MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Hoopla now supports e-book lending for libraries

Dan S · 07-13-2015, 08:37 PM

I tried out the Hoopla service for the first time a few days ago, as an avid digital comic reader I was excited at the thought of getting to check out a few graphic novels each month for free.

While the app has potential for its comics section, I immediately ran into quite a few user interface issues that I was really surprised they let happen.

They were all pretty basic things that do not seem like a big technical challenge to include, making me wonder if they did not bother getting any comics reading folks to test out the functionality even briefly before the initial release. Examples include:

1-No indication of what page you are on, no indication of how many pages still to be read of the title you are reading.

2-No navigation slider. If you first page through a title to browse it, when the time comes to actually read it you have to literally page backwards through every page one at a time, to get back to the beginning (in my case this was a 128 page graphic novel so I got to do 128 separate swipes to get back to page 1).

3-Always displays the top part of screen, time of day, battery level, etc. when reading, does not go away in full screen view, very distracting when reading.

4-You can check out 4 titles per month (from my library, some may offer more), fair enough since those rules are made by the library. However, what is silly is that you are also restricted to 3 check outs per day, so you have to come back a day later to check out the 4th title you have found you want.

This restriction seems arbitrary and a waste of the user's time. We are allowed get the 4th title the very next day and then we are done for the month, so why not just let us get all 4 on the same day as the other 3 titles we are allowed for the month? What does this extra restriction really accomplish?

5-When browsing titles to decide what to check out, there is no multi-page “preview” of the interior artwork, on the book's browse page, like you see on Kindle, Comixology, etc.

The only way to see any interior art of a title is to actually check the title out. If you then see that you do not like the art and decide it is not a comic you want to read, too bad, you have just used up 1 of your 4 monthly checkouts just to see even a couple of pages of the art. That's crazy.

6-When browsing titles to checkout, there no hierarchical grouping of issues within a title (like the comixology app does), making the browse list of titles one huge "root level" list, extremely long and unwieldy (and not even sorted by title or issue number, so its literally a huge random list).

7-Available issues within a series are often incomplete. For example, vols. 2 and 3 of Clive Barker's “Hellraiser: Dark Watch” title are available, but not vol. 1. Series like these have a lot of continuity, so no one is going to want to start in the middle. Why offer 2 and 3 but not 1?

Not to rant but I just don't understand how this stuff happens in a mainstream, professional company. None of these issues seem like a big deal to address on a technical level (other reading apps all have these missing features and have had so from the start), and any comic-reading tester would have quickly brought up these issues to the product manager right away during the most basic of testing.

In case it helps, I did mail this list to the company and they did email back they would keep my feedback in mind.

Thanks!

07-13-2015, 08:37 PM	#29
Dan S Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2010 Device: Ipad	I tried out the Hoopla service for the first time a few days ago, as an avid digital comic reader I was excited at the thought of getting to check out a few graphic novels each month for free. While the app has potential for its comics section, I immediately ran into quite a few user interface issues that I was really surprised they let happen. They were all pretty basic things that do not seem like a big technical challenge to include, making me wonder if they did not bother getting any comics reading folks to test out the functionality even briefly before the initial release. Examples include: 1-No indication of what page you are on, no indication of how many pages still to be read of the title you are reading. 2-No navigation slider. If you first page through a title to browse it, when the time comes to actually read it you have to literally page backwards through every page one at a time, to get back to the beginning (in my case this was a 128 page graphic novel so I got to do 128 separate swipes to get back to page 1). 3-Always displays the top part of screen, time of day, battery level, etc. when reading, does not go away in full screen view, very distracting when reading. 4-You can check out 4 titles per month (from my library, some may offer more), fair enough since those rules are made by the library. However, what is silly is that you are also restricted to 3 check outs per day, so you have to come back a day later to check out the 4th title you have found you want. This restriction seems arbitrary and a waste of the user's time. We are allowed get the 4th title the very next day and then we are done for the month, so why not just let us get all 4 on the same day as the other 3 titles we are allowed for the month? What does this extra restriction really accomplish? 5-When browsing titles to decide what to check out, there is no multi-page “preview” of the interior artwork, on the book's browse page, like you see on Kindle, Comixology, etc. The only way to see any interior art of a title is to actually check the title out. If you then see that you do not like the art and decide it is not a comic you want to read, too bad, you have just used up 1 of your 4 monthly checkouts just to see even a couple of pages of the art. That's crazy. 6-When browsing titles to checkout, there no hierarchical grouping of issues within a title (like the comixology app does), making the browse list of titles one huge "root level" list, extremely long and unwieldy (and not even sorted by title or issue number, so its literally a huge random list). 7-Available issues within a series are often incomplete. For example, vols. 2 and 3 of Clive Barker's “Hellraiser: Dark Watch” title are available, but not vol. 1. Series like these have a lot of continuity, so no one is going to want to start in the middle. Why offer 2 and 3 but not 1? Not to rant but I just don't understand how this stuff happens in a mainstream, professional company. None of these issues seem like a big deal to address on a technical level (other reading apps all have these missing features and have had so from the start), and any comic-reading tester would have quickly brought up these issues to the product manager right away during the most basic of testing. In case it helps, I did mail this list to the company and they did email back they would keep my feedback in mind. Thanks!