By the way, the link to this thread in the Beta Feedback is broken. You're pointing to post # 5019772, which doesn't exist, and this thread is post # 5019773.

Edit: This appears to have been fixed.

Im able to sign in but nowhere to sign out?

bauhaus1919 wrote:no, you blanket-statement called out the whiners. there are people providing constructive criticism. there are also people who have interacted with amazon enough to know the opinions won't matter. and if you don't think they have changed who the company was and what they do, then you are their new target demographic. congrats on getting the site you deserve.

You are right, I called out my disappointment the whiners, everyone of them. Those who are providing constructive criticism are not whining. Of course this is an open forum, they are free to have their opinion, and I am free to have mine. I expressed my opinion. I hope you find some other internet happiness since woot is not for you anymore. I hope you have a good day =)

[quote postid="5019989" user="jrs1980"]
Also, three sets of links to all of the sister sites? Top, right, and bottom? Seems overkill to me, especially since the top menu is static.

Agree

To much going on, not impressed. Simple means better. Especially if you want me to buy something.

The "% off retail" and hiding of the witty product description so that you can shoehorn in Woot Plus are both mild turnoffs, and I'm sure most long-time fans feel this way. I feel the same way about Woot Plus as I do about Newegg prominently plugging jewelry - it's not what people come to the site for and stinks of corporate interference. There is certainly a lot of overreacting going on here (you moved the product description to the side?! I have to click one more button to get to what I want?! I'M GONE FOREVER!) but I'd be concerned about losing your identity in a marketplace where that is all you really have to offer over anyone else.

Personally it doesn't matter much to me - I haven't looked regularly at anything Shirt.Woot in quite a while and the e-mail update seems largely unchanged.

And for what it's worth I do like the look of the new site overall. White never bothered me.

Slydon wrote:I think the refurbished issue is something getting changed ASAP, if it helps. It's a very fair point, that's the sort of thing we want you to know on the very first glance. Hope you'll stick around to watch us figure things out.

Y'know. Most "betas" tend to find a group of users to check out the site to make criticisms before it goes live to the general public. This was a pretty massive overhaul of the site, and probably could have used a few (hundred) pilot users to try it out before unleashing it on the masses. Could've sorted out some of the more offensive things, started generating forum interest ("oh man, i got selected to be a beta tester and you should see the new site, it's way cool")... Kind of like how when you guys launched Deals.

But, coulda woulda shoulda. Cat's out of the bag now.

Though I'm thinking y'all shoulda had a bunch of devices hooked up and logged into the site to see how it looks across the various pieces of technology you guys sell - netbooks, laptops, desktops, tablets, monitors of various resolutions (and not all of them massive)...

feraciti wrote:Im able to sign in but nowhere to sign out?

You're on a netbook, aren't ya 1024px wide resolution? Yeah. Your name is slightly longer, too, so you probably can't see the "not you?" next to your name.

cheron98 wrote:Though I'm thinking y'all shoulda had a bunch of devices hooked up and logged into the site to see how it looks across the various pieces of technology you guys sell - netbooks, laptops, desktops, tablets, monitors of various resolutions (and not all of them massive)...

Oh, that does remind me, it's rather annoying to see a horizontal scroll bar when nearly every other website can smartly change its layout to fit in a vertical column. On my desktop my browser takes up a full screen but on the laptop it'd be silly to have it be the only thing I can see at a time. My browser window's about 1000px wide, which has been more than enough for most other websites - and if it isn't, they have incidental info on the right-hand side that I don't mind scrolling to. Having the flow of a website from left to right (to see the product, then its description) is disruptive and I don't care for it.

Seems nice! I agree with the folks who say that the Woot write-up should be visible in its entirety when you view a page. The Woot Plus info can be moved down to accommodate if necessary. The writing is one of the top three great things about Woot! The shipping, another of the top three, has been made even better (for a limited time) so that rocks. I second the notion of keeping that in place through the next Woot Off!

stay woot, it's been a great site, do not let amazon... "amazon (money) it up" or you will stop being special and you will lose people like me who is a frequent flyer

When you click on the "Read More" link, THATS what the actual pages should look like. Its clean and super easy to see everything. I have to dig through the ads and moving thingamajigs to get to that beautiful page, and its a shame. Make that page the main page, toss the current main page, and you have a pretty successful new look.

