems with it so far--maybe because all I have is an old-fashioned desktop with no frills"For me, Goodreads looks worst on my computer at work: a desktop with Windows 7 and Firefox. Both the Lato and Merriweather fonts look awful, very thin, and some letters, such as the a and the e, seem to have parts missing. It is so bad that my lunch breaks are not spent on GR anymore.
In comparison, my MacBook and iPad at home look much better (but not great -- I still prefer Firefox with the Stylish fix).
There are so many oddities and random font changes and size changes on this site now I can't even keep track. My middle schooler could do a better job.
I think its reached a point where even an amateur can do better frankly...
Lethe! That is what I am using - Win 7 and Firefox. No wonder. It did look better on the iPad. I am sure I am in the minority though as no one else uses Win 7 and Firefox. *sarcasm*
MomToKippy wrote: "Lethe! That is what I am using - Win 7 and Firefox. No wonder. It did look better on the iPad. I am sure I am in the minority though as no one else uses Win 7 and Firefox. *sarcasm*"My commiserations!
*raises hand* I use windows seven.
lol Yeah you should see some of my templates. It took me literally hours getting the format right, and after the change everything was skew! Plus this white glare was really a whopper the first time round!
Because there is such enormous variation in the sizes of typefaces, I am constantly having to adjust my browser magnification from page to page within GR. On this page, 110% does the job. When I'm looking at bookshelves in list form, I can't see anything at 110%.This can hardly be good web design. On other websites I don't have to adjust magnification up and down as I navigate from page to page, article to article, thing to thing.
Ridiculous.
It was not this way before the redesign.
I am also constantly manipulating my screen brightness, my task lighting, my room lighting, anything I can think of to make it easier on my eyes. Yesterday my eyes watered for hours after I left GR.
Sorry, DαякєηRнαℓ, what do you mean when you say this?:"Running the website and making people happy are what they are bloody paid to do! By us! The tax payers!"
I'm not sure what the majority of Goodread's users (presumably) paying taxes in numerous countries has to do with this; Goodreads isn't a government-administered service. The employees at Goodreads are privately hired and paid by Amazon. I agree that they're paid to do a job, and I don't agree with the way that they rolled out these changes and failed to listen to user feedback, but I'm not sure what you mean by this statement.
MomToKippy wrote: "I guess it is time to boycott Amazon."Already done. And I've moved my book reviews etc to another site. I just come here every now and again to see if they fixed the bugger-ups.
@JenniferOh I didn't realise. It was mainly a guess since tax payers usually pay their money to some institute which mucks up and either wastes the money or uses it for themselves. Its my bad then.
I stopped following this discussion a long time ago. I just thought I'd pop in and say the font still looks really bad/unreadable, and I'm surprised nothing has been done about it yet. *Shrug*
Elentarri wrote: "@Lobstergirl. Sunglasses. ;)"I shrugged this off but I am going to try sunglasses tonight, after yesterday when the eyestrain was monumental, just horrible. Why the eyestrain would be so bad when I have lowered the whiteness on my screen I don't know, I wish science would investigate this.
☯ DαякєηRнαℓ ❛ ᴸᶤᶠᵉ'ˢ ᴸᶤᵗᵗˡᵉ ᴼᵈᵈᶤᵗʸ ❜ wrote: "@JenniferOh I didn't realise. It was mainly a guess since tax payers usually pay their money to some institute which mucks up and either wastes the money or uses it for themselves. Its my bad then."
Oh, do you live in Somalia or North Korea?
ok since this topic is now at over 3k posts, and Goodreads still hasn't made any worthwhile fixes... time for me to let people know how to fix ithttps://userstyles.org/styles/117781/... fixes it wonderfully
NOW to get rid of that red and turn it into a color you like, you need to simply make one edit at the final RGB line at the end of the script.. voila Goodreads.com is now useable once more!
now to those who say 'we shouldnt have to use add ons to use a website' I have this reply:
yes you do, thanks to the incompetence of the Goodreads.com staff who no so little about website design. They are not going to do anything to make it better, after 2 months and countless complaints...
Is gender ever going to be added back to user profiles and author profiles?Why was it removed? On purpose, or is it a bug?
Asking for the 17th time.....
