OMG, Steepster has a new look!
Steepster team, we love you for working so hard for us. Here are some of my thoughts on the redesign.
LIKE IT
The ratings slider with NUMBERS. Yes! This makes my day.
The teaware page. Yes! Great addition. I’d like to see it on top of the main page, though (If ‘Tea’ and ‘Places’ are both there, it only makes sense ‘Teaware’ should get its own heading) and I’d appreciate if it could get its own cupboard.
DON’T LIKE IT
The whole ‘Notify me when available’ IN YOUR FACE blob thing makes me very suspicious – is this what Steepster is going to be in the future – a click front for purchasing tea and teaware? I get that the site needs to support itself somehow, but I’d take ads any day over click-through-to-get-to-this-website-we-recommend-that-doesn’t-ship-to-your-country-and-isn’t-the-cheapest-by-far-but-hey-they-pay-us. Like many non-Americans have already stated – available to whom? Definitely not me, plus I very much prefer to make my own informed decisions on where to buy whatever it is I’m buying.
The description being moved down is a thing of SHEER EVIL. I absolutely use Steepster when I want to research a new brand to try, or a new tea flavour to shop for. I click up a bunch of tabs of teas that seem interesting and browse through them quickly. If it says, ‘hibiscus’ in the description, I’ll just close that tab. Now? I have to scroll. It takes so much longer to rule out a tea. Absolutely, devotedly, entirely hate it.
The tasting note snippets are completely pointless, in my opinion. They just take up valuable top-page space and entirely disregard the fact that most people write very different reviews. How do four five-sentence snippets on how Steepster users spent that Tuesday in June three years ago, or how cute their dogs are, or, you know, whatever else people often lead with – how do those four diary-like snippets help describe or present the tea in question? Sure, a number of reviews lead with statements relevant to the tea experience, but boy is that entirely random.
It’s great to see who wants and owns the tea, but I can’t expand the ‘+14’ or whatever number it is – so I only see the first 15. That makes this completely pointless and frustrating. There is information there, but I can’t get to it? Grrr. This might be a cache issue or something – I haven’t seen anyone else bring it up.
Visually, some of the MOST IMPORTANT features of (my) Steepster have been rendered less present. On the tea page, the ‘write tasting note’ function. This is what the site is all about to most users. Why is it so tiny? Because EVIL BUY BLOB. On the dash/individual note pages, the ‘like’ and ‘comment’ buttons seem very tiny in proportion to their importance.
Aaaah, the teaspoon thing. Close-but-completely-inaccurate is a bad compromise. We don’t compromise with leaf amounts. This is science.
User icons on the dash – I miss them a HUGE amount. People change their user names, sometimes, and sometimes their icons, but rarely both at once. Plus it really helps visual people keep track of other users.
INDIFFERENT TO IT
I won’t use the ‘recommend/don’t recommend’ feature. That’s what my ratings are for. If I rate a peach tea 90+ and you like peach, by all means, try it – but, you know, I’m going to go ahead and assume you’re going to figure that one out by yourself. I realize this might be a good feature for people who don’t rate their teas, but it won’t affect how I use Steepster.
I won’t use the ‘flavours’ feature. Too much of a hassle for me to go back and add this to old teas (and my OCD wouldn’t agree with me not doing that), too much of a bother to wait for the flavours I want to add to be dropped into the database, and definitely too much of a lottery to pay any kind of attention to what others get out of a tea. I get zero strawberry from MF’s Marco Polo – how could I ever trust the majority on flavours again? I realize this might be an appealing feature for others, but it won’t affect how I use Steepster.
Overall, I feel the usability of the site has taken a definite turn for the worse, and if the object of the redesign is to celebrate the community, I must say I’m confused as to why so few of the most commonly requested changes remain unaddressed.
++ Agree completely. Especially about wanting to see user icons as well as nicknames.
