Overdrive Redesign

[Joykins]

It seems to be doing a search on the words in the title, but it isn't a very targeted search. It probably does have to do with what kind of search engine your library catalog uses.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Joykins

It seems to be doing a search on the words in the title, but it isn't a very targeted search. It probably does have to do with what kind of search engine your library catalog uses.

If you are having a problem, contact the developer. He may need to tweak something for your library. I have found him very responsive.

I ignore multiple results as it never seems to match (but may yet be of interest). But when there's only one match, it is usually correct.

[tubemonkey]

Another one of my primary libraries went over to the dark side. That leaves one still doing it old school, with no indication that they'll be changing any time soon.

[copyrite]

When I logged into Overdrive a bit ago I had the option of taking a survey

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2013Ov...UserExperience

so tell 'em what you think!

[Purple Lady]

I just did the survey. Here are a few of my answers

I used to browse the library's ebook collection until the new website. Now I only look for books I have found elsewhere.

The new site looks bad on both windows computer and tablet.

The old website was very easy to use. I used to be able to see the title, author, and description all together which made it easy to browse. If the book was part of a series, I could also see the other books available in the series. Now all I see on first glance is part of the title and part of the author name. If I want any info about the book I have to click on a link - not very user friendly. Everything I do takes more clicks and more web pages than before.

Then the website crashed. At least I was copying and pasting my answers here so I can try again later.

[xendula]

I took it as well and my answers were similar to yours, Purple Lady.

One additional complaint I kept reiterating was the slow load times and the chopped off titles and author names. I just can't take ow slow everything is to load - in 2013!

I check four library sites daily, and am now easily wasting 3 or 4 times the amount of time to achieve the same. Plus, I browse elsewhere now and go to the sites only to search and check out books.

I feel that the way they asked the questions, they were fishing for compliments. "Do I think that adding the top right corner is an improvement?" Well, it would not be necessary, since that was already in the old view, so I answered no.

[DianNC]

Originally Posted by copyrite

...so tell 'em what you think!

Thank you for posting the survey link!!!

I told 'em!!!

[4691mls]

Thank you Copyrite for providing the link. I have not seen any surveys on my library's web site. I made comments similar to Purple Lady's regarding the information that used to be available while browsing. I also said that I missed being able to scroll down my wish list and see at a glance actual words telling me that a book was available.

I wish they would have done a survey before the made the site changes, asking if we would be interested in their proposed changes.

[copyrite]

I suggested they should've tested the changes before implementing them and turning us all into guinea pigs.

[Purple Lady]

I finally got back on to complete the survey and changed my answers a bit and added a bunch more. Will it do any good?

I used to browse the library's ebook collection until the new website. Now I only look for books I have found elsewhere.

The new site looks bad on both windows computer and tablet, but on my 7 inch tablet I can only see one book cover at a time if I make the title and author font big enough to read(Nexus 7 using Chrome browser).

The old website was very easy to use. I used to be able to see the title, author, and description all together which made it easy to browse. If the book was part of a series, I could also see the other books available in the series. Now all I see on first glance is part of the title and part of the author name. If I want any info about the book I have to click on a link - not very user friendly. The book cover is now way too big and part of it is even covered now! Everything I do takes more clicks and more web pages than before including checkout. There also seems to be no way to easily change how long I want to check the book out now - I only get my default. The pages also take a lot longer to load now.

Select if you agree or disagree that the following presentation aspects are an improvement.
What Display of titles on the website homepage? There are a lot of large book covers and partial titles and partial author names.

Information on title details page - I don't like how the description of the book broken up into two places and there is now no series info.

Format options on the 'Bookshelf' page? I only get to download what I chose to download. If this is refering to picking the format to borrow, there are too many clicks to get to choose the format - Borrow, Download, Select one Format, Confirm & Download.


Select if you agree or disagree that the following functionality aspects are an improvement.
Responsive design - page loads seem much slower now especially since I have to go to so many pages to do what used to be fewer clicks and pages.

One-Step Checkout (no Cart) - there are too many clicks necessary - Borrow, Download, Select one Format, Confirm & Download.

Filtered search - finally, something that is good when it works.

[JD Gumby]

Ugh. Looks like the Halifax library has moved over to the new Overdrive design some time in the last month or so. Ugh.

And, as bad as it is through a desktop's web browser, it's sooooooooooooooo much worse on the mobile version through Overdrive Media Console on a tablet. :/

Discovery was a pain on the old site, but now it's almost impossible to find anything, especially on a tablet or phone:

1) Click an icon of 3 horizontal lines
2) Click "EBOOKS"
3) Click "View more..."
4) Scroll down a long page filled with giant covers that mean you get 4 covers at a time, but 6 covers per genre/category, to find your preferred category and click "View more..." - if you can. The choices are "All Fiction", "All Nonfiction", "Biography & Autobiography", "Business & Careers", "Cooking & Food", "Family & Relationships", "Foreign Language Study", "Health & Fitness", "Mystery & Thrillers", "Pets", "Self-Improvement", "Travel". The "View more..." is very tiny and you're likely to hit the giant book cover under it.
5) At the bottom of the category, you get the filters, all of which are links rather than a form. The "Subject" filter, the main one you'll want, has 37 entries, only 8 of which are shown, so you have to click "more..." to expand the list (amazing that they don't make you load a new page!). Links are tiny, so hitting the one you want is a pain.
6) Very limited number of results per page, so you have to page through to the one you want. No cart, so you have to click Borrow on it and then page back to your results.

