MCM14127 wrote:What next? Seven dollar shipping? This is horrible..."Read more..." What if we LIKED just scrolling down? When I see "read more" in an ad, I rapidly lose interest and just click "x." BRING BACK THE OLD WOOT!

By making us click more to read the product description, they get more advertising revenue from the additional page refresh. It's just Amazon's way of continuing to kill off what WAS a great, UNIQUE and fun website. I knew Woot would be killed off by committee when it was bought out...this is just another step on it's way out. Woot has officially lost it's soul. They are just going to milk us till we get sick of it and leave.

DaveD1420 wrote:Too much on the page. It looks like AOL threw up.

Yes! That is exactly what it looks like! Thank you for sharing your eloquence!

It is such a mess that I am much less likely to bother to come over and look. It gives me a headache. So that means I won't check, and if I don't check I won't buy (or rather, lately here, have my son buy off his account).

Not liking this at all.

It's a great line and very true.

Woot!, you're really lost your way. From the same boring items over and over again at the same prices, to very disappointing Woot Offs, you've lost your mojo.

-J

Biggyniner wrote:Well the guy before me said it best.. "Looks like AOL threw up"... Sorry Woot but this is just ugly, complicated and confusing. My eyes are drawn towards.... too many things... terrible layout.

I've already commented today but I'm doing it again. Why, you may ask? Well, I simply hate this new design. sure, there may be a few cool things hidden here and there, and sure, I may want a few more woot-y deals from time to time. But what I don't want is this crap that's placed in front of me. Merge the old site and the new one. Keep the old layout but add the new features. Quit making me hate going to the woot homepage (or any woot page for that matter). I don't even care what the daily woot is anymore. I just want to see when this crap is gone. It's fowling up my iPad's memory...like a bad virus it is always stuck in the distant parts of my flash ROM, always lurking as a cached file somewhere. Get it out get it out!!!!!

New Site Design = FAIL

OK I have given it two days, and I just realized that if you click on "read more", that is pretty much what your home page should look like. Description back on one page, information easy to find, and mouse over ability to get to other sites.

grumb wrote:OK I have given it two days, and I just realized that if you click on "read more", that is pretty much what your home page should look like. Description back on one page, information easy to find, and mouse over ability to get to other sites.

Try bookmarking "http://www.woot.com/today/" for the closest approximation of what Woot! used to look like. The only thing really ruined in that version is the scrolling "Discuss This Deal" box that's utterly useless compared to the old quickly-viewed version.

novastarj wrote:Try bookmarking "http://www.woot.com/today/" for the closest approximation of what Woot! used to look like. The only thing really ruined in that version is the scrolling "Discuss This Deal" box that's utterly useless compared to the old quickly-viewed version.

Yes that is exactly what happens when you press "read more" but I like the idea you can bookmark it! Thanks

jandk113 wrote:I just don't see what is so terrible about woot wanting to offer more than one deal a day...I think people are forgetting that this is a business and no matter how much you want woot to never change it is going to evolve, woot was designed to make money.

I don't have a problem with the woot plus deals either. My issue is having them on every page taking up more space that the one deal a day. In my opinion, an acceptable solution would be to create a "Plus" page and fill in the newly available space for the features, specs, and humorous description. But as it stands, their business model, one deal a day, has dramatically changed. If woot wants to continue to go off in this new direction, that's fine. But they have to accept that people came to woot because of the old business model. The new direction, great deals...oh...and here's today's special offer, will turn off and drive away some current customers. I'd check out a dedicated "Woot Plus" page to see what was offered. But the current design screams "We were bought by a big company and they want to force feed more products to the customer."

jandk113 wrote:I love woot, and I am excited they are offering more items for me to buy!!

Personally, I don't have a problem with woot offering more items. It's how they are doing it that I have an issue with. When I want to go to woot.com, I enjoyed seeing the deal, reading the (sometimes) humorous description, and seeing the specs and features. To get the same info, woot has simplified the process to going to woot.com, clicking read more for the description and features, the clicking again to see the features. In addition to the unsimplification of the daily woot deal, they got rid of the concept of one deal per page. Put all the woot plus deals together and add a new tab titled "plus". Same additional items being offered but the comfort of the "buddy giving you a deal" is back with the simplified pages.