Slydon wrote:Can I just thank you for taking a retro-direction on your insult? Nobody's using Fat Albert jokes these days, and it really, sincerely takes me back. I appreciate your feedback as well, but the reference is what sold me.

Glad I could take you back. I used to watch it every day after school in syndication. It's crazy to think back to how much of my childhood was consumed by Bill Cosby projects - Fat Albert, Picture Pages, Cosby Show, my parents Coby standup records..

So - as a writer for woot what do you personally think ofthe new web design?

brad

Way too cluttered. Way too bright.
And the layout does not flow at all, even on the product page. It looks like you are trying to sell me a big yellow button. The flow is not logical or expected and, therefore, offensive. Title>Image>Description>Purchase Link. You had it right before, now it's all kinds of wrong.
And when I got lost I clicked on the "home" button, but it didn't take me home, it took me to home woot. Don't put a button labeled "home" that doesn't go home next to the actual home button. That's just irritating.

You can always get there from here

Why on earth would you want to put articles (or whatever you want to call them) for EVERYTHING on every page! I don't want to see everything at once. If I want the blog, I'll click on blog. If I want the discussion, I'll click there.

Why is "Woot+" so large compared to the other sibling sites (shirts, deals, home, kids, ..)? Why not make + the same size and keep it on the side with everything else.

Not a good change.

Whenever I go back and look at your first page, I think "STOP YELLING AT ME!!"

Not having the full product details on the front page any more kind of sucks. This is going to be really annoying when the next "Woot! Off!" happens, especially those of us who use the auto refresh function. It would be ok if it did not direct you away from the main woot site.

Once I got past the shock of change, I was struck by a few things:

- Other woot properties are easier to get to - awesome.
- Sharing features are much more prominent - not a big deal to me
- Full write-up not visible on the homepage - why did I come here again? If you think it was just for the deal, you're wrong woot - I visit at least 5-10 daily deal sites regularly, but most have really poor writeups, which is why I have (to date) visited woot the most. So this is a bad change.
- Other random multi-day "deals" thrown on the front page - Again, why did I come here? If I wanted to see dozens of deals I don't care too much about, I'd just use GroupOn.
- Lots of scrolling, but not much on the bottom of the page - Since it's just a bunch of ads and duplicate links to other woot properties, I guess I can just ignore it. But why?
- User profile looks a little spiffier - but I'm not really sure, since I barely ever used it before. I don't yet know if they added a compelling reason to ever use it now, but I guess I'll see.
- $5 grouped shipping - Depending on how long this lasts, this is great - it can only help, so it's a nice incentive to buy multiple products.
- Tabbed info on the product page - this is cleaner, very nice. But on a 1920x1080 display I still only get 3 lines up write-up without scrolling... sigh. You're not making it easy to enjoy your writing, woot. This offsets how much easier it is to get product info/photos.

Overall... well, woot's gotta make a buck I guess, and I don't mind them trying to stuff their site full of deals and ads. But please, please keep the main write-up front and center. It is the sole distinguishing feature in this business, and you're not serving your best interests by hiding it, at least in my opinion.

I think most of what I'm saying has been said already (I started culling quotes but server errors and the length of this is stopping me from posting them), but just two cents from someone who has regularly enjoyed woot for years (this includes many years of lurking before I finally signed up and started buying too)

Yuck!

Aside from finally finding faster servers, I'm having a tough time finding any improvements to the site.

Just my first impressions:

"Discuss this Deal" scrolling thingy is way too fast and way to annoying. They got rid of the BLINK tag for a reason, ya'know.

Why do we have to click again to get to the daily product/shirt page? Now to see information about what we want (the daily deal/shirt), we have to click through a useless landing page. All this just hawk the Woot Plus crap is pretty sad.

I suppose you're going to be re-writing the FAQ page? Because right now it's pretty offensive to customers. Yes, the old FAQ was very funny and well-written, but the new one is a horrible joke. It's not even a little helpful or even funny, just mean.

