Overdrive Redesign

[elemenoP]

Overdrive has launched a redesign. I can see it at my library (Brooklyn Public Library):

http://digitalbooks.brooklynpublicli...en/default.htm

I assume it has rolled out to all libraries at the same time?

Looks like they made a big push to make the site more tablet-centric. Nice big thumbnails. It looks like there is less information about each book in a list view, but if you know how to find it, it's there. For example, there is a CD icon for audio books in the upper right of the thumbnail, and a book icon for epub/kindle books (I don't know if they distinguish epub from kindle in any way). There is a gray flag below the thumbnail that changes to red if the book is in your wishlist, but oddly it stays gray if the book is on hold. Maybe they haven't implemented a change in color yet if the book is on hold? You can mouse over any book and see if it's available or not, but how would you know that on a tablet (no mouse over state)?

There are two different thumbnail sizes and I don't know why.

The site uses responsive design very nicely. If you make your screen smaller, you will see that the screen responds, and then changes to a mobile layout when you go below a certain screen width. That's pretty cool!

Today the site is VERY slow, I hope that's just growing pains while they roll out the changes. I would hate for it be much slower now.

What do you think of the new site?

[elemenoP]

I misunderstood the flags. The red flag means the book is available for checkout. I see that at my library, almost no books are available for checkout right away!

EDIT: I think I still don't understand the flag colors.

eP

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by elemenoP

I assume it has rolled out to all libraries at the same time?

No - none of the libraries in the Seattle area have it.

[JD Gumby]

Eww. Ugly. Glad my library hasn't switched over. It's ugly enough as it is and seems to have better searching...

[Sydney's Mom]

Not in the Chicago suburbs. As always, I like the old one better (itunes).

[DianNC]

Originally Posted by elemenoP

What do you think of the new site?

I've only just looked at it, but it reminds me a bit of Windows 8 -- more steps to accomplish what was previously a one-click task.

For instance - browsing my wish list last night, I could instantly see the titles that were available now and those that required a hold. This new design requires that I click on each book separately to get the current status and then use the back-button to see each of the others.

I know I'll get used to it, but to answer your question, I liked the old, more efficient site better.

[piper28]

My library hasn't gotten the new look yet, but I have noticed one change recently: the wishlist only seems to show 50 books. I have a ton of books on my wish list, and suddenly in the last week or so I noticed that the wishlist page took a lot less time to load, and then discovered that it had drastically shortened the number of books listed. And as far as I can determine, there's no way to look at anything other than the first 50 books on my wishlist (ordered by most recently added), but it *is* still keeping track of the others. When I remove one of the displayed books from the list, it brings back one of the ones I can't see at the end of the list.

And ugh, if as DianNC says you have to actually click on each book to see if it's available in the wish list under the new site, that's going to just plain suck.

[toomanybooks]

I called Overdrive and after pressuring the nice phone operator she put me on hold and asked around. The only fifty recent wish list items showing is a glitch caused by the rollout of the new update. They are aware of it and she claims that they have their tech guys working overtime to fix it.

[xendula]

I just checked my other libraries, and they don't have the new look. Also, the regular Brooklyn link that I have saved in my favorites still looks the same as before, so they may be doing A/B testing at the moment. I love the new design, it is more tablet friendly than the old mobile site.

Thanks for sharing, I would have never known anything changed otherwise.

I love that they now show you your check-out limit, items checked out, etc!
I hate that you can't have different lending periods for different audio formats. I can always return an MP3 when I am done, so for MP3s I always had the maximum check out time before, while with the stuuuupid wmv files, that cannot be returned by the user, I always had the shortest periods.

Weird, you can no longer tell when a title was added to the site, so you can no longer tell that this is not working. Or maybe it is finally working?!

[xendula]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

Eww. Ugly. Glad my library hasn't switched over. It's ugly enough as it is and seems to have better searching...

Ugh, I just noticed that Halifax does not offer any Kindle titles!

[Joykins]

Well, that certainly does look optimized for people who really enjoy loading a lot of separate pages to get to a book description.

[xendula]

OK so after 10 minutes of browsing the new Brooklyn site, I am backpedaling on my initial reaction: it looks pretty but is much less user friendly. Less info is displayed than before, the pages load too slowly at the moment, some info is still there but it requires additional clicks to find it, you can no longer see longer book titles at all in the overview or search view on the iPad, and,if this is tablet optimized, why are the forward arrows so tiny.
I'd rather go back to ugly but functional.

[FizzyWater]

I noticed the same thing on the Cleveland CLEVNET Overdrive site. I can't help wondering if they did any real user testing before they rolled this out - I utterly hate it!

[llcj]

Originally Posted by xendula

Ugh, I just noticed that Halifax does not offer any Kindle titles!

No Canadian library offers Kindle titles, as far as I know. I think this may be the same in other countries. As far as I know this is an Amazon issue.

[xendula]

^ I think it may be tne same in Germany, but only because Amazon opened their kindle store there way too late, by which time ePub was the only established format.