They can delete the entire thread now, and just take one thing from this entire discussion, because it sums it up on all levels:

halperez wrote:the current design screams "We were bought by a big company and they want to force feed more products to the customer."

Apparently, even if that means running the company into the dirt.

w-o-o tazon can vacuum it.

grumb wrote:OK I have given it two days, and I just realized that if you click on "read more", that is pretty much what your home page should look like. Description back on one page, information easy to find, and mouse over ability to get to other sites.

And it works for home.woot.com/today and all the other sites. Now what about a script that automatically forwards to the /today page?

DaveD1420 wrote:Too much on the page. It looks like AOL threw up.

... and most of the barf is not Woot...

As it has become customary lately, now that Woot has diverted all negative venting about the site redesign to this discussion, they have relegated the link to it to an almost invisible spot on the main page, so that it can quitely disappear...

Other than for the "Refurbished" placement comments, everything else seems to have fallen on deaf ears, once again...

niks wrote:As it has become customary lately, now that Woot has diverted all negative venting about the site redesign to this discussion, they have relegated the link to it to an almost invisible spot on the main page, so that it can quitely disappear...

Other than for the "Refurbished" placement comments, everything else seems to have fallen on deaf ears, once again...

You missed the part where everyone was complaining about the link that logged you out "mislabled" as "Not You?". There was a beautiful tirade of sarcasm from various posters about it.

They fixed it with the change of the Woot items last night.

Since it impacted enough people and could cause future PR issues, they just went ahead and changed it.

I posted the below to the "Woot beta feedback" form that greeted me when I clicked on the beta feedback link, thinking it would be posted to this forum (lesson learned -- read the fine print CAREFULLY from now on (as if I were on some other site).

Anyway, since I habitually do a ^A^C prior to posting ANYTHING (anywhere) (having lost too many moments of my life to lost typing due to the vagaries of the Internet), I still had the text in my paste buffer, so, I'm able to post it here (aren't you all lucky ;)

So with no further ado (reserving judgement for the time being as to the question of any future adieu), here's what was sent to whatever gravity well that other form has tossed my message towards:

===========================================================================
Yuck yuck yuck.

(If I lived in an area served by connectivity other than dialup modem, it'd only be 'Yuck yuck' [if that's any consolation].)

I don't ask for you to change anything back, though... For every website I've ever seen go through the inevitable badmorph... for all the countless complaints, pleas for un-changery, and so forth... for ALL of these events, I could readily count those which were actually responded to (with something other than blather) on the fingers of one hand -- if my name were "Stumpy."

What is it about "the human condition" that drives people to fix that which is not broken? Further, what is it that makes them SO deeply vested in the "fixes" that they dig in for all they're worth, resisting any and all pleas for even the most modest amount of unfarklery?

I don't know, and I don't know that anyone knows. What I do know is that I no longer care. Life, as they say, is too short for this sort of [you know the word].
===========================================================================

Now that Woot is riding the Digg train, what's the Reddit equivalent of Woot?

@Kogaku

I actually got all my rantyness out in this thread before I calmed down enough to give my practical thoughts to the Beta group.

They are, apparently, watching these threads for bugs, consistent annoyances for easy fixes (like adding links to the derby and reckoning on shirt.woot), etc.

I'm actually a little suprised that you expected a "Tattle" style button would post to anywhere visible on-site at all!

thumperchick wrote:Please read the blog infographic. It specifically mentions linking your amazon account.

I only saw mention that you could use your amazon account, not link/merge a Woot and Amazon account together. I'm still not seeing it.

Biggest bug to me is the lack of community comments for all the WootPlus deals.. Without the community feedback, hell, I might as well go to gropeon or some other similarly named site.

What makes Woot special is that there's a chance I'll go to heaven if I buy enough products, and being able to flash that status to the lower creatures who haven't been as blessed.

