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New Navigation Bar on Goodreads
UPDATE: the new navigation bar is now live for everyone on Goodreads! Thanks so much to those of you who filled out the survey—to those of you who haven't had a chance to do so yet, please be sure to fill out the survey to give us your feedback on the new experience!
Starting today, we're introducing a new navigation bar on the desktop site. With a more streamlined look, the new navigation makes it easier for you to get to all the features of Goodreads you love, search for books, and stay up to date with your messages and notifications.
This new experience will be rolled out over the next few weeks, so don't worry if you don't see it yet—it's coming!
The new navigation is designed to be clean and easy to read. It features a larger search box and adapts to the width of your screen, whether you're viewing Goodreads on a tablet or a desktop computer. If you're browsing Goodreads on a desktop computer, you'll also notice that it remains visible when you scroll down the page, keeping important links accessible at all times.
Under Browse, you'll find links to our popular Giveaways section (who can resist free books!), as well as New Releases, and author interviews and book recommendations in News & Interviews. The navigation also comes with a new spotlight on books from your favorite genres that are trending among the Goodreads community, helping you discover more great books to add to your to-read list.
Community is our new gateway to all things social on Goodreads. Find your Groups and discover new ones, see which authors are answering questions in Ask the Author, and test your knowledge with Trivia and Quizzes.
Once you have a chance to use the new navigation, let us know what you think of it via our survey.
Starting today, we're introducing a new navigation bar on the desktop site. With a more streamlined look, the new navigation makes it easier for you to get to all the features of Goodreads you love, search for books, and stay up to date with your messages and notifications.
This new experience will be rolled out over the next few weeks, so don't worry if you don't see it yet—it's coming!
The new navigation is designed to be clean and easy to read. It features a larger search box and adapts to the width of your screen, whether you're viewing Goodreads on a tablet or a desktop computer. If you're browsing Goodreads on a desktop computer, you'll also notice that it remains visible when you scroll down the page, keeping important links accessible at all times.
Under Browse, you'll find links to our popular Giveaways section (who can resist free books!), as well as New Releases, and author interviews and book recommendations in News & Interviews. The navigation also comes with a new spotlight on books from your favorite genres that are trending among the Goodreads community, helping you discover more great books to add to your to-read list.
Community is our new gateway to all things social on Goodreads. Find your Groups and discover new ones, see which authors are answering questions in Ask the Author, and test your knowledge with Trivia and Quizzes.
Once you have a chance to use the new navigation, let us know what you think of it via our survey.
Comments Showing 151-200 of 654 (654 new)
Meghan wrote: "F.P. wrote: "I went to fill out the survey, but it seems to be only for after the changes show up. "The idea is definitely to get your feedback after you've actually used the new navigation, yes!..."
I have been using it this morning and I am loving the new look and the new navigation bar, much clearer and easier to use :) Thumbs up from me.
Are there only certain browsers that are showing the new navigation bar? Or just certain geographic areas?
Only thing I like is the fact it adapts to your screen width, otherwise it's just another example of fixing what ain't broke.
I can't comment on the new navigation bar as I've not got it yet. But for those of you who are having problems with the bright white background I have a suggestion:Your Web browser can override the background colour. There will be a setting somewhere in the options/preferences. If you can't find it, search on Google or your search engine of choice for 'override background color' and the name of the browser you use. However, the setting will apply to ALL Websites so you might find that you have to keep changing it back. Luckily there are add-ons/extensions available for the major browsers which allow more control. I haven't tried the add-ons myself so your mileage may vary, as they say.
While this sounds like a workaround for poor site design, it's actually the way the Web was originally created: in order for documents to be viewed on any computer the way they are rendered is determined by the browser. We've just become accustomed to Web Designers trying to control how their site looks.
Where is Home on the new navigation bar. I can not find where to enter currently-reading.
Meghan, your reply about where to find home so I could use currently reading made no sense to me, so I still cannot use it. Thanks for trying.
Liz wrote: "Please figure out a way to mark Re-Reads of books and have them count towards the yearly goal!!!"I'd like that, too!
Meghan KroghLindsay wrote: "Mousing over the notifications window gives me the drop-down, but then right clicking on any of the notifications makes the notification drop-down disappear."
Hi Lindsay, I noticed this bug yesterday and was able to replicate it; we're working on a fix! Thanks for reporting."