Anna, re your comments on the ‘When Available’ thing, our company (the Devotea) sells though our own websites and has no plans to sell through Steepster. Like you, we want this removed, but from our point of view, because it is false and misleading: It implies a tea is not available at all! We are very alarmed at this development. We have always directed people to Steepster – hardly a week goes by when we don;t do do on Facebook or twitter because of the unbiased reviews and the fact that by directing people here they are engaging in fair debate, not getting paid-for adverts.
Thanks so much for the feedback. You can see repsonses to a number of your points in my post on a separate reply here: http://steepster.com/discuss/6947-the-new-tea-page?post_id=125633#forum_post_125633
To the points I don’t address in that post:
User avatars on the dashboard – others have mentioned it and it is a good idea. We were having trouble figuring out how to include them with the new update so they didn’t make it, but we’ll continue to improve that.
The teaspoon thing was also a victim of having some launch compromises. We’re planning to add more definition around sizes so it’s helpful and accurate.
Seeing the full wants/owns is a good idea and people have requested it for swapping. We want to do a lot more to faciliate swapping so we’ll look to address that with a later update.
To your other points, I certainly understand why you may feel this way. I hope you can check out my response on the other reply thread (it’s long, sorry) so at the very least you can understand why we made the changes we did. Also, we hope you’re still able to find the site useful and enjoyable when logging teas and interacting with the rest of the community.
I hope you can check out my response on the other reply thread (it’s long, sorry)
You mean the thread I’ve responded to numerous time? Yes, that WAS me and not ZombieAnna, promise. ;P
In that thread, I have already pointed out what I still feel remains confusing – i.e.
…if the object of the redesign is to celebrate the community, I must say I’m confused as to why so few of the most commonly requested changes remain unaddressed.
I hope for more dialogue in the future, but still enjoy using Steepster. And the fact that it’s less usable won’t matter as long as Steepster remains the only alternative. However, I personally prefer remaining faithful to a community because it’s better than the competition, rather than the only contender.
…and why continuously apologize for the long responses? That just means you care, and that’s awesome.
Ah, yea, that’s totally you (facepalm). It get’s confusing responding to so many replies at once.
To your point about celebrating the community and implementing commonly requested changes – it is definitely a trickly line to walk. There are tons of great suggestions from the community, from huge strategic things all the way down to miniscule tweaks. We do out best to consider all of those alongside any ideas we have and where we think Steepster needs/should evolve to continue growing and remain a useful place for tea drinkers. It’s very difficult to do and, with any site this size, no matter what we do we’re bound to ruffle a few feathers (to put it nicely). Hopefully, regardless of which way we choose, you understand we are doing our best and not taking any decision lightly. Everything we do is in an effort to keep pushing Steepster forward and keep it awesome for years and years.
With that said, I think it’s 100% accurate that we need to be better at the conversation with the site users. Right now the dialogue is mostly people post in the forums and, we’ll read them, but not acknowledge. This isn’t to say we don’t care or apprecaite them, it’s more a time thing – it can take up a lot of time keeping up with such a substantial community. When we weigh that against the actual work of designing/building/testing/etc the actual updates and new features, often time the communciation loses out. It’s not good, I wish it was different, but it’s kind of a reality at this point.
I hope this is understood properly and in the right context. I just think you guys deserve to understand our thinking/perspective at the very least. Hopefully it’s communicated clearly here (probably not, but I tried).
Honestly, at this time the best way to get feedback to us is to send an email to [email protected]. We have the awesome Dayna helping us collect and respond to ideas there so that we don’t miss them.
Thanks again for caring enough to share your thoughs. And sorry again this is so long ;)
I think the fact that users
a) communicate so much
and
b) care so much about the future of the site
clearly shows how much we all love and care about Steepster, so I really don’t think you have anything to worry about in terms of ruffled feathers or community devotion.
Also Jason, you have to stop writing those super long responses. I mean come ON.
Finally getting around to responding here. Like the other thread (http://steepster.com/discuss/6947-the-new-tea-page) I want to thank everyone for the kind words and feedback. I’ll respond to feedback/comments inline, but I’ll let this serve as a thank you for non-question/feedback posts. Get ready for updates…
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