Err, I mean, the great community support for bugs and problems that can come with a product, feedback on the value and utility, or just general griping and occasional informative posts by staff about if the item shipped or not.

Woot, community up the WootPlus items. Or stop calling them WootPlus and call it Wootless.

I have yet to buy anything since the new site design. I'm curious, when I click the button that says "place your order" does that actually complete my order or is there another screen? I ask because I use PayPal as payment. Is it going to take me to login to PayPal after that or is that the last button. I figure clicking 3 buttons from the first page just to buy the item seems like enough but you never know.

Dear Woot.

Personally I do not like the new look of Woot. The webpage now gives off a vibe similar to those shady popup websites you ocasionally get when browsing the web. It looks and feels cluttered and does not know what it's intended to be. The main deal has been reduced to a small box at the top and now alot of garbage advertisements take its place. Woot what do you want me to do view your advertisements or buy your products? Also why is it asking me to login when I open the page? Thats just so incredibly rude I will log in if I want to - not when you want me to. Millions of people know how to log into websites we dont require your assistance with a popup that I have to click off of everytime I visit. What if everytime someone walked up to the door step of your home and a computer voice suddenly said "Do you have a set of keys and would like to open the door? insert them in the keyhole" Eventually noone would like to visit you anymore. It genuinely from the heart makes me not want to visit woot after all these years. Woot you are the origional deal a day website Please dont take on the look and feel of your competition. Thank you.

cons:

Hate the brightness. Too much white.

I miss not seeing how many woots I have purchased since joining

pro: Nice to have all my orders and information about my orders on one page

Oh! Mutating Goodness! I go on vacation for 5 days and come back to this!!! I feel like "a deer in the headlights"...

not phone friendly (droid incredible 2) ...really small and have to log in just to view pages

whats up with loging in to look? i understand to buy or change account stuff you have to log in.

site is kind of garish now.

funny description is not up front.

Just make it fit the effing page.

Horizontal scrolling = Bush League

Woot was cool when it was simple: one product each day at a GREAT price. The "New Woot" is just like every other deal site out there - cluttered and complex.

jrs1980 wrote:Don't know if anyone else is having this problem, but I'm trying to use the coupon that jumbowoot bestowed on me to buy a tee that's going to be Reckoned tonight. It loads but never applies. I'm assuming it's an "unintended feature" of the redesign.

Same issue here. Seems to me the coupon box would have been something they'd have tested before going live...

What I like:

The tabs for "Woot!" "Home!" "Kids!" etc. at the top. Beats scrolling down to find the pics on the right you had before.

What I hate:

Getting the pop-up asking me to sign in when I first come to the site...every time I come to the site. If I want to buy or post, I'll sign in. I don't want to stay signed in in case someone else uses my computer. If I'm just looking, I don't want to waste time signing in and out.

This is crap.

I used to be able to see everything about today's woot. Now I have to click something to get details.

If you feel the need to redesign then fine, but don't take away information and make me take an extra step to get more info.

I used to make buy or no-buy decisions based upon the info I read, but if I have to go get more info to decide then I usually decide "NO-BUY".

I like the tabs on top, but why the colors? From the Home page, you can't tell the colors of the other pages until you're on them. You should have left them just the same Woot green or color the tabs in the color of the pages if you want to differentiate.

Secondly, waaayy too busy! My eyes can't tell where they should stop! I loved the old way, which was so different than any other shopping site! Why is the description, info on a different page? All that clicking!

I'm feeling like Gizmo: Bright light! Bright light! Too much white space on the page. It hurts my eyes!

Your uniqueness was what I loved about Woot! This has become just another shopping site and the Woots don't seem all that appealing anymore. Change is not always good.

Why do I have to click so much? If I click in the top menu bar to go to a different woot, then take me to that deal, don't make me click twice just to see the actual deal!!!

This page pretty much blows

https://account.woot.com/purchasehistory

Used to be a very nice, CONCISE, listing of purchases on the left. I could see, one page, everything, a list, searchable, all in one place.

Did I say I could, on one page, find any past purchase?