Meghan wrote: "Hi all — Just quick reminder: the best way to get feedback in about the new navigation once it's been rolled out to your account is to use the survey linked in the blog post above; this will ensure that it gets directly to the people who are working on this part of the site. We're excited to hear your comments and want to be sure they get directly to the people who work on the navigation!
So only yesterday did you 'notice' the bug. I gave my feedback about this, with screenshots!!!, two weeks ago when the new navigation was first tested out. Why did I even bother giving feedback then??
Oh right, it is Goodreads...
Will the "Profile, My Books and Groups" links stay? They are not in your picture and I would really miss them."Liz wrote: "Please figure out a way to mark Re-Reads of books and have them count towards the yearly goal!!!"
+1
Holli wrote: "Stop improving things!."Seriously???? I hope GoodReads and everyone one else sure ignores this. If we never improved things, we'd still be in caves and bashing our women over their heads with clubs!
I am not liking this new navigation bar but if is what weget then i willhave toget use to it.
Tailtiu wrote: "Will the "Profile, My Books and Groups" links stay? They are not in your picture and I would really miss them.There's a better image of the new goodreads nav bar on the second page of the survey linked above. You can see on that image that the My Books and Profile links are still present. The Groups link is the first item on the drop down under the Community heading.
Lindsay wrote: "There's a better image of the new goodreads nav bar on the second page of the survey linked above. You can see on that image that the My Books and Profile links are still present. The Groups link is the first item on the drop down under the Community heading. ."Thanks Lindsay :-)
I don't have the new bar yet so I can't take the survey and look on the second page. It would be helpful to add the picture here.
Here you go:
It's very small on the post, but if you click through you'll get it in a larger resolution.
Looks beautiful, though I still wish the Android app would get attention for its wonky functionality. Android always gets the shaft over iOS, even though more people overall use it.
Thanks for the picture Lindsay!I'll miss the extra Home-link in the middle because the mouse-way was shorter but it looks cleaner.
Thanks, Lindsay.To staff: I think it'd be smart to bring back the "Home" link. I don't think it's at all intuitive to mouse over "Goodreads" to navigate to Home.
It's intuitive in that almost every web site that includes a logo in the header works the same way. Of course, if you didn't know that, it can leave you feeling lost.Note that this isn't new: the logo has always worked as a home button.
Maybe some of you folks are super-knowledgeable about computers, but there are dummies like me out there, too. You're forgetting about us.
Jane wrote: "Maybe some of you folks are super-knowledgeable about computers, but there are dummies like me out there, too. You're forgetting about us."Sorry, didn't mean to imply that you're a dummy. It is a convention, but there's nothing anywhere that explains that to people. I understand your frustration.
I'm an IT developer myself and it's an easy (and wrong) assumption we often make that the users are going to look around and explore and learn this stuff by doing so.
Oh. Super. So now in addition to the Ugly Green Button there will be a sh - er, poo-brown button? What part of "fix the things that are wrong instead of playing with the layout" do you not understand?
hannah wrote: "Looks beautiful, though I still wish the Android app would get attention for its wonky functionality. Android always gets the shaft over iOS, even though more people overall use it."Try having a Windows Phone! We just got an app recently . . .
Liz wrote: "Please figure out a way to mark Re-Reads of books and have them count towards the yearly goal!!!"YES PLEASE
Gigi wrote: "To be honest, I don't really care if the menu is across the top or in drop downs. What I care about is the other numerous bugs with shelving my books: how annoying it is to delete a book, how movin..."Yeeeessssss. Book shelves are so frustrating! The app for Androids needs a lot of work too. I pretty much only use it to update my reading progress.
The previous arrangement was so much better. Not only is this worse, it's less functional
Cathy wrote: "I need to be able to go Home and to My Books quickly and easily. Please don't clutter things up in the name of making things easier. And if you guys think that white drop down menu looks good on th..."Cathy wrote: "I need to be able to go Home and to My Books quickly and easily. Please don't clutter things up in the name of making things easier. And if you guys think that white drop down menu looks good on th..."
Seems ironic that a book reading site has a glaring white background that increases eye strain.
Is there a way to keep the original Goodreads Navigation? I tried it out and honestly I hate it. The old one is so much easier to navigate and I'd rather keep the old one than the new one.
How do I get rid of whatever book GR is pushing on me in the dropdown?
OK I give in, after going round in circles, how do you sign out?
Kyle wrote: "If we never improved things, we'd still be in caves and bashing our women over their heads with clubs! ."Describes many men, even today. Do you not read/watch the news?
Lesley Book Lover wrote: "OK I give in, after going round in circles, how do you sign out?"It's the bottom menu option on the drop down from your profile pic.