What's with all the "sharing" links? Is it insecurity that makes you want to help people annoy their friends with "ZMG A THING ON WOOT" posts? Or is it just a case of "everyone is doing sharing links, we should to!"? Or maybe you wasted some money on a "social networking marketing consultant" who said sharing links increase profits by 32%? To be blunt, sharing links are a stupid idea and a waste of space.

All the hover-popups are incredibly annoying and horrible user interface design. If I put my mouse over the Shirt! link, it's because I want to go there, not because I want to have something jump out at me, giving me just enough information about that deal to be 87% useless. Besides, don't you want people to actually look at the deals? Why scare them away with a tiny popup of uselessness?

What's with all the "Top Comments" being nothing but sycophantic wanking? I remember quality posts (that's what they were, remember?) would often be critical or helpful -- now it's nothing but Oh Woot, you're so wonderful! Have my babies!.

I tried to hide my disgust with the more pointless changes to the site. Didn't work, sorry.

Edit: Ads on the front page!? Thank Zeus for AdBlock.

So I played around with it some more on various devices. Big screens seem ok, iPad seems ok, NetBook is poo. Haven't tried it on the BBerry, but hey, it's a BBerry, so expectations are low to begin with.

Slydon wrote:But that's just vanity, and I completely understand that I do work for a business, and we've got to sell the product to keep the lights on. I just very much hope writeup fans will click through to read the blog and the content and show my bosses how many people come here to enjoy the fun as well. I know I and the other writers work very hard to entertain you guys, and we very much want to share what we do with everyone.

Woot used to be a niche geek site selling one (often somewhat lousy) product a day with hilarious, loveable, heartbreaking, disturbing but always solidly entertaining writeups. I might have complained about every change Woot's done over the past 6 years, but I keep coming back because the writeups have still kept the Woot flavor alive, and they're always fun times.

Thanks for your work, and I hope you guys can convince the higher-ups how important the writeup is to the Woot identity!

"Today is the first day of the rest of your Woot."

Today is the last day I ever come back here. There is no longer 1 deal a day but several deals a day. Thank you for saving me my money and becoming an average retailer.

Dunno if I like your new look or not. I came here for the good deals and simple website. Now, it looks very "corporate-ish", followed by a ton of things in my face that have no relevance to the ONE sale item. If I wanted Amazon.com I would go to Amazon.com. This feels less like woot and more like a suit!

I think it's time for me to find another...

I don't like the fact that you asked your customers for their feedback in this thread, which I provided, and then you deleted my posts, just because YOU may not agree with my opinion.

I'll say again, perhaps a tad more succinctly:

1) Landing page is WAY too busy
2) Tone down the white background, it's burning out my retinas.
3) Too many self-promotional sets of links; three sets on the same page to take you to the same place is unnecessary and insults my intelligence.
4) The proliferation of large ads on all the pages is offensive. If you must have ads on the pages, make them a little less intrusive.
5) Access to FULL product descriptions/specs/etc. need to be available on landing pages WITHOUT having to click though other tabs/nonsense. Has Woot! bought stock in a repetitive stress injury equipment company? All the extra clicking around is going to give people carpal tunnel syndrome.

Add me to the "don't really like it" camp. It's no longer focused on your woot! product. Now it screams "We need to monetize every inch of the screen!". It's cluttered and unpleasant to me, a long-time wooter.

1. Most importantly, the entire product sales pitch should be on the page. We should not have to click "read more" to read it. It is [or at least used to be] the *primary* reason I come to woot!, to see the product and your pitch.

2. Scrolling 'interesting' posts, really? So now I can't quickly scan the links to the interesting posts. Instead I have to either click to yet another page, or sit there and stare at one spot on the page for a couple minutes and hope I haven't missed one. Yuck.

3. Do you really need 3 large advertisements on the main page? Is woot! so hard up for cash that they can't just accept the profits on the products they sell to us, the consumers, but now they have to make the consumers a product as well? To be honest, it's a bit insulting.

4. Way too much screen given to woot!plus, right below the main product. The product pitch should be here. woot!plus should be a link at the top and on the side like the other woot pages [kids, short, wine etc].

I guess those are my biggest beefs with the new page. Once you click the 'read more' and get the actual product page, I think the layout is great. But the front page is a disaster from the standpoint of someone coming to see what the woot deals are.

