New Top Navigation On Kobo.com

[BrodieKobo]

Hi all,

We just recently updated our top navigation on Kobo.com! We've simplified it to browse categories quicker, access top selling books and recently reduced titles, and even access free ebooks too.

We'd love your feedback on the design - what works well, what doesn't so we can further improve. We really appreciate your feedback

Cheers!

Brodie

[ottdmk]

It works ok for me. One thing I just noticed though: if you try to click any of the links in the Tablet menu they all take you to the Kobo Aura.

[rashkae]

The mouse flyover pop up menus are *always* annoying. I know kobo is certainly not alone in using these, but click to open is much better.

[John F]

It is extremly slow to come up on my ipad. It crashed just visiting the front page, and than crashed when I clicked on a link on the front page.

[ppowell002]

It's annoying, slow to load on iPad, harder to navigate. I wish you would spend more time on your site's terrible search function and less time on changes that IMO serve no useful purpose.
Examples:
Category for fiction and literature-sub lists lack granularity; I don't search for books under Drama, that's for Netflix.

Links from email alerts to sale books are almost impossible to filter search without my scrolling through a zillion bodice- rippers to find a book that interests me.

Honestly, I hate your site and use it only when I already know what I want to buy.

On a more positive note, am enjoying my new Glo hd.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by ppowell002

It's annoying, slow to load on iPad, harder to navigate. I wish you would spend more time on your site's terrible search function and less time on changes that IMO serve no useful purpose.

Kind of have to agree. How many times has the site been redesigned now and yet the search, which people have complained about since day one, is still an issue.

[rashkae]

Is the auto fill suggestions when typing in search new? Seems to be.. oddly responsive and functional.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by rashkae

Is the auto fill suggestions when typing in search new? Seems to be.. oddly responsive and functional.

It's done that for quite a while now.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Kind of have to agree. How many times has the site been redesigned now and yet the search, which people have complained about since day one, is still an issue.

The search is terrible, but the thing I most want fixed is clicking on an author link only showing books by that author. Same goes for the series.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by davidfor

The search is terrible, but the thing I most want fixed is clicking on an author link only showing books by that author. Same goes for the series.

I've had pretty good luck with the author part. Series, not so much.


I'd also like to see a much improved library page. No search. With over 1,000 in my account it'd be nice to be able to search for a title or author in my library. Only being able to sort by Date & Title makes finding a title clumsy at best (add search and sort by author). It'd be nice too if there was a way to update books that have updates like on Amazon. As it stands now you have to know ahead of time the book was updated and then try & get CS to push the fixed version to your account.

[ppowell002]

[QUOTE=AnemicOak;3120714I'd also like to see a much improved library page. No search. With over 1,000 in my account it'd be nice to be able to search for a title or author in my library. Only being able to sort by Date & Title makes finding a title clumsy at best (add search and sort by author).

YES! ME TOO.

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by BrodieKobo

Hi all,

We just recently updated our top navigation on Kobo.com! We've simplified it to browse categories quicker, access top selling books and recently reduced titles, and even access free ebooks too.

We'd love your feedback on the design - what works well, what doesn't so we can further improve. We really appreciate your feedback

Cheers!

Brodie

I like the new top navigation - I use a PC so it's good for me.

Glad you can search for the free ebooks again, that was a great feature of the old web site.

Changes fine by me.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by davidfor

The search is terrible, but the thing I most want fixed is clicking on an author link only showing books by that author. Same goes for the series.

I have noticed an improvement to the search results output on the website:

Before if I searched for an author it would list all books by that author, and then add some other apparently random books to the end of the list to full up the page.

Now it lists the books by the author that I searched for then adds the other books under a separate heading "People who read these also enjoyed" which makes it clear that these are not part of the search results.

(As usual this might depend on country and browser you are using. I am in New Zealand and use Firefox.)

[howyoudoin]

BrodieKobo, how do I search for free books on my Aura H2O?

[MacEachaidh]

Originally Posted by GeoffR

I have noticed an improvement to the search results output on the website:

Before if I searched for an author it would list all books by that author, and then add some other apparently random books to the end of the list to full up the page.

Now it lists the books by the author that I searched for then adds the other books under a separate heading "People who read these also enjoyed" which makes it clear that these are not part of the search results.

(As usual this might depend on country and browser you are using. I am in New Zealand and use Firefox.)

I see the same, Geoff, across the Pond in Australia. Yes, Firefox here as well.

But there is something maybe too imprecise in the search algorithm -- I've noticed quite a few times lately when I've searched on an author's name, the returned results don't include a book I was particularly looking for, which seems to suggest Kobo doesn't have it, yet if I then search on the title, there it is. And it's not a matter of a simple difference, such as an author's middle initial being included in one listing but not the other, so I don't know what makes the difference. I don't mind the fuzzy results -- I've found interesting books that way -- but clearly the primary goal should be to return accurate results first.

The Angus & Robertson site (Australian site aligned with Kobo) does a fuzzy search in the first instance, and so returns results from other authors in similar subjects, but then at the top of the list it places a link that says "Show me titles only by <Author>". That must help clarify the search, because it seems to have the same issue with complete results -- using that link often then returns titles by the author you searched on that weren't returned, at least on the first or second pages, under the previous fuzzy search.

Brodie, could such an option help with the Kobo search accuracy?