Critiques are defensively dismissed and it seems there is no point. Whether some feature was there on old site or not, the new one is difficult, cumbersome, too busy, and altogether a different experience---and not so good as old one.
Critiques are defensively dismissed and it seems there is no point. Whether some feature was there on old site or not, the new one is difficult, cumbersome, too busy, and altogether a different experience---and not so good as old one.
Critiques are defensively dismissed and it seems there is no point. Whether some feature was there on old site or not, the new one is difficult, cumbersome, too busy, and altogether a different experience---and not so good as old one.
Critiques are defensively dismissed and it seems there is no point. Whether some feature was there on old site or not, the new one is difficult, cumbersome, too busy, and altogether a different experience---and not so good as old one.
Critiques are defensively dismissed and it seems there is no point. Whether some feature was there on old site or not, the new one is difficult, cumbersome, too busy, and altogether a different experience---and not so good as old one.
Critiques are defensively dismissed and it seems there is no point. Whether some feature was there on old site or not, the new one is difficult, cumbersome, too busy, and altogether a different experience---and not so good as old one.
I'm constantly being asked, on a big black page, if I'd like to take a survey. That interruption negatively affects the user experience for me. Also, I find the "latest community picks" feature, which appears in several different places on the contest page, to be quite confusing. Most of the "latest community picks" are recipes from many months ago, and even over a year ago. Perhaps those should be re-captioned simply as "Past Community Picks," or "What the Community Likes." Another "fix" that would improve the overall look of the pages that have a lot of different content on them would be to figure out some way not to repeat images/recipes on the same page at the same time. That happens a lot. It appears to be an error. I suspect that it is also contributing to the overall feeling of disorganization noted by others here. ;o)
The video ads expand themselves easily because they are right beside the scroll bar on the right, so your mouse pointer is over there anyway. The expand on me nearly every time I visit the home page.
I like the new graphics and look, kudos for that. Whoever did that did a fantastic job.
I hate the main page and never look at it anymore, It is too busy. I can't find the stuff I am interested in. I want to limit what I look at, ans select it. Actually, I don't look at most of the site any longer. I used to look, but only participate in foodpickle/hotline.
I am particularly annoyed at the abuse of your readers by your video ads. I do not believe that you have less ads. If that is really true, then bring back more ads and get rid of the intrusive video ads. I just won't watch a page that has those going on. So I guess I'm off hotline too now. Please reconsider this abuse on our eyeballs.
Nutcakes, we're glad to hear you like the graphics and the look and we are in the process of reevaluating our home page now. We wanted to surface a lot of new and different content but we realize we need to have more predictability and make it easier for people to find and enjoy new content as it is published.
In terms of the ad units, we now have just one ad unit per page as opposed to having two (one above the header and one on the top right). The video plays and the units themselves expand only when you hover over them with your mouse for at least 3 seconds. We are hearing that many people are doing this inadvertently and perhaps this is happening to you as well. I hope that this information will help you have a better experience on FOOD52.
I think the old site was much easier to navigate, but it always takes time to get things right when revamping an old site or creating a brand new one. I'll be patient since I LOVE Food 52!
It may a combination of factors, but one does see the evolution of the site in the past 10 days.. The smoothing of edges, the polish, The slickness.. Its shaping up beautifully!
It may a combination of factors, but one does see the evolution of the site in the past 10 days.. The smoothing of edges, the polish, The slickness.. Its shaping up beautifully!
It may a combination of factors, but one does see the evolution of the site in the past 10 days.. The smoothing of edges, the polish, The slickness.. Its shaping up beautifully!
Amanda, thank you for responding. I guess i just didn't notice the stuff as much before. I think i am going to go back to tuning out the stuff i don't like and appreciating what i do like.
Some have suggested, in various postings to various questions and concerns about the new site, that people will always resist changes to something they like. This has the effect of silencing critics, since no one likes to be tagged as a foot-dragger as regards change.
However, I think some of the unhappiness is related to a more intuitive sense among some devoted followers of the site. Food52 has always been a business, with a web site and products, like the cookbooks, designed to make a profit. There is no problem there. However, the old site always felt like a community first, albeit a virtual one, and a business second. That's because of the relative plainness of the original site and the genius of the original idea. The new site, at this moment, feels like a business first and a community second. Apsingh's analogy of an independent band signed to a major label is a good analogy. Whether the community "feel" will again assert itself remains to be seen; it will be interesting to watch.
Apologies for the language of intuition and connotation. I suppose that's why I'm a teacher of literature.
I am new to this site. I absolutely love the site, but many things about it are counterintuitive. For example, in Contests, one should be able to see the community pick nominees as well as the selected community picks all under the contest menu, rather than navigating 3 different menus and having to remember it for the next time. Same with videos - I finally had a chance to watch a few and couldn't find them - until I noticed someone else asked a similar question and a link was posted. Again, I love this site and look forward to participating.
I'm very happy for A&M for the expansion of their company, but I sort of felt this coming once I saw their TEDx talk. Its like being a fan of a company of an independent band before they get signed to a major label, or going to a restaurant before it gets 4.5 stars on Yelp. Undoubtedly the fame/expansion/growth will make you long for the good old days. Some of the new stuff is down right awesome, I just noticed the "What semi-prepped "convenience foods" if any do you purchase as a shortcut?" question which I will definitely be clicking on so there's something cool, but one longs for the familiar.
I find this site just too busy, busy. After discovering it nearly a year ago, I have loved it and found it easy to navigate. Now, not so much. I come here less and less, unfortunately. And, usually only to retrieve recipes from my 'recipe box.' Too bad.
it is just that i dislike all the "live" stuff, the "agrees" , flags & whistles, "pies", etc. i find it very distracting and unnecessary. also, popular questions: who cares? there are just so many things on the page that take up space!