I don't need, or want pictures, much less TWENTY-TWO effing pages to mull through to find something.

Cute doesn't get it; function does, and you lost function.

Failure:
The draw of the woot site it the product write-up and you have marginalized it. Instead of front and center I get a taste and I have to click. The page is now filled with other stuff that YOU want to show me.

So now the page is what YOU want to show and not what I want to see. Do you notice that when I capitalize YOU it looks funny but "I" looks normal that way?

Think about that while you consider your web design.

They won't notice when I don't buy anything.

I liked coming out to the one day one deal. It was short, simple with a couple add-on pages to tempt you.

Now that it is just another online store it'll be easier to not come out every day. Why come here when there is already an Amazon.com?

The level of fail is spectacular, and yet today all the people who failed still have jobs. That is the problem with America. You get promoted to the job you can't do, and then no one can get fired anymore without lawyers.

I'm not upset the site has changed, you give yourself WAY too much credit. I'm just taking the time to tell you that you are s-t-u-p-i-d. Really. Myopic beyond all depths of that word's contemporary vernacular meaning. If your focal point was any closer to your face, you'd be looking inside your nose.

You have flushed YEARS of carefully crafted and nurtured brand cache, which anyone with any advertising or marketing experience knows is the single most important factor for any commerce of any kind, in a matter of minutes.


The m-o-r-o-noscity is so spectacular, so gargantuan, it makes me think the only way it could possibly happen in such epic proportion, is that a 4 year old child from a country without electricity won a "Be the CEO of Woot for a day" contest.

Apparently, you spend more time writing code to auto-redact the word "w-o-o tazon" than you do having the slightest idea what made your company successful in the first place.

And since I practically type for a living, and this only takes me seconds to spit out, I have worked in the advertising and branding field for 20 years as a copywriter and product/package designer. (Syracuse/S.I. Newhouse School of Communications class of 88). I am not some whining wootnerd saying change the colors back, I am an industry pro telling you that you have completely screwed the pooch.

I know I have said this in here before, and probably will again, but since no one seems to be listening and I type really fast...

When you hit bottom, and fire your entire staff to become just another outlet of the megazon warehouse, remember how much fun you had being the little company that could, before you flushed your baby down the toilet for a payolazon paycheck.


And say hello to hoopstick.com for us. Their monkey was cute.

I sent a similar, albeit much briefer, letter to the beta team last night. They won't do anything differently, I'm just saying on record they just started the countdown clock for this company as it stands today. The light at the end of their tunnel is an oncoming train.

I have one small request... Bring back the colored triangle/square at the top of the page next to the username. Please and thanks. Keep up the good work!

yukoimada wrote:Here's a question for you all.... Now that I can log in with my Amazon password -- I know that Amazon bought woot a while ago -- If I use my amazon credit card, will I get triple Chase points?

This. I have been using my Amazon card at Woot ever since Woot was bought up. Still waiting on Amazon bonus points. Maybe we can actually start getting them now?

The feng shui is gone. Replaced by ASSEENONTV.

Also, just noticed that the link is gone from your order listing to the discussion of that item. Why remove that?

Hey, I've been here a while (since '06), so you might just dismiss this feedback as maudlin sentimentality or a tendency toward intransigent nostalgia.

Well anyway, here's my take on the redo so far. Much of this echoes others' comments, but maybe the weight of numbers will make a difference.

I like the actual product pages just fine. The writeup on the left with tabs on the right for the different sections of product info - great. I also like the combining shipping, the account info pages, and the fact that the writers are still writing blog posts.

But I very much dislike having to click through to the full writeup and info page. The large sections of space given to secondary sales will possibly increase your revenue, but it's all just noisy noisemakers that make noise. The simplicity is lost.

Also, on the Shirt site, I think you were doing well before to have the Reckoning showing little scrollable thumbnails or some such. This seems to go against my anti-noisemaker sentiment, but I prefer that to the giant chunk of page given to the weekly themed sale.

My advice: reduce the additional-sale sections drastically. It's a question of identity: are you our favorite lovable deal-a-day site or are you Buy.com?