(and, for some reason, when I clicked Download on one book, through OMC on my tab, it claimed to be "Loading New Title...", but no sign of it for the 10 minutes I let it run and, of course, no progress bar so you can't see if it's coming down or if it hung. Aborted by closing the program. Second time I tried, clicking the Download button sent me back to the library's main page. Third time it's "Loading New Title..." again, but no idea if it's actually doing anything - I think it probably isn't because my wi-fi icon isn't changing to its activity signal. Ugh.

EDIT: More than 10 minutes later (I know 'cos my screen dimmed) for the third attempt and it's still supposedly "Loading New Title..." with no wi-fi activity to back it up. About 2 minutes to download it, a 63MB Dilbert collection, on my desktop via Adobe Digital Editions.

EDIT AGAIN: Okay, found the culprit - gotta turn off the download immediately option so that it only adds the book to your library. Then you download it from the bookshelf (and you'll get a progress bar and everything). Still doesn't excuse the site's and the software's many faults!)

If Overdrive are actively trying to drive people away, they're doing a damned good job of it. Seriously, whoever it was at Overdrive who designed the new site obviously never actually tried to use it. Ditto for the team that did the latest version of the Console. They, and whichever execs signed off on them, really should lose their jobs for incompetence.)

[xendula]

Originally Posted by copyrite

I suggested they should've tested the changes before implementing them and turning us all into guinea pigs.

I also asked why they did not do any actual testing and how this ever got to Production.

[xendula]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

Ugh. Looks like the Halifax library has moved over to the new Overdrive design some time in the last month or so. Ugh.

And, as bad as it is through a desktop's web browser, it's sooooooooooooooo much worse on the mobile version through Overdrive Media Console on a tablet. :/

Discovery was a pain on the old site, but now it's almost impossible to find anything, especially on a tablet or phone:

1) Click an icon of 3 horizontal lines
2) Click "EBOOKS"
3) Click "View more..."
4) Scroll down a long page filled with giant covers that mean you get 4 covers at a time, but 6 covers per genre/category, to find your preferred category and click "View more..." - if you can. The choices are "All Fiction", "All Nonfiction", "Biography & Autobiography", "Business & Careers", "Cooking & Food", "Family & Relationships", "Foreign Language Study", "Health & Fitness", "Mystery & Thrillers", "Pets", "Self-Improvement", "Travel". The "View more..." is very tiny and you're likely to hit the giant book cover under it.
5) At the bottom of the category, you get the filters, all of which are links rather than a form. The "Subject" filter, the main one you'll want, has 37 entries, only 8 of which are shown, so you have to click "more..." to expand the list (amazing that they don't make you load a new page!). Links are tiny, so hitting the one you want is a pain.
6) Very limited number of results per page, so you have to page through to the one you want. No cart, so you have to click Borrow on it and then page back to your results.

(and, for some reason, when I clicked Download on one book, through OMC on my tab, it claimed to be "Loading New Title...", but no sign of it for the 10 minutes I let it run and, of course, no progress bar so you can't see if it's coming down or if it hung. Aborted by closing the program. Second time I tried, clicking the Download button sent me back to the library's main page. Third time it's "Loading New Title..." again, but no idea if it's actually doing anything - I think it probably isn't because my wi-fi icon isn't changing to its activity signal. Ugh.

EDIT: More than 10 minutes later (I know 'cos my screen dimmed) for the third attempt and it's still supposedly "Loading New Title..." with no wi-fi activity to back it up. About 2 minutes to download it, a 63MB Dilbert collection, on my desktop via Adobe Digital Editions.

EDIT AGAIN: Okay, found the culprit - gotta turn off the download immediately option so that it only adds the book to your library. Then you download it from the bookshelf (and you'll get a progress bar and everything). Still doesn't excuse the site's and the software's many faults!)

If Overdrive are actively trying to drive people away, they're doing a damned good job of it. Seriously, whoever it was at Overdrive who designed the new site obviously never actually tried to use it. Ditto for the team that did the latest version of the Console. They, and whichever execs signed off on them, really should lose their jobs for incompetence.)

I second everything you said, incuding the insane amount of scrolling clicking and waiting to load when looking up a specific genre, as well as using the app on both iOS and Android, which freezes trying to download anything. It freezes the screen and all I see is the circle telling me that the title is loading, but it really isn't. This happens with all my four libraries now. I go back to my bookshelf to see if the title loaded, then try to get back to the library, but the darn thing force-redirects me to the home page (WHY?!?!?), which I have to wait to load, then I click on the icon for my account, wait to have it load again, then repeat trying to download the title only to have it freeze on me again. Ugh.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

If Overdrive are actively trying to drive people away, they're doing a damned good job of it. Seriously, whoever it was at Overdrive who designed the new site obviously never actually tried to use it. Ditto for the team that did the latest version of the Console. They, and whichever execs signed off on them, really should lose their jobs for incompetence.)

Maybe they're in cahoots with the publishers? The publishers don't like libraries.

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by xendula

I second everything you said, incuding the insane amount of scrolling clicking and waiting to load when looking up a specific genre, as well as using the app on both iOS and Android, which freezes trying to download anything. It freezes the screen and all I see is the circle telling me that the title is loading, but it really isn't.

As I said in my second large edit, "EDIT AGAIN: Okay, found the culprit - gotta turn off the download immediately option so that it only adds the book to your library. Then you download it from the bookshelf (and you'll get a progress bar and everything)."