Nina, I'm not trying to give you a hard time because I appreciate your willingness to be honest with us, but much of the live stuff was on the old site, too. In fact we took away some of it. You used to be able to "like" photos and we've removed that. You've always been able to "thumbs up" a hotline answer, we just changed the language to "agree," which we felt more accurately expressed what you were clicking for. Popular questions were also on the old site, as were the live feeds -- we pull them in from Chartbeat. All we added were more actions, and we put feeds on one or two more pages. I do agree that we need to curb the length of some of these feeds, and we'll get to that soonish.
I so love the "live" stuff, agrees, and "pies"... makes it feel interactive. Antonia James had an excellent thought about paying a premium for custom page without ads, I don't know if it would be possible to customize for a price to remove these features. I'm not tech savvy enough to have any idea.
First: let me say that I love Food52 and appreciate all the work that goes into this site, community, and business. But I think the issues are not around the number of features as much as how they are designed -- where and when they appear on the page, their size, whether they are intuitive to the user. For example, why does it say "Person thinks this is an excellent answer" (I think there's supposed to be a #, but it's not showing up) under every answer instead of just a number and a thumbs up? I'd say it's more of a user interface design issue than an issue with features.
As someone who develops online training, I know how frustrating this can be on the development end. I have found myself asking (or screaming), "Why are they confused by this? It's so clear!" But what's clear to the developer often fuddles the user.
That said, there has been a definite improvement over the past two weeks and I can't wait to see what's coming! Thank you for creating this community and being kind to those of us who are working through change.
We appreciate your thoughts, and we're working on refining some of the design (for instance, Hotline, Profile and Home page), and this will take some weeks, but the reality is that only the home page has a lot more content. The old "Cooks" page was a dead page that we never developed, rarely updated, and it failed to offer visitors any helpful info about the cooks and why they were being featured. The "Contests" page confused everyone and buried a lot of the content, so we brought it to the surface and we enriched the page of the current contests by adding the recipe entries in a grid, so you no longer have to dig deep to find them. The News page is essentially the same. Our new Shop features many of the producers we featured in the past -- only now, we're curating special offers for everyone (something that takes more work than what we used to do). And there are now fewer ads on the site than ever. We know it will take some getting used to; it's an on-going project. All we need is your trust and patience.
Amanda, is improved navigation one of the goals of the refining process? So many hotline questions are "where can I find.....?" .. Would it be difficult to add text menus to each of the pages? For example, a list of the blog categories on the Articles Page (Cooking from Every Angle, Community Picks, Jenny's in the Kitchen, Videos, etc.) And a list of the contest categories on the contest page (where people can quickly find contest winners & community picks without being redirected to the recipes database for all winners & community picks)?
Agree the new "Cooks" is fabulous and I have met a lot of Cooks that I wouldn't have run across with the old page.
I can't access the recipes entered into the Contests with the new format, am Imissing something? Grid?
The old contests page didn't confuse me.
Under Shop, I am only seeing the current offer, not the list I used to see.
I'm quite happy with the project and that you welcome comments.
I can't say "like" for this answer but Ihave to agree with you. I like some features of the revamped site but miss the quieter site. I keep accidentally tripping advertisements and feel that there's a more commercial feel to the site overall. I miss the list of shops that I used to create last year's Christmas list. However, I like that Amanda said upfront in her article about the new site that this is a business as well as a community, and it seems to be doing well. Better a "busy" site than a site less traveled that disappears.
34 Comments
I hate the main page and never look at it anymore, It is too busy. I can't find the stuff I am interested in. I want to limit what I look at, ans select it. Actually, I don't look at most of the site any longer. I used to look, but only participate in foodpickle/hotline.
I am particularly annoyed at the abuse of your readers by your video ads. I do not believe that you have less ads. If that is really true, then bring back more ads and get rid of the intrusive video ads. I just won't watch a page that has those going on. So I guess I'm off hotline too now. Please reconsider this abuse on our eyeballs.
In terms of the ad units, we now have just one ad unit per page as opposed to having two (one above the header and one on the top right). The video plays and the units themselves expand only when you hover over them with your mouse for at least 3 seconds. We are hearing that many people are doing this inadvertently and perhaps this is happening to you as well. I hope that this information will help you have a better experience on FOOD52.
However, I think some of the unhappiness is related to a more intuitive sense among some devoted followers of the site. Food52 has always been a business, with a web site and products, like the cookbooks, designed to make a profit. There is no problem there. However, the old site always felt like a community first, albeit a virtual one, and a business second. That's because of the relative plainness of the original site and the genius of the original idea. The new site, at this moment, feels like a business first and a community second. Apsingh's analogy of an independent band signed to a major label is a good analogy. Whether the community "feel" will again assert itself remains to be seen; it will be interesting to watch.
Apologies for the language of intuition and connotation. I suppose that's why I'm a teacher of literature.
As someone who develops online training, I know how frustrating this can be on the development end. I have found myself asking (or screaming), "Why are they confused by this? It's so clear!" But what's clear to the developer often fuddles the user.
That said, there has been a definite improvement over the past two weeks and I can't wait to see what's coming! Thank you for creating this community and being kind to those of us who are working through change.
I can't access the recipes entered into the Contests with the new format, am Imissing something? Grid?
The old contests page didn't confuse me.
Under Shop, I am only seeing the current offer, not the list I used to see.
I'm quite happy with the project and that you welcome comments.
Voted the Best Reply!