Forum

Just joined and I'm thrilled with the site, especially so because it works with Mozilla/Firefox.  Also, I love the interactive book listing as a book is typed into a search page - good job!

A few UI suggestions, mostly small enhancements:

• Have a "Add To Bookshelf" button immediately available for new subscribers, perhaps with other "get started" buttons as well.  It will get them jump started and save them the "frustration" of hunting for the proper place, as they get accustomed to the site.

• Add an error msg when "+ Add To Bookshelf" button is clicked and no checkbox is checked in the Search Results screen (http://www.eatyourbooks.com/my-eyb/book-search): After a book search is performed, there is a button for "+ Add To Bookshelf" as well as a check box next to the list of cookbooks.  If the search results in only 1 cookbook, it would be a typical action to ONLY click the "+ Add To Bookshelf" button (not also check the checkbox).  However, this doesn't add the cookbook because the checkbox is not checked. The checkbox is a required element for the addition of the book.  I understand how/why it was coded this way but it would be helpful if when the "+ Add To Bookshelf" button is clicked and there is no checkbox checked, that a error message (in bold red) appears to the user...which returns them to the same search results page.  This is a minor enhancement but can be quite an annoyance ...I thought I had added 4 cookbooks, to find that I actually had added none. 

• Include the Author name in the interactive book Search: In the interactive search (which appears as you are typing into the Search field), when 2 books have similar titles, there is no way to distinguish them from each other without having to click on a link to determine if it's the book you meant.  If the author was also listed, it would help narrow the choices.  For example, "Essential Vegetarian Cookbook" results in 4 books that appear in the interactive listing (this occurs prior to actually hitting the Search button.)  The one that I wanted was by Shaw but I had to click at random to find which one I really wanted from the result set, since there was no other way to narrow down the results.  If I had waited and clicked on the Search button, all the books and their images would have appeared and then I woudl be able to tell them apart...so this is only an enhancement request for the interactive search results feature.

• Removing a cookbook from BookShelf (via the X circle) does not update the number of cookbooks listing at the top of the page, until a refresh is done.  Since a deletion doesn't force a refresh, the user is left to wonder "did the deletion "take" even if the book is gone.  This is from Bookshelf (http://www.eatyourbooks.com/my-eyb/bookshelf), not the "My Bookshelf search page (http://www.eatyourbooks.com/my-eyb/my-book-search). NOTE: This is in both FireFox and IE.

Finally, I have one request for a cookbook add.  This book is so near and dear to my heart, I couldn't imagine not adding it : Greene On Greens by Bert Greene  ISBN: 9780894806599 by Workman Publishing.

Again, Thank you very much for the site.  Hope the enhancements help.

Welcome to EYB HunyBadger and thank you for the feedback.  We are currently working on a complete redesign of the UI and search functions - we did usability testing last week with several current EYB members and new users and I think you will be pleased with the changes.  Of course, it then takes weeks to do the actual recoding but it should be complete by the end of June.

The way that cookbooks are added to your Bookshelf will be vastly improved, also the way in which you search for them.  If you are searching for a book title that is used for more than one book, like The Essential Vegetarian then search on that and you will then see the list of results, with author names and book covers and you can then just select the one you want to add.  Adding author names to the dropdown list wouldn't really be any quicker, and would be a lot more text for you to scan on other searches.

In the next two weeks we will be expanding the EYB Library to over 100,000 cookbooks so you should then be able to find any book you own, including Greene on Greens.  If there are any books you own that are not listed (hopefully not many as we will list more than 140,000 unique ISBNs) then you will be able to request that we add them to the Library (and your Bookshelf).

Any other thoughts you have, please post them.  Feedback is very welcome.