If I delete all of my favorite genres, will you stop pushing a book on me in the dropdown?If there is no way to get rid of this unwanted recommendation, I will give every single book that appears there 1 star.
The font in the bar is really thin. It's particularly hard to read in the (weirdly orangey-coral) text box telling me how many friend requests I have, because the text (the number) is white and the background is coral. Any reason why this text box has to be coral? Because there just weren't enough different shades of red and orange on the site?Needless to say my little face peering out of the ship's porthole next to those gray buttons up there looks completely asinine. At 100% I can't even see myself. But when I go to 110% the bar gets too big, and since I find it ugly I prefer it to be smaller. Also on a laptop I always find there is never enough vertical space, websites are constantly inserting horizontal bars above or below what I am trying to read, so the actual readable space ends up being minute.
So confusing - I spent forever looking for how to get "home" And the search was better placed to the left of all the buttons for functional use. You moved functions in with the profile (including sign out - people will go nuts finding it) Drop down menus requiring hovering are annoying in some devices; track pads tend to result in inadvertent clicking which is already a problem in the app...
So many other things more important are getting neglected while you waste programming resources confusing us with changes to the look!!
The only thing that adds funtionality is having the navigation bar fixed in view when scrolling down the page.
Lindsay wrote: "Lesley Book Lover wrote: "OK I give in, after going round in circles, how do you sign out?"It's the bottom menu option on the drop down from your profile pic."
No menu option under my profile pic, I have an iPad, so maybe it is different on that, but I still can't find where to sign out.
In both the visual example at the top of the blog, and in the visual examples in the SurveyMonkey survey, the bar looks different from the bar I have. The font in the examples you are showing is bolder and easier to read. The font in the bar I have now is very thin. It doesn't look bold at all.
You removed info from the search box which could be helpful to people. Old search box contained the text "Title/Author/ISBN". New text box says "Search books." People may not know they can search by ISBN.
I prefer the old layout. I know it still has everything the old one did, but it's really awkward. I personally don't think its visually appealing either. It would have been nice if there was a majority vote about changing the layout. A little more of a heads-up would have been appreciated, too. Course none of that matters now, but maybe you could consider it for the future.
So far I do not like the navigation bar change. I'm having too much trouble trying to navigate.
Can I get an option to use the old bar? I liked the old one better. TT_TT I could find things and not have to rely on drop downs as much.
Your justification for removing the Home link is that it is duplicative. Yet there are now two ways to get to Friends on the bar - a dedicated button, and in the profile dropdown.Duplication is not always bad. It helps a lot of people who may not know where one button is, but know the location of a different button that does the same thing.
I remember Kara's bullshit explanation of why shelves on the book page were removed and replaced with genres - "because it was duplicative." In that case it was not, but that was the company line she had to spout.
Wow, I actually don't hate it - I'm shocked. Although the number indicator in the orange box is ugly and goofy looking. The Search box is no longer nearly invisible, as it was since the last change, so that's an improvement.Now, if GR would only fix all the things people are still complaining about from the last change - like the TEENY font on the Feed and Profile pages.
Lobstergirl wrote: "How do I get rid of whatever book GR is pushing on me in the dropdown?"Oh, ugh! I just noticed that! HATE IT!!!!!
That needs to go away, or my shelf to not read spammed books is going to fill up....
It also has no other option on that book other than "Want To Read", so even if I WANTED to use it (which I never will) I couldn't as I have my own designated shelves for books I want to read and don't use the default.
This may have already been asked but how do you get to the 'popular shelves' now? You used to be able to get to it under the 'explore' tab but now 'popular' is gone :(
The update is just a stupid layout change. You need a better product manager. Do not fix what isn't broken, especially after the backlash last time. Give me half stars. Give me a way to mark rereads without making the old date disappear and not having to use a different edition. Allows me to delete multiple books at once. Do not advertise books. All great changes you can do instead of other layout changes. How many people actually complained about the navigation bar. It is not a big deal to scroll. Goodreads is being ruined by Amazon
...the new navigation makes it easier for you to get to all the features of Goodreads you love, search for books, and stay up to date with your messages and notifications.My initial reaction was complete confusion, despite knowing there was an update coming--I was hoping I would not get it this soon myself.
I am not sure what my thoughts are, but I do want to say it looks more like an app layout than a website now, and I usually hate using the app design on a laptop browser, so... my thoughts will come when I wake up.
the g letter at the top is for HOME