KEEP ON ASKING LOBSTERGIRL, THIS THREAD NEEDS TO BE SIDE BY SIDE WITH ALL THE DEBATES ON TV.
Well I still get migraines from looking at the ridiculously bright white background but it's quite clear goodreads doesn't give a shit about user experiences. Who wants to actually read posts on a site about reading anyway? Useless bastards!
Unfortunately I've given up expecting anything to change Stephanie :-( I spend a lot less time on here than I used to though & Goodreads can get stuffed if they think I'll be purchasing books through any of their links!
I have a Nook, and I am a MOD. so I get alot of complaints about this .
Sarah wrote: "Unfortunately I've given up expecting anything to change Stephanie :-( I spend a lot less time on here than I used to though & Goodreads can get stuffed if they think I'll be purchasing books throu..."I never have bought stuff through their links. I'm sick of ads.
Well apparently they are getting rid of the "Home" button at the top of the page, so click on it now while you still can !
Wait wtf does that mean??? Geesus how stupid are these people?!
VERY Like i said looooong ago...
run ad block
dont click 'buy links'
and run stylish to make this site bearable!!
Say something new.Its not even about the fucking looks but about fucking buttons.
The Goodreads logo at the top of the page functions as the Home button (yeah, I didn't know that either), so having two buttons is considered overkill.
I consider it convenient but of course what I consider or anyone else doesn't matter. *snickers*
who cares about buttons... if you dont like a certain button.. dont press it
don't confuse the web developers any more than they already are!
Eddie wrote: "who cares about buttons... if you dont like a certain button.. dont press it"
You missed the point, which was that the Home button will disappear so we won't be able to press it anymore.
Exactly. I actually LIKED that button -.-
GETTING RID OF THE "HOME" BUTTON? AND WHAT IS TAKING PLACE OF THAT?
Well... it's been verified a million times that the the people involved in the design and programming of this site have shit for brains.
HOW DID YOU VERIFY? BY EXAMINING THE SHIT, OR WHERE THEY WORK (HAHA)
LOL. By examining the "product" i.e. new website design and function. Only an idiot would make a website less user-friendly, harder to read and remove plainly labelled buttons. Since this website is also attached to amazon and other book sellers, I assume they are getting some sort of financial gain out of the site too. So driving away users is doubly stupid.
YEAH, I KINDA FIGURED THAT, I JUST HAD TO THROW MY 3 CENTS IN. I JUST DON;T GET IT. I AM A TRUE BELIEVER THAT IF IT ISN'T BROKE, THEN WHY FIX IT. GOODREADS IS REALLY GETTING TOSSED AROUND LIKE A SALAD BAR ON THE INTERNET, AND NOT A GOOD WAY. SAD THAT THEY DON;T WANT TO LISTEN.
I miss the green. I liked green. It was so GR.
Pretty much - this website is as bland, boring and monotonous as the rest of them. Nothing unique (except the blinding whiteness and horrible text).
I hear ya.
I'm a little late in commenting, but I LOVE the new font used in GR!
Anna D. wrote: "I'm a little late in commenting, but I LOVE the new font used in GR!"No offense, but if you sat in front of my computer right now (which offers, of course, a completely different environment from yours), then you would quickly revise your assessment...
Did Goodreads do something with the white background? Because now it is giving me a headache and eye pain - again! Just like in the beginning of all these changes.
Eddie wrote: "VERY Like i said looooong ago...tsk! tsp! naughty language... you must have a limited vocabulary!!
run ad block
dont click 'buy links'
and run stylish to make this site bearable!!"
I too am feeling the same. It was colorful yet soothing before. But now it feels like looking towards a all too bright screens and trying to find the letters among that by squinting eyes.By the way, what is the point of this "hover the cursor and all appears" look? Was goodreads getting too many complains because we had to click?
This website is becoming hopeless day by day.
Titas (Emperor) wrote: "I too am feeling the same. It was colorful yet soothing before. But now it feels like looking towards a all too bright screens and trying to find the letters among that by squinting eyes.By the wa..."
I think it's in trend now. I've noticed several websites began to use the same techniques with unbearable fonts (optimized for ipads???), a lot of white colors and links like we have in the header here. A lot of people have complained about this on those websites, but web-designers don't care :(