Edit:
I feel I should add, I do like some aspects of the new design. I like the top menu bar, it's very nice.
I won't say I *like* it but the 'share this deal' links are easy yet unobtrusive so they're okay.

Definitely keep the side-bar images/links to the other woot pages as you've done.

I don't have any issue with the font or color scheme, though I'll agree with above posters that the background is a little bright, but that's minor.

And again, other than the scrolling 'interesting posts', the layout and function of the product specific page is great. I like the tabs to see specs and sales details.

Not a big fan. The coolness that was Woot was the single deal of the day. The woot plus thing is an even BIGGER part of the page and looks simply like someone figured out affiliate selling accounts. Big whoop.
Woot Plus should be a tab like deal/sellout/kids etc and the focus of the site should STILL be the single deal of the day and the writeup/specs of said deal.
Overall- really don't like the "upgrade." At the rate you're going, why not just call it Wootazon.com and merge sites?

Oh, Woot!
You know me so well...
Just what I wanted for our 7th anniversary ~ a nice, glitzy Beta!

bwhahahahha

new look but same sorry servers that kept me from 3 Bouts of Consternation in confirm screen this past week.

Woot plus - Woot minus

Okay, So this isn't pretty or perfect - but this would be better to me.



I think the product description and specs belong on the front page.

I understand you want W+ to get exposure - but they take over the page. Putting them where the old site thumbnails are would be great.

And of course there would need to be some color blocking to tone down the glare. Perhaps some light grey under the description to make it easier on the eyes?

Whatcha think?

I tried to reply to a comment..but the incessant server error wont allow it..

On the topic of being too bright and having too much blank whiteness - Viewpoints.com had the same problem when they did their re-design a few months ago - it became a boring blank slate that actually hurt to look at..they have since resolved this issue with what I think are stylish blocks on a toned down background:
http://www.viewpoints.com/

The menu bar for navigating sites is nice, but everything else sucks. Far, far too much junk on the front page; I want the woot deal and description, maybe a poll, not pages and pages of random assorted stealth advertising. And putting the product description on the right side of the page makes the site look even worse in 1024x768 than it already did. Having no margin on either side of the page is very awkward, too.

thumperchick wrote:Okay, So this isn't pretty or perfect - but this would be better to me.



I think the product description and specs belong on the front page.

I understand you want W+ to get exposure - but they take over the page. Putting them where the old site thumbnails are would be great.

And of course there would need to be some color blocking to tone down the glare. Perhaps some light grey under the description to make it easier on the eyes?

Whatcha think?

This looks pretty good to me..still busy and cramped..but an improvement..and the site definitely needs some color blocking..

Meh, too busy and clunky. I just want a quick view of what is available for the woot I am on. The only large graphic should be the current item, not the entire catalogue. I think the only thing you didnt throw in was the flashing "New" graphic.

Slydon wrote:Click "not you?" up there next to your name. Hope you'll come back right after you test it.

It feels silly to me changing to (not you?) as the logout, especially when I've seen this question many times. Even Amazon has gone from using the (not you?) to "Sign out." It doesn't seem intuitive.

Anyway, I love the writeups, and I want to give props to you and the other writers. I just wish more of your work was displayed on the front page. At first I was wishing it was back where it used to be, but now I really like the idea of it being above the fold on the page. I just wish you could read more without having to click through.

I would like to buy several items today, But I don’t want to give my credit card number before I have finished adding items to my cart. Its rather Jack-Ass-ish of you to assume that I’d want to. When you walk in to a brick-and-mortar store, how would you feel if as soon as you picked up one item the clerk wanted to hold your credit card until you were done looking around? I don’t remember you having this problem before the revamp.
I live in a dorm where the WIFI drops regularly and is sometimes out for long periods of time, if I have an item I was going to buy in my cart, its sometimes lost, sometimes from your very site. I don’t mind too much until it can affect my money. As a company with amazons resources, I’d assume you’d like to make shopping as least jack-ass-ish as possible.
I won’t be buying any of the items I was going to buy today. But as the internet has literally thousands of sites that want to sell me T-shirts, I’m sure I can get my need for witty clothing in a way that makes me feel more secure.
I may try you again after the Beta tag is removed, or its more likely I’ll continue with the other companies I buy from.